A Few Words About A few words about...™ Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs -- in Blu-ray (1 Viewer)

[Adam Gregorich]

Monsters vs Aliens is worth it. It's a pretty good movie. It's not up to Pixar standards, but then what is? We saw this in the theatre in 3-D. This reminds me, I haven't ordered this BD yet. Yeah, it'd be nice if it was a BD/DVD combo package. With this way I'll only get the BD and do without the DVD version.

Buy the BD of MvA at Target. They have an exclusive DVD/BD set. I think I paid $24.99 for it last week. These retailer exclusives are driving me nuts...

 

[Bill Buklis]

Buy the BD of MvA at Target. They have an exclusive DVD/BD set. I think I paid $24.99 for it last week. These retailer exclusives are driving me nuts...

Thanks. I will have to check it out. I quite agree. These exclusives are crazy, but I do understand them from a marketing perspective. Retailers have to compete with Amazon somehow.

 

[benbess]

Bill B: Usually you'd be exactly correct. In this case, however, to get the free shipping I got Star Trek season 2 at 59.99--another loss leader marked down from 129. But, over my lifetime I've ordered a fair number of things from them at small discounts (10-20%) and so they've made some good profits on me overall...Which is good, I want to keep them in business...

 

[Stephen_J_H]

Originally Posted by Johnny Angell



This makes me wonder what is the source for this restoration? It is a restoration isn't it? If it's the original cells, then they'd have to run them through the multi-plane again, wouldn't they? If film, how did they get around the softness of lack of definition in Technicolor?

I'll be picking up my copy tomorrow.

The source of the restoration is the OCN or preservation elements made from it (please correct me if I'm wrong, RAH), which was a frame sequential negative, with each frame of animation being shot three times: once each for the red, green and blue elements of the Technicolor image. In 1937,release prints would have been made by taking the OCN and generating three internegative strips, which would be used to create printing matrices for the dye imbibation process (I'm skipping steps to make this simple). These would then be used to print the release prints, and softness would result from misregistration of the colour layers. What Disney has done here is to go back to the FS elements and digitally recombine the colour channels, then have Lowry do dustbusting and grain reduction for the Blu-Ray. As such, it's a whole lot sharper than what Technicolor was capable of producing in 1937. It won't be as astounding as Sleeping Beauty was, but it will still be a revelation.

 

[Robert Harris]

Originally Posted by Stephen_J_H




The source of the restoration is the OCN or preservation elements made from it (please correct me if I'm wrong, RAH), which was a frame sequential negative, with each frame of animation being shot three times: once each for the red, green and blue elements of the Technicolor image. In 1937,release prints would have been made by taking the OCN and generating three internegative strips, which would be used to create printing matrices for the dye imbibation process (I'm skipping steps to make this simple). These would then be used to print the release prints, and softness would result from misregistration of the colour layers. What Disney has done here is to go back to the FS elements and digitally recombine the colour channels, then have Lowry do dustbusting and grain reduction for the Blu-Ray. As such, it's a whole lot sharper than what Technicolor was capable of producing in 1937. It won't be as astounding as Sleeping Beauty was, but it will still be a revelation.

The Technicolor printing matrices were exposed directly from the SE negative. Softness was not a function of the imbibition process, but rather a mixture of the quality of the optical glass available at the time, the mordant, and the metal dyes. This "softness" was not anything negative. It is precisely what gave Technicolor its beautiful velvety look.

 

[Paul Hillenbrand]

I'd like to know why the opening title and beginning credit sequence of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is less than the full 4:3 frame image?

Paul

 

The same was done on The Wizard of Oz. It is called windowboxing and it preserves the image from overscan...and is also almost totally useless on a Blu-Ray, when the majority of people with HD have sets with little to no overscan.

 

[Paul Hillenbrand]

Originally Posted by Eric Scott Richard

Paul

 

[MatthewA]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Paul Hillenbrand ">[/url]

Wonder who at what meeting decided to implement this for posterity's sake?

 

[Douglas Monce]

Originally Posted by Eric Scott Richard

The same was done on The Wizard of Oz. It is called windowboxing and it preserves the image from overscan...and is also almost totally useless on a Blu-Ray, when the majority of people with HD have sets with little to no overscan.

Strangly a fair number of HDTVs still overscan. They shouldn't, but they do and that is the reality of the situation. In addition the final HD masters were also used to create the DVDs. The vast majority of people watching those are watching them on TVs that overscan.

Doug

 

Matthew, from what I understand, the RKO credits have been restored to the film proper. But there is a lot of material missing. The deleted animation is the most egregious to the consumer.

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

Quote: Originally Posted by Adam Gregorich /forum/thread/293339/a-few-words-about-snow-white-and-the-seven-dwarfs-in-blu-ray/60#post_3614630

The same was done on The Wizard of Oz. It is called windowboxing and it preserves the image from overscan...and is also almost totally useless on a Blu-Ray, when the majority of people with HD have sets with little to no overscan.
In this particular case, are you sure it's not an artistic effect intended to show a transition from the smaller "real" world of reading the book to the fantasy world of immersing into the actual story?

I haven't seen either BD yet, so I don't really know. But that's what it sounds like based on Paul's description above.

_Man_

 

No, it's not...to put it simple!

 

[Mike Frezon]

Originally Posted by Mike Frezon

Is that what you have to do, Travis? E-mail them to correct the pre-order price? I haven't been in this situation before.

Originally Posted by Mike Frezon

Question #2.

The $5 drop (from when I ordered @ $24.99) means my total of the order drops to $24.98--effectively screwing up my Free Super Saver Shipping. What do I do then?

Just wanted to report that amazon contacted me on their own to credit my $5. They also kept the Free Shipping intact despite the fact that the lower price dropped my order total below their standard.

 

[Paul Penna]

Now having watched the entire film (JVC DLA-HD350 projector, filling a 120" 4x3 screen), I first want to say that I'm in full agreement with Robert Harris's assessment of the quality of the Blu-Ray image, so my comments are about the the way in which that quality affected my reaction to the cinematic experience of the film. I've seen it countless times over the past 50 years, both theatrically and in just about every video incarnation. Despite my familiarity with the film itself and, particularly on video, an awareness of the technical aspects of its presentation, it's never failed to involve me in the story, its characters and its narrative flow. The Blu-Ray, though, brought something new to my experience, something I wasn't quite prepared for. I won't go so far as to say it was disturbing, but I did find that it had a tendency to take me out of the film in a way that nothing had before. The best way I can describe it is that the very clarity with which the transfer rendered the cels often made me feel like I was perusing a gallery of animation art rather than watching living, moving images - I didn't get this feeling from the backgrounds or the various multiplane paintings, just the cels, and those primarily in more static or slowly-moving actions. Their very crispness heightened the awareness that the cels were indeed discrete shapes inhabiting their own dimension, rather than being objects moving about in the overall space of the scene. Undoubtedly, this spatial disconnect is something that the softness of the original Technicolor prints (and for that matter, standard-definition video) would have helped mask. So on the one hand we have a wonderful presentation of artistry and technique of the Disney studio in the late 1930s, one which I'm thrilled to have on those terms, make no doubt about that, but on the other, one which introduces a new element that, at least for me in this initial viewing, tended to distract me from the full involvement in the film itself. Maybe that will change over subsequent viewings - or maybe I'll try de-focusing the projector lens! Anyway, it's an interesting new wrinkle in how we're able to perceive older films with new technology. On a separate note, I continue to be annoyed by Blu-Ray programming gee-gaws; for example, the navigation graphic that lingers over the bottom of the image for several seconds after releasing from pause. What purpose that serves, I don't know.

 

[Brandon Conway]

Re: Windowboxing of the credits. The reason this still occurs on the credits is probably for some legal "no name can be covered by potential overscan" reasoning.

 

[mgdvd0]

i was credited an additional $ 5 since they lowered the price even more on day of realize

You saved $5.00 with Amazon.com's Pre-order Price Guarantee!The price of the item(s) decreased after you ordered them, and we gave you the lowest price.The following title(s) decreased in price:Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (Two-Disc Blu-ray/DVD Combo + BD Live w/ Blu-ray packaging) [Blu-ray] Price on order date: $24.99 Price charged at shipping: $14.99 Lowest price before release date: $ 9.99 Amount to be refunded: $5.00 Quantity: 1 Total Savings: $5.00 You will receive an additional e-mail when this refund is processed.
Greetings from Amazon.com.We're writing to let you know we processed your refund of $5.00 for your Order 105-6482764-3268264.This refund is for the following item(s): Item: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (Two-Disc Blu-ray/DVD Combo + BD Live w/ Blu-ray packaging) [Blu-ray] Quantity: 1 ASIN: B001V9LPWQ Reason for refund: Pre-order price protection Here's a the breakdown of your refund for this item: Item Refund: $5.00

 

I saw the Collector's Edition at Best Buy today. Wow! What a beauty. So classy.

 

[Dave Moritz]

I just picked up this Disney classic today and while one can see how dated the graphics are it is still a very good transfer. The only question I have is, are all the old classic from Disney in 4:3 ratio? I have not been reading up on the newer releases on Bluray like I should have been so that is my fault. Like I was saying above this appears to be a very good transfer but I was a little disappointed that it is pan & scan and not wide-screen. But because this is an older animated title that will not get alot of viewings on my h/t I can over look that its not widescreen. But I hate the fact that Wizard Of Oz was not in widescreen and that I have to scale it with the tv to get ride of the black bars on the sides of the picture. The sound on Snow White is very good for its age and so is the video transfer. Where these classic titles not done in widescreen ratios back in the day? Or was this done on purpose? Would love to hear from someone here that knows about the older film titles, thanks.

 

[cafink]

Movies were typically shot in the 4:3 ratio until the mid-1950s. Snow White and The Wizard of Oz are both older than that, and are presented on Blu-ray in their original aspect ratio.