Walt Disney Home Entertainment
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| Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment |
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| Subsidiary | |
| Industry | Entertainment |
| Founded | 1980 Incorporated February 13, 1987 |
| Headquarters | Burbank, CA, U.S. |
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Key people
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Janice Marinelli (President) |
| Products | Home video, digital distribution |
| Parent |
The Walt Disney Studios (The Walt Disney Company) |
| Divisions | Disney Movies Anywhere |
| Website | bvhe |
Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment (incorporated as Buena Vista Home Entertainment, Inc. since 1997 and formerly known as Walt Disney Telecommunications & Non-Theatrical Company from 1980 to 1987 and eventually Buena Vista Home Video until 1997) is the home video distribution division of The Walt Disney Company. Disney began distributing videos under its own label in 1980 under the name Walt Disney Home Video.
Before Disney began releasing home video titles itself, it licensed some titles to MCA Discovision for their newly developed disc format, later called LaserDisc. According to the Blam Entertainment Group website, which has extensive details of DiscoVision releases, only six Disney titles were actually released on DiscoVision. One of these was the feature film Kidnapped. The others were compilations of Disney shorts. The first titles released in 1978 included: On Vacation with Mickey Mouse and Friends (#D61-503), Kids is Kids (#D61-504), At Home with Donald Duck (#D61-505), Adventures of Chip 'n' Dale (#D61-506), and finally The Coyote's Lament (#D61-507) which was released in May 1979. Disney's agreement with MCA ended in December 1981.
In 1980, Disney established its own video distribution operation as part of Walt Disney Telecommunications and Non-Theatrical Company (WDTNT) with Jim Jimirro as its first president. Home video was not considered to be a major market by Disney at the time. WDTNT also handled the marketing of other miscellaneous ancillary items such as short 8 mm films for home use.
Disney's first releases on tape were 13 titles that were licensed for rental to Fotomat on March 4, 1980, initially in a four-city test (Chicago, Houston, Philadelphia, and San Francisco/Oakland/San Jose), to be expanded nationwide by the end of 1980. The agreement specified rental fees ranging from $7.95 to $13.95. This first batch of titles on VHS and Beta included 10 live action movies: Pete's Dragon (#10), The Black Hole (#11), The Love Bug (#12), Escape to Witch Mountain (#13), Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier (#14), 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (#15), Bedknobs and Broomsticks (#16), The North Avenue Irregulars (#17), The Apple Dumpling Gang (#18), and Hot Lead and Cold Feet (#19); and three of the compilations of short cartoons previously released by DiscoVision: On Vacation with Mickey Mouse and Friends (#20), Kids is Kids starring Donald Duck (#21), and Adventures of Chip 'n' Dale (#22). Later, on December 30, 1980, Mary Poppins (#23) was added to make 14 titles in all.
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Wikipedia