UHD Review Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs UHD Review (1 Viewer)

[Todd Erwin]

Walt Disney’s 1937 masterpiece Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs has arrived in a new 4K scan that restores much of the film’s natural film grain.



Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)



Released: 04 Feb 1938
Rated: APPROVED
Runtime: 83 min




Director: William Cottrell, David Hand, Wilfred Jackson, Larry Morey, Perce Pearce, Ben Sharpsteen
Genre: Animation, Family, Fantasy



Cast: Roy Atwell, Stuart Buchanan, Adriana Caselotti, Hall Johnson Choir
Writer(s): Jacob Grimm (fairy tales), Wilhelm Grimm (fairy tales), Ted Sears (story), Richard Creedon (story), Otto Englander (story), Dick Rickard (story), Earl Hurd (story), Merrill De Maris (story), Dorothy Ann Blank (story), Webb Smith (story)



Plot: Snow White, pursued by a jealous queen, hides with the Dwarfs, but the queen learns of this and prepares to feed her a...

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[Robert Crawford]

Yeah, I don't understand why the Blu-ray has the 2.0 track, but not the 4K/UHD. A bad job by Disney.

 

[Todd Erwin]

Yeah, I don't understand why the Blu-ray has the 2.0 track, but not the 4K/UHD. A bad job by Disney.

As I hypothesized in my review, it was likely dropped due to space limitations, but through some clever authoring magic, the studio could have found room for it. I mean, it's a measly 190 megabytes.

 

[Robert Crawford]

As I hypothesized in my review, it was likely dropped due to space limitations, but through some clever authoring magic, the studio could have found room for it. I mean, it's a measly 190 megabytes.

Yeah, I read your review and like you, I think they still could've squeezed it in.

 

[Bryan Tuck]

As I hypothesized in my review, it was likely dropped due to space limitations, but through some clever authoring magic, the studio could have found room for it. I mean, it's a measly 190 megabytes.

What's more, the 2.0 track on the Blu-ray is actually stereo, not mono. So it's not the actual original soundtrack anyway.

 

[roxy1927]

After I believe 5 weeks the Music Hall wanted to hold onto the film it was such an enormous success. This was a very long run for the time when new product always needed theaters and the Hall had close to 6,000 seats for every performance. When I worked there an old man who had started as an usher at the Roxy(his photo is in the book on movie palaces by Ben Hall where there is a photo of all the ushers on the Roxy stage.) and then moved to the Hall told me when Top Hat was held there for a third week it was a big deal. Anyway Disney pulled the film to get it into the nabes.

 

[Robert Harris]

After I believe 5 weeks the Music Hall wanted to hold onto the film it was such an enormous success. This was a very long run for the time when new product always needed theaters and the Hall had close to 6,000 seats for every performance. When I worked there an old man who had started as an usher at the Roxy(his photo is in the book on movie palaces by Ben Hall where there is a photo of all the ushers on the Roxy stage.) and then moved to the Hall told me when Top Hat was held there for a third week it was a big deal. Anyway Disney pulled the film to get it into the nabes.

I believe the number is 5,582.

 

[Mark Mayes]

I was impressed with the reds in particular on the 4K. It looked astonishing in general. I know Disney doesn't care about original soundtracks, but I am constantly dismayed by the German soundtrack which is current!y a 90s version. They used it here. The 38 soundtrack was recorded by famous German-Jewish refugees in Holland who tragically nearly all perished in the camps. Disney has this soundtrack in their archives. It would be a great thing if they had applied it as a tribute to those artists...not to mention it was a superior dub that lends an atmospheric authenticity to the Black Forest origins of the story.

 

[roxy1927]

I believe the number is 5,582.

You're right. I'm never quite sure. Remember the days when the Music Hall said and it was listed in Variety as 6,200?

 

[warnerbro]

What I noticed most is that the 4k has a dark gray look where the HD is bright and sharp. I wonder why the difference? They are supposed to be the same version only one is 4k. Other than that, what we get is the original look of the brush strokes, the watercolor bleeding into the paper -- actually artistry which is breathtaking. We are treated to what appear to be original hand-drawn and hand-painted artistry where lines are uneven and smeared charcoal lines which the previous version had scrubbed.

 

[Robert Crawford]

What I noticed most is that the 4k has a dark gray look where the HD is bright and sharp. I wonder why the difference? They are supposed to be the same version only one is 4k. Other than that, what we get is the original look of the brush strokes, the watercolor bleeding into the paper -- actually artistry which is breathtaking. We are treated to what appear to be original hand-drawn and hand-painted artistry where lines are uneven and smeared charcoal lines which the previous version had scrubbed.

4K with Dolby Vision.

 

[Jeff F.]

Is it just my imagination, or does the animation sometimes get blurry? In some scenes, it looks like some of the characters are out of focus. Was that an animation limitation at the time?

 

[Kyle_D]

Is it just my imagination, or does the animation sometimes get blurry? In some scenes, it looks like some of the characters are out of focus. Was that an animation limitation at the time?

From reading I've done over the last day or so, the focus issues are baked into the negative. Disney had not yet perfected focusing techniques when it made Snow White.

 

[Rob W]

Is it just my imagination, or does the animation sometimes get blurry? In some scenes, it looks like some of the characters are out of focus. Was that an animation limitation at the time?

Not sure which scenes you're referring to , but possibly a result of the depth illusion created by the multiplane camera process, using mulitple cells for certain scenes. Obviosuly, all layers will not be in focus at the same time.

 

[RobertMG]

sorry to put this here should have put under review thread

 

[Todd Erwin]

4K with Dolby Vision.

Only on the 4K digital, disc is HDR10.

 

[Robert Crawford]

Only on the 4K digital, disc is HDR10.

The point being that applied HDR might have something to do with what some people are complaining about. I think both the digital and disc look just fine on my OLEDs.

 

[Todd Erwin]

Is it just my imagination, or does the animation sometimes get blurry? In some scenes, it looks like some of the characters are out of focus. Was that an animation limitation at the time?

Could be a number of things - the camera may have been just slightly out of focus on that shot, perhaps a dupe was used to replace damaged footage, etc.

 

[Todd Erwin]

What I noticed most is that the 4k has a dark gray look where the HD is bright and sharp. I wonder why the difference? They are supposed to be the same version only one is 4k. Other than that, what we get is the original look of the brush strokes, the watercolor bleeding into the paper -- actually artistry which is breathtaking. We are treated to what appear to be original hand-drawn and hand-painted artistry where lines are uneven and smeared charcoal lines which the previous version had scrubbed.

The point being that applied HDR might have something to do with what some people are complaining about. I think both the digital and disc look just fine on my OLEDs.

I noticed the dark greys on my non-HDR 4K display, but not on my HDR-capable OLED (LG C1), which showed deep blacks.

 

[titch]

As Todd pointed out, the beautiful grain has been preserved!

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs • US Ultimate Collector's Edition Ultra HD Blu-ray vs. US Diamond Edition Blu-ray

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