Disney Channel Holiday Review Score: 6/10 | Date Posted: October 30th 2005 In: DVD Reviews Released by: Disney Home Entertainment Disney Channel Holiday Review by Mark McLeod | HNR Contributing Writer Halloween is just two days away and that means Christmas is just around the corner, with the DVD companies preparing an onslaught of Holiday themed releases aimed at every facet of the consuming public. Disney, having got a jump start with their collection of classic animated holiday cartoons, returns with a disc aimed at their pre-teen/teen audience who rush home after school to watch the Disney Channel. Now those fans can watch their favorite holiday themed episodes at anytime with the Disney Channel Holiday DVD. Running for a total time of just shy of two hours, fans are given holiday episodes of That's So Raven, Kim Possible, Even Stevens, The Suite Life of Zack and Cody and of course Disney channel mainstay Lizzie McGuire starring the loveable Hillary Duff. The DVD Walt Disney Home Entertaiment presents the Disney Channel Holiday collection with 1.33:1 full screen transfers and with Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo audio. Having never seen any of these shows on television, and given that they are all of different source material, these transfers are pretty much just above the quality you'd find on your local Disney channel or ABC affiliate. Three of the five shows are live action and shot on video over a period of the last 3 or so years. Colors are accurately rendered and the image is sufficiently sharp and free of defects. On the other hand, the animated episodes from Kim Possible and Phil of the Future look excellent, with a bright vibrant color palette and flawless transfers from the original animated material. Although certainly not near reference quality the animated material does the shining here. Moving now to the audio side of things, these are fairly standard television show audio tracks mixed in stereo and allowing viewers to hear the dialogue without having to strain, presenting the minimal use of music and sound effects firmly in the front left and right channels. There isn't much in the way of bonus materials aside from a never been seen episode of Phil of the Future entitled Christmas Break and I Love Christmas Music video by the group fan_3. I'm not too sure why the Phil episode isn't part of the main feature other then maybe it was a last minute addition and the marketing people thought it would fit better in the bonus section. As is the case with most Disney titles there is also a collection of previews for other upcoming releases, this time consisting of The Emperor's New Groove, Lady and The Tramp 2 Disc Edition, the Disney channel movie The Wild and the Shaggy Dog as well as Sky High, Toy Story 2 : 2 Disc Edition and Old Yeller. Final Thoughts Disney Home Entertainment has done an above average job on this release of Disney Channel Holiday episodes. Although it's a compilation of various episodes of different shows and not a substitute for a full season set, the episodes contained within are sure to delight fans of the series even if they are probably repeated ad-nauseam each Christmas season on the Disney Channel. I'm not quite sure why one of the episodes ended up in the bonus section but that's a minor nitpick. Also surprising is the 1.33:1/DD 2.0 technical presentation when atleast a couple of these episodes have been produced in 1.78:1 widescreen and had DD 5.1 mixes on past releases. That aside this is a pretty good collection for a really good price.

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