Ultimate Disney is reporting that The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe DVD will be released in three separate editions when it hits stores this April.
The earliest rumblings of its DVD release pin the big screen adaptation of C.S. Lewis’s acclaimed fantasy novel for April, where it is expected to arrive in three different versions: separate but similarly loaded 16×9-enhanced 2.35:1 widescreen and 1.33:1 cropped editions and a more collectible deluxe edition which will carry a list price of $10 or so more than the studio’s standard $29.99 tag. More specific details and a firm date likely won’t be announced until sometime in the first two months of 2006. It is also not yet clear how (if at all) the cancelled companion DVD Adventure Through Narnia (which was slated for release earlier this month) will resurface. We’ll share more when there’s more to share.
To sum it all up:
1: 16×9-enhanced 2.35:1 Widescreen
2: 1.33:1 cropped “Full Screen”
3: Collectible Deluxe Edition
I implore you all, consider either the Widescreen or the Deluxe editions ONLY.
2.35:1 means 2.35 inches across, for every inch up or down. For the cropped edition, they have to cut off 1.02 inches for every inch of image, meaning that you lose approximately 43% of the picture. Granted, the image is a little smaller on your TV because your TV may not be a widescreen one, and you have those black bars on your screen, but that’s simply because there was nothing in that area to begin with.
