101 Dalmatians Diamond Edition released

Feb 09, 2015- Permalink

Long before PETA, there was Cruella De Vil, a fur-obsessed villain with a desire to make a coat out of Dalmatian puppies. You can take the adventure home with you as Disney releases their 101 Dalmatians Diamond Edition Blu-ray on February 10th, 2015.

The video presentation is a 1080p transfer with a 1.33:1 aspect ratio. Purists will note the removal of grain and the use of noise reduction that does lend to some softness and blurring. Full of dark overcast skies and shadows, this is not a showcase for eye-popping colour, but the presentation is faithful to these scenes. There’s good contrast and black levels, and where there is colour, they’re faithfully reproduced.

On the audio side, the disc comes with an English DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1 track as well as a French DTS-HD HR 5.1 track, a Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1 track and the original English Mono track. The disc has English, English SDH, French, and Spanish captions. Obviously the 1961 release didn’t have a 7.1 surround track, but the audio team has done a nice job of adding some immersive and LFE elements without going to crazy. Dialogue is clean and intelligible.

The disc comes with a nice bunch of extras. Lucky Dogs examines the cost-cutting Xerox technology that trimmed the budget and saved the film. Dalmatians 101 is a small trivia segment hosted by Cameron Boyce. We get the animated short The Further Adventures of Thunderbolt as well as a complete episode of The Wonderful World of Disney called The Best Doggoned Dog in the World. We also get some “making of” segments, trailers, TV and radio spots, and even a music video by Selena Gomez.

If you’re building a library of Disney animation classics, then the Diamond Edition of 101 Dalmatians belongs in your collection.