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Bootleggers making a nice chunk of change off this


For a while there was a region-free DVD of this made from the old Japanese LaserDisk. Then Disney gave SONG OF THE SOUTH a DVD release in Europe, allowing the bootleggers to upgrade the quality of their product. Disney may not be making a dime off this in domestic sales here in the States, but plenty of other people are. Check the dealers rooms at horror, sci-fi and film conventions and you can find people offering this film, as well as the original uncut/uncensored version of FANTASIA.

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SOTS has never been officially released on DVD anywhere in the world. ALL DVDs of the film are bootlegs. If you're referring to the one supposedly sold exclusively by Disneyland in Europe, that never happened. Someone just took some extra time to create official looking artwork and even price tags and fooled a lot of people out of their money.

Currently, the most popular SOTS bootleg out there is the one sourced from the rare Chinese "rental-only" laserdisc. Although the picture quality isn't perfect (actually, not even the best), people prefer it because the quality is acceptable enough (better than VHS) and it contains no foreign subtitles over the picture.

The next popular bootleg that has the "best" picture quality was mastered from the Japanese laserdisc, but even if the picture quality is better than the Chinese laserdisc, many people don't like the Japanese subtitles during the songs that cannot be removed.

The next step down would be the DVDs made from the officially released VHS from England, but conversions made for USA viewers usually look pretty bad compared to the laserdisc versions.

People with DVD recorders in England actually have access to the very best version of SOTS. It still plays on television there around Easter time just about every year from a remastered print that was created for a possible DVD release. It is broadcast with no editing, commercial breaks, or even station IDs over the picture. Unfortunately, most USA viewers cannot play DVDs recorded in Britain because their television standard is different than ours.

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"Someone just took some extra time to create official looking artwork and even price tags and fooled a lot of people out of their money."

---Thanks for the correction!

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