The hunt for the pre-2010 HDTV rips of Toy Story (1995)

While I was waiting for Trist to complete his 4K 35mm preservation of Toy Story, I decided to do something that I thought could be an alternative to anyone who preferred to see the digitally sourced version of the original theatrical version of the film. Of course, I already have a list of stuff I need for this proposed preservation:

• Toy Story (BD) (main source)
• Toy Story (3D BD) (for restored theatrical shots that were glitched in the 2D and post-2000 masters)
• Geri’s Game (Any BD I have that has this short for the Pixar logo)

But the one thing that is missing is the Disney logo. And since many TV broadcasts now usually tend to use the post-2010 versions, and the torrents for the 1080p or 720p HDTV broadcasts of the film seem to be dead, making it impossible. UNLESS someone still had those broadcasts on their hard drives.

According to SpaceBlackKnight on FanRestore.com. He stated:

“There were reportedly 4 pre-2009 HDTV copies (with the original WDP logos head and tale) floating around at some point. One was capped from Disney Cinemagic Japan and in 1080i 29.97 (watermark bug on bottom right, dubbed and with subtitle text translations, incomplete ending credits). The second was a 720p rip from ABC, but time compressed with fade ins/outs and warp sped preview squeezed ending credits. 3rd was from Disney Cinemagic France in 720p but French dubbed and localized titles. The 4th and the most elusive was a VOD capture from Comcast/CableVision being was the most complete with 5.1 audio and no watermark. Sadly these seem to be gone now as the places with them shut down or replaced them with BD rips.”

Alongside that, there were torrents like “Toy.Story.1995.720p.HDTV.x264-CtrlHD” and “des-Toy.Story.1995.HDTV.720p.mkv”, which after trying to download them, seem to be dead. Though from what I recall, the first torrent was first released back in 2008, according to OpenSubtitles iirc, so we could almost hit the jackpot.

So basically, this post was for anyone on this site who still had one of those 6 reported rips on their old hard drives to PM me so I can use them for the digitally sourced theatrical version I might do at some point, as well as letting other people see it.

Also, anyone who still recorded Toy Story directly before 2010 or on any HD channel that still uses the pre-2010 HD master is welcome to PM me.

UPDATE (06/17/25): Just made myself a list of sources based on its status available.

• Disney Cinemagic Japan (LOST)
• ABC (FOUND) (Thanks to stretch009 and ValenStudios for giving me access.)
• Disney Cinemagic France (LOST)
• Comcast/CableVision (LOST)

I take it you haven’t discovered Usenet? I just downloaded “Toy.Story.1995.720p.HDTV.x264-CtrlHD” from Usenet a few minutes ago.

Go to nzbking. Search:Toy.Story.1995.720p.HDTV.x264-CtrlHD. Sort order: Size.

stretch009 said:

I take it you haven’t discovered Usenet? I just downloaded “Toy.Story.1995.720p.HDTV.x264-CtrlHD” from Usenet a few minutes ago.

Go to nzbking. Search:Toy.Story.1995.720p.HDTV.x264-CtrlHD. Sort order: Size.

Okay, I did what you just did, then used NZBGet to download, but then get errors 10060 and 10053, regardless of browsers. My guess was that either my ISP is blocking access to those Usenet NNTP servers, or it could be my first time using Usenet. Would you PM me a link instead?

Okay, now that I got the ABC HDTV source. I should point out what was on it.

Here are the list of what I was able to spot, some were pointed out by stretch009.

• The Disney logo has been replaced with the “This film has been modified from its original version.” screen.
• Of course, there was the TV-G rating as well. It only appears at the beginning and after the fourth ad break.
• The ABC watermark doesn’t show up until after the director credit.
• From what I looked, it seems the DVD master was used, which is weird since the UMD Video master seems to be taken from a raw 2K master since the colour grading (or space) looks very identical to the Blu-ray release.
• The 5.1 audio in this rip is the original 1995 theatrical mix. I found it weirder since I thought Disney would update the master to use the 2005 remix as this rip was from 2008. And speaking of audio, it seems to be more heavily compressed than the DVD.
• There were spots for the commercial breaks, where there would be fade in and outs. Here’s the list of those scenarios
  • 08:52-08:57
  • 19:26-19:30 (in the middle of that, it show a brief second of what I assume was either a bumper or promo for what looks to be for The Wonderful World of Disney, especially since it shows a flying star with pixie dust and an announcer saying “The w–” before the cut happens. I did check on Wikipedia to see if it was a WWoD presentation, though the last broadcast of this film was in June 3, 2006, not 2008, and that was before they showed Toy Story 3 in 2014.)
  • 29:03-29:06
  • 35:05-35:10 (Hey, it cuts just like how reel 2 ends and reel 3 begins! Oh, and it has the flying star with pixie dust and an announcer saying “The w–” again.)
  • 48:34-48:38 (If you have the UK LaserDisc, that cut is exactly like how side A ends and side B begins. Oh, and it has the flying star with pixie dust and an announcer saying “The w–” again.)
  • 56:30-56:34 (Just like how the Deluxe CAV LaserDisc ends side 2 and begins side 3)
  • 1:06:50-1:06:55 (Thanks to the glitching, the first part of Woody’s line “Nice going–” was cut out.)
• The video stream seems to be very glitchy on some parts, looking like they cutted out the ad breaks using LosslessCut or a hexeditor, though since MediaInfo hasn’t detected any corruptions, I guess CtrlHD just has a faulty hard drive from their DVR, or maybe their re-encoding is terrible.
• There was an audio cut at 18:23, I assume anyone who processed the audio just used the unwanted final seconds of the raw reel 1 audio before the 2-pop, since this was obviously a point when reel 2 literally begins when Buzz is about to show off his “flying” skills. (If you listened to the entire reel of the audio from the Cinema DTS discs, you’ll know what I mean, which I presumed was an SMPTE requirement for 35mm audio).
• According to 20:13, this rip was from a WFTS-DT Tampa Bay ABC 28 broadcast. So we know where those pirates come from. 😈)
• Shortly after the third cut from the ad break, there was alot of frame stuttering. I can tell it was a poor re-encoding from 1080i 29.97 to 720p 23.97. It was almost fixed after the fourth cut (keep an eye for those stuttering 40 minutes in), until it might be fixed in the fifth cut, then being broken again in the sixth cut.
• Woody’s line “Buzz, I can’t do this without you.” is cut out thanks to the stupid glitching. Now Woody says “Buzz–you–I need your help.”
• The audio seems to start having cuts starting at 1:11:57
• The credits were shown in split screen, bizarrely using ABC’s 1998-2002 branding, despite being a broadcast from 2008, while it shows promos of Alias and United We Stand on the right.

Overall, I think this rip is terrible. I understand this was done to let people watch the film in HD, but the quality makes the film look as close and a bit worse than the 2005 DVD, especially with the constant glitches. Though then again, I don’t think it was that time compressed, since the only things I can think of when it comes to time compression was cutting scenes out or speeding up the movie, as is the case with the 1982 CLV single disc release of Star Wars. Though it’s still fun to preserve it, though.