Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment

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.

Background
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.

History
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.

No new titles were released for half a year after Mary Poppins, but Walt Disney Home Video announced an expanded program for "Authorized Rental Dealers" in December 1980, and began to expand its dealer network during the first part of 1981. From January 1 to March 31, 1981, Disney had a "License One — Get One Free" promotion to encourage dealers to sign up. They also offered free rental use of a 7-minute Mickey Mouse Disco videocassette for customers who rented any title from an Authorized Rental Dealer from February through May 1981.

Disney was unusual among the major studios in offering a program for authorized rentals. Most of the other studios involved in the videocassette market at the time were trying to find ways to stop dealers from renting out their movie tapes. Magnetic Video (with titles from 20th Century Fox and others) ceased doing business with Fotomat after Fotomat began renting Magnetic Video cassettes without authorization. Disney's rental cassettes in blue cases looked completely different from sale cassettes, which were in white cases. That was designed to make it easy for Disney representatives to tell if dealers were violating their dealer agreements by renting out cassettes intended for sale, and it continued until 1984, when they stopped doing so.

In the late-1980s, Disney began seeking other outlets to distribute its video, and decided to ink deals with mass-merchant retailers such as Target, Caldor, and Walmart. In 1989, Disney sought to further control the distribution of its products by eliminating the use of rack jobbers. Around this time, the studio began partnering with major retailers for advertising campaigns.

Buena Vista Home Video
Buena Vista Home Video was incorporated on February 13, 1987. In April 1996 due to ongoing post Disney-CC/ABC merger realignment, Buena Vista Home Video was transferred out of the Disney Television and Telecommunications group to The Walt Disney Studios. Buena Vista Home Video was renamed Buena Vista Home Entertainment in 1997.

Company structure
The company distributes Blu-ray discs and DVDs under the following labels; Disney, ABC Studios, Freeform, Marvel, Lucasfilm, Touchstone Home Entertainment, and Hollywood Pictures Home Entertainment. Former labels included Miramax Home Entertainment and Dimension Home Video before the latter moved with Lionsgate (2011–present) & Echo Bridge (2011–2014) in United States and Warner Home Video (later Warner Bros. Home Entertainment) in Japan (2012–2014). With the advent of DVD and eventually Blu-ray, "Home Entertainment" replaced "Home Video" in label names. In Argentina, also distributes the titles from 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment (with exception of Lionsgate Home Entertainment) and Sony Pictures Home Entertainment. The creation of the DVDs for South America and Jamaica is outsourced to AVH, located in San Luis, Argentina, while Blu-rays are manufactured in Mexico by Technicolor for the whole continent.