Cats The Musical On Dvd

What You Need to Know Before Buying a Cats The Musical On Dvd

I spent way too long figuring out which version of the Cats DVD was worth owning. The short version is that there are multiple releases floating around, they're not all created equal, and if you don't check the details before purchasing you'll end up with a disc that doesn't actually have the stuff you want. Here's what actually matters. The most common release people find is the 1998 filmed version of thestage production, directed by Trevor Nunn. It stars Helen Gilbert as Grizabella and James Morrison as Macavity. That's the one that ships on most DVD platforms. But there's also the original 1981 London Palladium recording, various regional tour recordings, and a handful of concert performances that get listed alongside the actual feature film in search results. The line between "official musical recording" and "fan taping of a live performance" is thinner than you'd expect on marketplaces like eBay or Amazon third-party sellers.

Cats The Musical On Dvd Comparison And What Actually Exists

The 1998 film version runs about 112 minutes. It's shot on location in parts but mostly on soundstage. The picture quality on the standard DVD release is fine for what it is — it's a theatrical recording meant to capture a stage show, not a cinematic experience. The audio is Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo on the original pressings, which is adequate but not impressive. Later reissues sometimes carry 5.1 mixes, though I wouldn't call them dramatically better. If you have a surround setup and listen closely on the 2.0 track you'll find the mix pushes the vocals hard to the center channel and the orchestration sits pretty flat. Not a dealbreaker but worth knowing if you're a detail-oriented listener. The 1981 recording is harder to find on DVD. It exists primarily on VHS and later transferred formats. You'll see it listed occasionally but the quality varies wildly because these are transfers from analog source material. The performances are stronger in some respects — Elaine Paige originally played Grizabella and her stage presence in that era is genuinely notable — but the picture will look softer and the audio noisier than the 1998 version. There are also region-encoded issues. The UK release has different bonus features than the US release. The UK version includes some extra documentary material and making-of footage that the US version strips out. If you play a Region 2 disc on a Region 1 player without a region-free modification you won't get anything. I learned this the hard way when I bought a cheap import from a marketplace and got a black screen with error code 1. The workaround was simple enough — I just set my DVD player to region-free mode in the service menu, which took about thirty seconds — but it's annoying to discover after the fact.

Check the catalog number before you buy. The 1998 film on Warner Home Video has the catalog number W1126 for the standard single-disc release and W1127 for the two-disc special edition. The special edition adds the "Making of Cats" documentary and some deleted scenes. Those extras are decent but not essential. The documentary runs about twenty minutes and has some useful insights about how they adapted the stage choreography for camera but the deleted scenes are mostly test footage that didn't make the final cut. You're paying extra for roughly twenty-five minutes of supplementary content on the special edition. Whether that's worth it depends on how much you care about behind-the-scenes material. Another thing people miss: the DVD uses 4:3 aspect ratio for the main feature. This is the original broadcast and theatrical framing. Some players will letterbox it on a widescreen TV and some will stretch it. If you have a modern display you should check your player's aspect ratio settings and set it to 4:3 or "native" rather than letting it auto-scale, otherwise the image will look squat and distorted on a 16:9 screen. I ran into this when I first popped the disc in and thought the video looked wrong until I checked the settings. Took about two minutes to fix. If you're looking for the absolute best visual quality available on physical media, the DVD is not it. There is no official Blu-ray release of the 1998 film. The highest quality home video version is the DVD. Some third-party rips circulate online at higher bitrates but those aren't something I'd recommend sourcing. The DVD itself is a decent representation of what was filmed. It's not going to win any technical awards but it captures the production adequately.

Audio on the DVD is another area where expectations should be managed. The score by Andrew Lloyd Webber is rich and full on a proper stereo setup, but the DVD compression doesn't do it any favors. Most of the dialogue and singing sits in that compressed midrange where DVD audio tends to lose detail. If you care about sound quality you're better off looking for a separate soundtrack album on CD or digital and watching the DVD muted or with the TV on a separate audio source. I do this sometimes because the gap between what the score deserves and what the DVD delivers is noticeable. Here's a practical tip that saves time: before you buy any Cats DVD, go to Discogs or IMDb and look up the specific release. Check the runtime, the catalog number, the region code, and the audio format listed. Cross-reference with a screenshot of the actual disc case if you can find one. Third-party sellers on major marketplaces sometimes list a completely different release than what's pictured, or they'll list a "Cats" DVD that turns out to be a documentary about cats instead of the musical. I've seen it happen. A few minutes of verification prevents a lot of wasted money. There's also the question of subtitles and accessibility. The standard releases include closed captions in English and Spanish on most regions. If you need them, verify this before purchasing because some budget pressings or older stock may omit them. I needed captions once because the audio mix was so front-and-center that certain vocal passages got muddy during the "Jellicle Ball" sequence and I had to read along. Not ideal but functional.

Bottom line: the 1998 Trevor Nunn-directed film on its standard Warner DVD is the baseline version most people should start with. It's widely available, reasonably priced, and captures the full runtime. Don't overpay for special editions unless you actually want the extras. Don't buy region-locked imports without checking your player capabilities. And don't expect the DVD to sound or look like a modern high-definition release because it isn't one. It's a document of a stage production from the late nineties, and it does that job adequately.