Disney's exit from home video turns its back on the industry it helped build

Disney deciding to back out of the home video market is amazing given how they helped build it in the first place! Here's a short history of Disney making physical media such a big deal

BEAUTY AND THE BEAST - The classic fairy tale turned motion picture, "Beauty and the Beast" has the magical combination of humor, music, and romance that creates a timeless story that can be appreciated by generation after generation. A beautiful and spirited teenage girl named Belle discovers that you can't judge a book by its cover when she meets an enchanted prince desperately trapped in the body of a beast, in Walt Disney Pictures' magical animated musical, "Beauty and the Beast" airing /

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DVD was a bold step forward

Unlike VHS, Disney leaped into DVD as soon as it was created with George of the Jungle the first release in 1997. Like other studios, they kept up with both VHS and DVD releases for movies until the VHS format finally died out by the late 2000s. That was mostly due to how DVDs offered much better picture with Disney remastering several past movies to look and sound better than ever.

For fans, the pull of DVDs was the special features with Disney swiftly realizing how movie buffs would love looks at how some classic films were made. Cue the scores of special lines like the Masterpiece Collection, Gold Classics, Platinum, Diamond and more. A smart move of Disney was announcing some releases would have a limited run before “going back into the Disney Vaults,” thus making fans want to buy them even more.

Off that, there was the Disney Vault Collection, which had everything from episodes of The Wonderful World of Disney to documentaries on the parks. As DVD gave way to Blu-Ray, Disney kept up these collections with re-releases of past sets commonplace, often boasting specially remastered picture/video for the new style of TV sets. Frankly, it would take less time to list what lines Disney didn’t utilize to ensure customers would still buy some sets.

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