Doctor M

Disney first started toying with digital ink and paint in The Little Mermaid, and the Rescuers Down Under was the first fully digital film (which is ironic because the only HD release appears to be struck from film).

At first the data on the CAPS had to be transferred to film and then home video formats.  Later, it became possible for Disney to use an all digital pipeline from the CAPS computer to DVD.

Off the top of my head the original Gold Edition of Pocahontas was struck from film and had heavy grain as a result.  The 10th Anniversary disc was taken right from the CAPS computer and is a definite upgrade.  It should also be noted that the colors are reportedly more accurate on the 10th Anniversary.

The conversion of these films for IMAX was a chore because they wanted to 'improve' the detail in the animation for the larger projection format.  This involved touching things up and adding new detail.  Animators were involved not just technicians making the transfer.

I only pretend to have a good understanding of this, but last I heard Disney only has one CAPS workstation still in service.  I would hope that isn't their only way to get the data for new transfers, but it is apparent that they keeps some sort of digital master.

I dunno, that seems like a fine distinction.

Since CAPS films aren't animated with the slight differences in shading for cells on different layers, what exactly distinguishes a 'theatrically accurate' version of a CAPS film?

By the mid 90's film stock was pretty mature.  Unlikely Technicolor in its infancy that required answer prints, the difference between what the CAPS computer generated and the final film print should not have been that different.

There may have been some compensation for the process, but I wouldn't expect it to be much.  (Can anyone speak with authority on this?)

All that's left then is film grain, and frankly that's just an artifact when you consider that Disney can probably play those films right on a computer screen from a CAPS computer.

I'm a big fan of film grain and feel Disney's scrubbing has done a terrible disservice to their films, but once you're talking digital sources, the grain is an indication of degradation not fidelity.

I'm probably alone on this one.

I can find little info on 'Alice' for Brazil R4 (mostly just the Australian R4 which are apparently similar to the R1 releases).  I don't know enough Spanish and zero Portuguese to go through sites that might have reviews.

Unfortunately, Disney seems to be fairly uniform in their releases.  Blu-rays released in Europe are frequently the same as the U.S. releases that come several years later and Australian discs that frequently comes after that.

As far as Lion King, no LDrip appear to be floating around.  And while Aladdin has been plus-ed with detail for IMAX, Lion King has actual character design changes.

I love Cinderella and many other in-need-of-preservation-classics much more than Lion King, but the extent of the alterations puts it up there with Beauty and the Beast as one the most in need of preservation.

Aladdin's changes are respectful by comparison (but still unwarranted).

Disney still has unaltered/unrestored film scans somewhere of their oldest films that may yet get a proper restoration.  I fear the newer films that were modified for IMAX have had their digital data altered and might not be able to be restored to their theatrical version.

This was put up on FanEdit.info.  Unfortunately they are now gone.  I'll have to see if I can find the links elsewhere.

I wouldn't think a PAL VHS would be worthwhile.  There are better alternatives and there is no telling if it has blended fields or PAL speedup.

It also appears to have burned in Japanese subtitles.

I didn't see mentioned that the Disney's Kiki dub was revised in 2010.  If you were looking to collect all tracks, you'd need the '98 and '10 releases.

Now, the English presentation on this 2010 DVD differs from the original 1998 one that was found on the 2003 DVD. The new DVD retains the movie's previously dropped original Japanese title logo screen. Here, it replaces the opening English cast voice credits screen. The most noticeable difference in the soundtracks is that the English title and closing credits songs have been edited back to the Japanese song selections performed by Yumi Arai. Before this, the English cut had provided "Soaring" and "I'm Gonna Fly" as performed by Sydney Forest, the end credits singer for the short-lived WB high school drama "Popular."

Another change involves something of a spoiler (skip to the next paragraph, if you wish), for it deals with a short but significant moment from the film's final minutes. Previously in the English dub, following the climax, Jiji asks Kiki if she can hear him talk (since we can once again, our answer is an implied yes). This was added for the English cut, restoring order as Miyazaki apparently never intended (but must have approved). The line is now gone, sadly implying that Kiki has grown out of being able to hear her cat talk.

Upon doing a synched-up comparison, I noticed that the edits go far beyond that one line of dialogue. The 2010 DVD drops a considerable amount of character dubbing. Most affected is Jiji, for whom Hartman had provided a number of witty ad-libs. Here, unless a character is explicitly shown to be speaking, they're silent. The silence goes even further in few scenes that had score apparently added for the English dub; these now appear without music. Other noticeable losses include Kiki and Jiji's in-flight and in-rain banter (particularly the latter, upon arriving in their new town), some of Tombo's lines, and a radio report. Furthermore, some minor changes occur in the credited titles of certain filmmakers.

Have there been any updates on Fantasia preservation projects?  I've seen no news in awhile.

woodsyallen said:

poppins is now on bluray. hows that hold up?

 From what I can tell, not so bad.  It's 1.66:1 again, which is still questionable.

There is grain fortunately.  I've only seen one screenshot from an animated scene and I wasn't completely impressed, but it seems to be an improvement over the DVD.

http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Mary-Poppins-Blu-ray/7714/#Review

Laserschwert said:

There is a 1080p version of "The Black Cauldron" available at the VOD site vudu.com

A Blu-ray conversion of this is floating around Usenet, and image detail is VERY good. With a higher bitrate this would easily be good enough for an official Blu-ray release.

 I suspect if Black Cauldron ever hit BD it would be treated similar to Rescuers Down Under.

That is to say they would assume a restoration would not recover its costs so they'd just strike it from the best version available without cleaning up.

Which of course means it would look better than their other top releases.

MattMahdi said:

AntcuFaalb said:

The Sword in the Stone (1963)

 Love to see that unaltered.

 The 45th Anniversary DVD is still quite good.  The sparse nature of the animation in this film doesn't allow for a huge benefit to HD.

My recommended HD version of Sword in the Stone is still the delogoed 720p HDTV DD5.1 x264-Don version.  It has the 5.1 audio track, but it's not an offensive mix by any stretch.

There were a half dozen posts on TehParadox although none seem to have good links anymore.  You could probably ask for some fresh links, google around, or try to get an account at HDBits.

@nirbateman - Where did you get a BD of the BatB WiP?  I thought that didn't exist.

A sort of rule of thumb, if you are looking for HD versions, anything dating from the Little Mermaid and newer, the official versions are the best you'll find (for what that's worth), and anything older you'd want to look for HDTV versions on the newsgroups or torrents sites.

HDTV broadcasts typically aren't "restored" which is where Disney has been going wrong.
That said, I haven't come across an old iTunes or HDTV rip of Jungle Book.

You could try BD-Rebuilder.  If it's compliant it can build a BD, if it isn't it can re-encode.

Taolar said:

Oldfan said:

Was this DVD ever uploaded to usenet?

 I found a copy of the two DVDs, and will be uploading to piratebay soon.

 (Mildly contained glee.)

There is no official U.S. release of Aladdin on BD.  I have seen screenshots of a Euro release and it looks pretty much identical to the Platinum Edition (except of course HD and with AR changes (some more cropping in some places, less in others)).

http://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.php?s=576da8101a32b32c59a4fa0a9001358f&p=7264327&postcount=197

Coming from CAPS they probably just redumped the IMAX digital image to BD.  I really don't expect there to be much difference.  I doubt we'll see a return to the theatrical version, and unless they decide to go 3D I don't think we'll see any additional changes.

The Jungle Book diamond edition has a February 11 release date.  I'll research that when the reviews come out.  Being xerography era, I don't expect it to look very good, but you never know.

Some small updates to the list.

Acceptable Alternative Cinderella was slightly reworded to make clear that the ink lines are damaged in the newest releases.  I've completely dismissed other releases for their very existence.  Cinderella get a pass in this case only because there are no other digital versions available.  (A bit like Snow White.)

The Great Mouse Detective has further explanation why the newest release ISN'T an acceptable alternative for the very same reason (although possibly worse in this case because xerography produced animations seem to take more damage from the process).  Do you guys think the slightly corrected AR and original title card are a reasonable trade off to this?

Pocahontas now has an explanation regarding the reinstatement of "If I Never Knew You".  I don't consider it a shoe horned in addition like "Human Again" or "Morning Report", but a reinserted deleted scene.  I recommend watching the film with it and since the DVD has seamless branching there is no reason not to own that version unless you know you'll never want to watch it.

I disagree.  Many of the xerography animated films end up with bits cut off that don't look like they should have been when theatrically matted.

That could be just another example of Disney being slap dash in their home video releases, or the animators figured they had the whole page and used it.

FYI, the HDTV version floating around is less compressed looking than the iTunes version.

timdiggerm said:

Reconstructed workprint is the better title.

Now, I've never actually seen The Dark Crystal (it's on my to-watch list), so I only got 20 minutes into this but do the DVD extras include:

• All the skeksis scenes without English-dialogue?
• Difficult to see, fuzzy, black-and-white bits?
• Warbly, VHS audio at times?

cause this does.

 It's been a while since I've sat through the extras, but it does have at least some of that.  IIRC the extras are pretty expansive.

I'll give this a look, but timdiggerm, if you've never seen the Dark Crystal, I would definitely say watch the theatrical version first.

The official home video releases contains a lot of deleted and pre-final audio scenes.

I'm not saying he just cut that all together, but if someone did, it might pass for a workprint.

I haven't watched and compared this to the DVD bonus features so I can't be sure.  It's also the reason I haven't bothered to watch it yet.

I have no reason to say it isn't legit, but it is not uncommon for fan editors to take liberties in their enthusiasm to recreate a better version than before.

Besides, he insists on calling it a Director's cut, but there is no evidence that Henson and Oz would have edited the original version let alone the version on YouTube.  He would have been more accurate in calling it a reconstructed workprint.

To be clear, that's not really the work print.  Details seem sketchy, but the version on YouTube is a reconstruction using mostly digital media sources.

No knowing how accurate it really is.

I was pondering updating the Pocahontas recommendation.

Although the 'Special Edition' has an added song (via seamless branching), unlike previous instances of DVD added songs, this appears to actually be a true deleted scene removed late from the film.

Having now seen it in the movie, I thought it really was an improvement.  Technically not theatrical but should it be recommended over the Blu-ray?

Not exactly how this forum works, Garrik.

Since these films were animated at 1.66:1 they are probably just as cropped at 4x3 as they are to arrive at 1.77:1 on BD.  They just cropping from a different direction.

While I can't speak from haven't actually compared them, I would think that the Lion King's AC3 track is probably a blunt copy of the original theatrical mix.

Laserdiscs were a limited market enthusiast medium.  Studios rarely saw a need to spend the time remixing a track when the home theater systems they would play on could handle them fine.

The stereo track is probably just a downmix meant to handle TV speakers better.

Zuh?  What possible...  I mean, huh?

Maybe Leonard Maltin can start releasing tins of untouched Disney films as a series for collectors.

penguinofgreatness said:

Doctor M said:

Mickey's Christmas Carol wasn't listed because it wasn't a theatrical release.

It actually was.

Fair point but it's not a feature film.

That said, people still deserve to know what the best version is.

DVDizzy.com:

It's possible to have been exposed to this short on no fewer than four DVDs: first, edited into the 2001 direct-to-video Mickey's Magical Christmas: Snowed In at the House of Mouse, then in a more complete form on Disc 2 of the Walt Disney Treasures' 2004 tin Mickey Mouse in Living Color, Volume Two, and again in a comparable pair of holiday short compilations, 2005's Classic Holiday Stories (Volume 9 in the Classic Cartoon Favorites line) and 2009's self-titled entry as the seventh and final volume in the Walt Disney Animation Collection: Classic Short Films series. (If you'd like, feel free to also count the 2009 repackaging of Mickey's Magical Christmas.)

Since Disney has been doing the worst damage cleaning up their films for Blu-ray, I suspect any of the older releases should be good.

The WD Treasures is 1.66:1, the later DVDs are 1.33:1 open matte. (why is this font small?)

Mickey's Christmas Carol wasn't listed because it wasn't a theatrical release.

I have no idea what the best answer is for that one.