[...] including my three favorites: Up, Ratatouille, and Wall-E, as well as the fan- and kid-favorite Cars and the latest released, Toy [...]

[...] Up on DVD [...]

“The captions were inadvertently left off of the rental DVD. We regret any inconvenience this may have caused. We are working diligently to rectify this situation by shipping the corrected product to our accounts and creating a consumer program to address this matter.”

They’re asking affected customers to contact them, although they’ve yet to say what they will be offering.

“It will be a cold day in South America before I explore a jungle of editions again or purchase another Pixar DVD.”

…and that cold day will be years and years and years before, right?

Carolyn Kormann, in “Retreat of Andean Glaciers Foretells Global Water Woes,” Yale Environment 360, 09 Apr 2009, writes:

“Bolivia accounts for a tiny fraction of global greenhouse gas emissions. But it will soon be paying a disproportionately high price for a major consequence of global warming: the rapid loss of glaciers and a subsequent decline in vital water supplies.

“Earlier this year, the World Bank released yet another in a seemingly endless stream of reports by global institutions and universities chronicling the melting of the world’s cryosphere, or ice zone. This latest report concerned the glaciers in the Andes and revealed the following: Bolivia’s famed Chacaltaya glacier has lost 80 percent of its surface area since 1982, and Peruvian glaciers have lost more than one-fifth of their mass in the past 35 years, reducing by 12 percent the water flow to the country’s coastal region, home to 60 percent of Peru’s population…”

[...] To promote Up coming out on DVD last week, the publicity group sent this set of images [...]

I am not sure why they leave stuff off of Blu-Ray, one of the big pushes is how much space is on a Blu-Ray…between 25-50 gigabytes (compare that to standard DVD’s 4-8). But the Kevin Smith films on Blu-Ray lack extras-which were a big selling point of the original DVD releases(exceptions are his most recent films-Clerks 2 & Zack and Miri).

I’m still hoping someone I know will get Blu-Ray so I can actually check picture quality without being in a sales “isn’t this SO much better?” situation, but no one I know locally has it.

True…but that is not really related to Blu-Ray… that goes back to the earliest days of DVD where they would often include the phrase “and much more!” Plus, for a long time, they would list interactive menus as a special feature. Um? Really studios? I sure would be pissed if my DVD contained non-interactive menus. :)

And it is also worth noting that there were instances where the DVD has more features than the Blu-Ray. I ended up buying the standard def version of the Departed,because it had more documentaries. Knocked Up, Robocop and plenty of others had more on the standard def than on the Blu-Ray. So, it’s not always in the cuter Blu-Ray’s favor. ;)

“Blu-Rays aren’t all that different from DVD to the average consumer (not the videophile), so the argument isn’t a direct match.”

I would actually disagree. I am not a videophile in the sense of someone who sees minute differences as big. I can’t tell a difference between a mp3, CD or record track. It’s music and I like it or I don’t. My parents are in their sixties, they saw a huuuuge difference in the picture of a blu-ray and a DVD. Same for my friends (okay, a few are videophiles). But anytime I have friends over to watch a movie in Blu-Ray? They notice the picture difference right away. So, it is a pretty big leap from DVD to Blu. :)

“As for the ads, my only gripe there is the ones you can’t skip (which are usually for other DVDs, not tech), because that also makes me feel abused as a customer, since they’re trying to force material in front of my eyes while removing my choice to watch it.”

Yeah. I agree that I want the option to jump past ads. I don’t mind the first time, but boy, if I am working my way through a season of a TV series? I do not want to sit through the same batch of trailers everytime I put the disc in. I can totally sympathize there.

As for the bigger issue, no one likes feeling like they’re not a desirable audience, and to me, Disney seems like they’re chasing the Blu-Ray cheerleader really hard while ignoring the perfectly nice girl (DVD owner) who brought them to the dance. But perhaps that image is me going over the top again. :)

More seriously, there’s a difficult fine line between encouraging customers to do something different and forcing them to. Part of where it’s drawn depends on your perspective. As a happy Blu-Ray consumer, you’re going to see things differently from someone who can no longer buy a product they want because Disney no longer fully supports standard DVDs. That’s what makes horse races.

The DVD/VHS comparison isn’t entirely valid, I think, because DVDs were clearly superior products to VHS: sturdier, with greater capacity and clearly obvious audio/video improvement. Blu-Rays aren’t all that different from DVD to the average consumer (not the videophile), so the argument isn’t a direct match. As for the ads, my only gripe there is the ones you can’t skip (which are usually for other DVDs, not tech), because that also makes me feel abused as a customer, since they’re trying to force material in front of my eyes while removing my choice to watch it.

And no, you don’t sound like you’re ranting. I greatly appreciate you presenting a different opinion in such a balanced, rational fashion.

What? When I check the back of DVDs that I bought back when the format was new? They all say the screen format. Some of them have, in giant letters across the front of the box, “Widescreen Edition”.

“Like Johanna, I am insulted by Disney’s ham-fisted attempts to make me spend $200 on a new player so I can have the privilage of spending $10 more on discs.”

A. It’s pretty easy to get new Blu-Ray discs for under $20.
B. Blu-Ray players are costing less than $200 at this point.
C. The studios are trying to encourage people to switch to the presentation that makes their product look the best. And like it or not? That is Blu-Ray. I get that folks don’t like the push behind Blu-Ray, but honestly, I find it far more off-putting that people act like this is some deep conspiracy to force them to do things… I once had a guy tell me widescreen movies were just the movie companies ways of forcing people to buy new TVs. And frankly, I can’t see a difference between that guy nd the regular anti-blu rants I see on the web.

I get that not everyone has a Hi-def TV, so Disney and other studios start releasing Blu-Rays with DVDs at no extra cost, but they are villains for doing so? It’s unfair? I get there is frustration with the lack of special features on standard def copies…but a selling point of DVD was you now got stuff VHS was not offering… VHS could have included behind the scenes documentaries…heck, I remember VHS sets that had a second tape that included the movie with audio commentaries. But most of the time, studios did not add any of the special features to VHS, even thoufh it was possible to include them on the same tape. Was it a scam back then? Why is it different now?

I rather hate ranting like this, because I fear it comes across as I don’t like or respect Johanna, but I do…I really appreciate her thoughts on comics and movies. But I feel like the Blu-ray reaction is…well, a bit over the top. And everytime it comes up people complain about wierd things like “ads promoting Blu-Ray” playing on their DVDs…is that really that big of an affront? It’s like complaining about seeing ads for newer and fancier TVs you do not own while watching your favorite show.

I originally got it via Netflix, but decided to check stores around town to see if they had a retail copy.

The DVD case at Blockbuster has the ‘SDH’ icon indicating the presence of subtitles, and mentions having two extra short films.

The disc in said DVD case? Same one I got through Netflix. So it’s false advertising as well.

That being said, I have no problem with Disney, Wal-Mart, whomever trying to influence the market. That’s their choice. And our choice as consumers to go along, resist, ignore, or whatever we want. Except:

“Disney doesn’t list full contents on the back cover”.

Except we aren’t being allowed to make an informed choice. Just as in the early days of DVD when they wouldn’t say if the disk was Widescreen, Full Screen, or Pan-and-Scan, I have no way of telling what I am getting until after I buy it and play it. (And can’t return it, because everyone assumes you are only returning recorded media because you made your own copy.) And this cuts both ways: Since I don’t know how little I am really getting on the cheap copy in the store, the “full” copy doesn’t seem as impressive, so why pay so much? All they engender is more ill-will, not faith in the coming technology.