Mini DVD's and Sam's Club 4.88
 

didn't see this posted. was at sam's club today and they had warner mini dvds for $4.88. i had never even heard of mini dvds but came home and read a little bit about them. here is the warner site:

http://www.warnervideo.com/minidvd/files/home.html

apparantly they play in regular players... off the top of my head i remember seeing

a cinderella story, scooby-doo 2, catwoman, one of the harry potter movies, kangaroo jack, new york minute, black beauty, some episodes of one tree hill, teen titans, tom and jerry...all $4.88

Hmm, something for the kids. Have to check this one out. Don't know if I would buy an actual portable mini-DVD player but like you said these work in regular DVD players as well.

$4.88?

Perhaps they weren't as popular after all and they are trying to get rid of them. I'm going to check it out and get a few. :)

Did you see if they were selling the dvd player?

didn't see, but the box says they play in standard dvd players....

interesting marketing angle on this, working the kid angle. Most titles are definately skewed that way. The minis im assuming are just movie, no extras, and probably not even big sound, since they assume you will play these on a mini player. If they keep the price like that, $5 i could see parents snapping these up for kids, that way they dont destroy full dvds (what kid watches extra features anyway), plus they are more portable.

Yes, they have the player too - right next to the mini DVDs. ~$100, IIRC. They work in standard players with slide-out trays but not with those with only a slot where you insert the disc.

Other titles I saw today besides those mentioned above were Gilmore Girls very first ep, Starsky and Hutch, Austin Powers:IMOM, and The OC TV show (probably first ep but not sure). All were featureless and full screen.

Anyone know if the mini dvd's have 5.1 or 2.0 sound?

I just went to Sams and didn't find anything about mini dvd's.


YMMV!

Nothing at my local Sams either.

Scooby-Doo and the Cyber Chase is in 5.1- not too impressive-sounding though.

Looks like bigger movies get dumped on 2 discs. The FAQ on the site says the quality and sound are the same, but 1 dual layer disc only holds 65 minutes. This is why Blu-Ray needs to come out sooner than next year. Imagine a 3 inch BD that holds 12 gig. You could easily get a DVD quality movie on one of those. As far as HD, you'd be able to get 1.5 hrs or so on a 3 inch disc. Perfect for TV episodes.

They've had a display of these at my local Best Buy in the past... probably late last year. Haven't seen them anywhere since.

Mine. And I suspect many forum member progeny enjoy them as well. That being said, they are still a decent idea for kids. If they are all fullscreen, then they are pretty lame, and almost useless.

I can't help but think perhaps WB wanted to have some sort of competition with Sony's PSP UMD movies. It's really a very different market, but the comparison just jumps out at me. Anybody think this is way off the mark?

At one time you could get mini DVDs (of kids cartoons) in/on some cereal boxes.

Those were regular 5-inch discs- the 3-inch discs could fit even more easily in cereal boxes and stuff like that though. I can't see those player that play only the 3-inch DVDs going anywhere, but I hope they keep using the 3-inch discs for shorter programs and packing in unconventional places.
Putting movies on 2 discs was a dumb idea- they should have either made them 2-sided instead, or as long as they were using pan & scan transfers they could have just compressed it more to fit on one side- don't think it'd be too noticable on a 2-inch screen.

All the minis (both movies and TV episodes) I saw at Sam's were all FOOLSCREEN only....why, Why, WHY Warner Bros.?!?!!?
May as well have packaged them in a snapper case to go all the way on this.

Found a display of these at my local Sam's today, and they were marked $10.88. (Didn't bother with a price check.) YMMV

here is an old thread that explains these a bit

New DVD Format? Mini-DVD