Snow White to hit Blu-ray SEVEN WEEKS before the DVD (1 Viewer)

Wow. Disney is really serious about the advance release this time. This beats the two-day advance window they used with "Bolt" and "Bedtime Stories" by a mile.


Link: 'Snow White' headed to Blu-ray

What are the chances this is a late April Fool's joke? I can see a couple days, maybe a week...but nearly 2 months?

If Disney is trying to force BD, I guess this is one way to do it. Make sure the standalone DVD version is nowhere to be seen and when it does come out, no one is going to care.

I think you can also expect to see some huge discounts on stand-alone players about this time. The hardware manufacturers would be nuts to allow this extended exclusivity window slip past (where DVD owners eager to pick up the disc are "stuck" with a shiny new BD just waiting to be played) without taking advantage of it somehow.

Hopefully this signals that Hollywood intends to blow the doors off Blu-ray this holiday season. Very encouraging news.

I love this move and I hope other studios will follow, especially for highly anticipated catalogs. Disney has been my favorite BD studio for some time now and this just reaffirms that opinion.

A very smart movie, I think. Most kids will see it, and want it immediately. So, parents buy the blu-ray. It's cheaper than buying the dvd first, and later the bd anyway.

A very smart move.

What is being overlooked here is that there is no waiting for the SD. It's included in the BD release. If DVD owners want to the film badly enough without waiting for the SD-only release, they'll buy the more expensive BD version. This won't cause any real boost to hardware sales.

The caveat here is that SD buyers of this set will artificially inflate the BD sales numbers. That's the smart move by Disney. The kiddies will get to watch the SD version anyway.

Disney is doing a great job of advancing the format
a seven week exclusive window on the format is HUGE

Seven weeks, seven dwarfs...

I don’t know that it’s fair to conclude that Disney is trying to jump start Blu-ray sales by waiting seven weeks for the DVD version. If this had never been released on DVD, I might agree. However, a very nice DVD release of this does exist. Pretty much everyone who thought this was a must own already has it. And, even though it’s out of print, it’s not hard to find in case someone doesn't already own it.

This is true; my hope is that dads will have that BR disc in their home and get curious about how much better it will look...if they'd only just...shell out $200 for a good BR player...

Smart move. Now we're talking. Hopefully a hint of things to come permanently.

This is a terrific and intelligent move from Disney.

There's no reason to even issue another DVD of Snow White outside of just reissuing the 2001 edition.

I cannot believe it's been almost 8 years since the last SD-DVD release of Snow White. It seems like I just bought it not that long ago.

I LOVE Disney So Much For Doing This!

Now other studios NEED to Follow AND they should push for 3months or even 6 Months!?!?! (Especially since Disney has the COMBO PACKS)

Yes, yes, yes, yes! If they did this with new releases, say UP only comes out at Christmas on Blu, and the DVD hits stores in late January, that would be awesome!

The only problem I have with Disney is the price hike of the MSRP of this release from $35.99 like Pinocchio to $39.99. In short, this title will probably cost us $27.99 which is $3 higher than Pinocchio. Maybe there will be a deal out there that knocks that down a bit.




Crawdaddy

What remains to be seen is the effect this schizo selling method has on the 90% of non BD buyers that go to stores like Walmart and expect to buy the less expensive SD DVD disc and are informed by retailers that the only option available for the next 2 months is to buy the more expensive BD disc. I leave it to the reader to decide the more likely outcome; the customer buying a HDTV and/or BD player OR the customer getting irate. I think the latter is more likely.

What about the retailers themselves? When Disney announced earlier release dates for BD discs of "Bolt" and "Bedtime Stories" retailers led by Walmart, not wanting to deal with irate customers, decided on their own to sell the SD DVD discs the same day as the BD version. They're not going to be happy put in this position of attempting to force BD adoption down the throats of the majority of their SD DVD customers. For these reasons, I believe this new sales approach is a very bad idea. The studios should continue to release both BD and SD DVD discs at the same time and let the customer decide which disc they want to buy.

What makes you think Disney hasn't talked with the major retailers before annoucing this release? Knowing the close relationship between the studios and retailers, I would be surprised if that didn't happen.

That is an excellent point, Robert. That price point will certainly keep me from upgrading the SD-DVD in my collection.