Unlocking Your Home Theater’s Potential: A Review of the Disney WOW World of Wonder Blu Ray Disc

These days, many find inspiration and guidance from shows like HGTV and the DIY network, which demystify tasks once thought too complex for the average person. Laying a floor, installing a sink, or revamping landscaping are presented as achievable “Do It Yourself” projects, proving that tackling a job correctly often just requires the right tools and some basic education.

This same hesitation towards DIY is common when it comes to setting up an HDTV and surround sound system. The daunting shopping experience and the overwhelming techno jargon from sales associates often lead consumers to simply plug in their new equipment and settle for a picture that looks “fine,” even if proportions are distorted or colors are off.

Cover art for the Disney World of Wonder WOW Blu Ray calibration disc

Properly setting up your TV and speakers is not inherently difficult, but it requires time, knowledge, and the right tools. Just as a professional carpenter wouldn’t rely on the cheapest portable saw, the quality of calibration tools varies. For optimal picture and sound, hiring an ISF- or THX-certified professional is the ideal route. However, if professional calibration isn’t in the budget, several DIY alternatives exist. The Disney Wow World Of Wonder Blu Ray calibration and demonstration disc is one of the latest attempts in this space.

Split into three primary sections – Discover, Optimize, and Experience – the Disney WOW Blu-ray aims to explain the fundamentals of HDTV, Blu-ray Disc technology, and surround sound. After exploring the educational segments and evaluating Disney’s approach to standard test patterns, it’s clear this disc offers valuable resources, though some content feels a bit out of place. For a comprehensive overview, you can find a detailed [disney world of wonder review] here.

Discover

Serving as the educational core of the WOW Blu-ray, the “Discover” section is designed for newcomers to home theater setup. It begins with “Home Theater Basics with Goofy,” an animated segment walking through system components. While occasionally amusing, Goofy’s repetitive interjections may quickly become tiresome for adult viewers. It feels geared towards a very young audience, making its relevance questionable for someone interested in HDMI benefits or audio codecs.

The “Discover” section also includes some heavy-handed Disney self-promotion. A segment titled “The Power of Blu-ray, Simple as 1-2-3” is essentially a one-minute advertisement, instructing viewers to buy an HDTV, a Blu-ray player, connect via HDMI, and most importantly, purchase Disney Blu-ray Discs. This overt marketing detracts from the educational purpose.

Optimize

The main draw for purchasing the Disney Wow World Of Wonder Blu Ray disc is its calibration assistance, primarily found in the “Optimize” section of Disc One. Disney deserves significant credit here for presenting a wealth of video and audio calibration information and test patterns in an organized and visually appealing manner. Compared to calibration discs like Joe Kane’s Digital Video Essentials, which are often criticized for complex and poorly designed menus that can frustrate users, the Disney WOW Blu-ray excels in navigation. Its menus are intuitive, consistent, and user-friendly, earning high marks in this regard. You can learn more about the specifics of this tool as a [disney wow world of wonder calibration blu ray disc].

Having completed an Imaging Science Foundation (ISF) course and obtained calibration certification, the importance of not just having test patterns but also understanding how to use and interpret them becomes clear. The WOW disc provides numerous useful test patterns and makes a genuine effort to explain their purpose and what they reveal about your system. One of the most valuable components isn’t even on the disc itself; the included 53-page booklet. Packed with screenshots and well-written instructions, it significantly enhances the utility of the on-disc calibration tools. Getting the most out of your display often starts with understanding these patterns, and this Blu-ray provides a solid foundation for that learning curve, alongside guidance on understanding older formats or potential future developments like [disney world of wonder dvd] options for older systems.

Experience

Once your TV and speakers are calibrated using the Optimize section, the next step is evaluating the results with demo material. This is where the Disney WOW Blu-ray falls short. Out of approximately thirty film clips provided for evaluating calibrated displays, the vast majority are animated or heavily reliant on CGI. While films like Toy Story 2 are visually impressive, characters like Mrs. Potato Head aren’t suitable for assessing accurate human skin tones. Similarly, evaluating picture settings using Davey Jones’ CGI face from Pirates of the Caribbean isn’t ideal for real-world performance.

Fortunately, a few live-action samples are included, such as clips from Christopher Nolan’s The Prestige. This film is excellent and features a spectacular-looking Blu-ray transfer, providing a useful demonstration of calibrated settings on real people in realistic environments. More clips of this nature would have significantly improved this section.

Disc Two of the Disney WOW World of Wonder Blu Ray set is a 60-minute nature program titled “VISIONS: Inspired by Nature.” It’s not a traditional film but rather a loop of landscapes and music, intended as an extension of the “Experience” section. Unfortunately, it also heavily features “natural and digitally created landscapes.” As noted by the producer/director in a forum discussion, while some segments are purely natural with only color correction, many of the eleven chapters are marked with an asterisk indicating they are “Digitally Created” or “Digitally Enhanced.” While Visions offers beautiful imagery and undoubtedly boosts the “WOW factor” of your display, digitally altered content is not the ideal standard for evaluating a display’s accuracy against natural reality.

UPDATE: Visions Digital Content

Following feedback from the producer/director of Visions, it’s important to clarify the use of digital content in Disc Two. While some segments, such as “Flower Fields,” “Cumulous Day,” “Forest Waterfalls,” and “Big Sur Fireplace,” feature only natural imagery and color correction, seven of the eleven chapters are explicitly labeled “Digitally Created” or “Digitally Enhanced” in the accompanying booklet. Visions is undeniably visually stunning and serves well to showcase the vibrancy of a calibrated display, enhancing its “WOW factor.” However, the core point remains that content featuring significant digital manipulation is not the optimal reference material for precisely assessing a display’s ability to reproduce natural, real-world visuals accurately.

Final Thoughts

For most individuals, delving into topics like interlaced vs. progressive video or lossless audio codecs is far from captivating. Video and audio calibration is inherently a technical, potentially dry subject. It’s somewhat surprising that it took a major company like Disney this long to develop a comprehensive, user-friendly tool to make the process more accessible to the average consumer. Despite the occasionally annoying “buy Disney movies!” messaging and the frustrating choice of demo material being heavily animated/CGI, the educational components and test patterns provided by the disney wow world of wonder blu ray disc make it a valuable purchase. For anyone seeking to maximize the performance of their home theater system without hiring a professional calibrator, this disc offers worthwhile guidance and tools. Users interested in options for other formats might also look into resources covering topics like [disney world of wonder 4k] capabilities or alternative calibration methods to complement their understanding of maximizing display performance.

Product Details

• Audio/Languages: English DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1, 5.1 and 2.0
• Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1 and 2.35:1 (varies)
• Region: A
• Number of Discs: 2
• Rating: Not Rated
• Studio: Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment
• Blu-ray Disc Release Date: November 2, 2010
• Run Time: 240 minutes (Total estimated including bonus disc)
• List Price: $39.99
• Extras:
  • Bonus Disc: “Visions: Inspired by Nature” (60 minutes)
  • BD LIVE