A Few Words About A few words about... Mary Poppins (1 Viewer)

[Bob_S.]

Please don't tell me where I can shop and where I can't. If you don't like Walmart, then don't shop there. That's your choice. I have saved alot of money shopping there. I don't usually buy my dvd's there but I have bought many cd's there(usually $13.88) among other things. Sure beats paying 19-20 bucks for the same cd at Sam Goody.

 

[Al (alweho)]

You can save even more money by carefully watching the CD sales at both Best Buy and Circut City - I usually never pay more than $9.99 at either, and sometimes even a dollar or so less than that.

 

[dpippel]

You can do even better buying used at places like The Wherehouse, Secondspin.com Django's, Half.com etc. There are alternatives to big-box stores and Wal-Mart, et. al.

By the way, can't wait for the new Mary Poppins!

 

[Keith Paynter]

Thanks for the suggestion Mr. Harris. That's a bit out of my wallet's league, however I did just pick up a 30" Panasonic Tau HDTV series for about $1300, no disrespect to the fabulous Sony picture (I was looking for a couple of weeks, matching size vs. budget).

I watch more movies than TV programming these days ([flame retardant suit]like there's anything good to watch on the tube these days...[/flame retardant suit]). Anyway, bring on the disc, and thanks for your valuable opinion!

 

[Ernest Rister]

"Like there's anything good to watch on the tube these days..."

What, you've got a problem with Sealab 2021?

By the way, a Best Buy finally opened in my small town (sniff! look how big my little hometown is getting!) and it has an oustanding selection of Disney titles. Almost all of the recent live-action roll-out titles can be found there.

On the downside, right across the street is a Wal-Mart. If they carry the same disc, it is usually selling for about $2 - $4 less than Best Buy.

On the upside, about ten miles down the road is Fry's electronics, which sells the same discs as Best Buy for the same price as Wal-Mart, which means I don't have to go into a Wal-Mart or a Best Buy.

Long story short - I usually don't shop at either Best Buy or Wal Mart, unless I'm in a hurry.

 

[Keith Paynter]

TV's gone downhill since they cancelled Hulk Hogan's Rock 'n' Wrestling

 

[DaViD Boulet]

Hope to have my review up by this evening.

While in many ways I concur with RAH's impressions (especially regarding the "beauty" of the film now that that matte-lines have been cleaned and so much print damage removed), There *are* a few causes for concern that keep me from getting too excited. One of which is the 1.66:1 framing...and on a display with minimal overscan, the missing picture information on the left/right is not negligible and actually changes the sense of the image composition slightly...it feels wrong (and a little cramped) to me and both the archive laser and the former DVD have more information on *both* sides of the image in their 1.85:1 presentation. And all 3 versions have the SAME vertical information...the matte was not opened up vertically to expand to 1.66:1 as Disney does with their animation like Mulan.

At this point, I don't trust the video-mastering technicians at Disney to be acting out of faithfulness to a sense of history...my guess is that they're just so used to doing 16x9 1.66:1 transfers with all their animation that they just did the same thing to Poppins and called it "original aspect ratio" on the packaging.

I'll post a link to RAH's thread and the other poppins thread when my review is posted...

-dave

 

[Ryan Wong]

Almost... practically perfect in everyway.

 

[DaViD Boulet]

MP review posted:

http://www.hometheaterforum.com/htfo...postid=2483748

-dave