The Love Bug is the first of the five Herbie films. A typical 1960s Disney live-action movie written by Bill Walsh and Don DaGradi, and directed by DIsney regular Robert Stevenson. The car really is the star in this movie and the skills of acting talent are confined to doing double-takes. Since the film isn’t available on Blu-ray yet, I thought I’d have a closer look at the iTunes HD version.

The Love Bug iTunes HD Review

I’ve actually looked at this version before – but was shocked to find upon closer inspection that it has been orange-and-tealed.

Detail is good, with a solid grain pattern throughout, though there is an obvious slight drop of resolution when things start moving. Average video bitrate is an above average 5.1 Mbps. with peaks abound 11 Mbps.

Two audio tracks are provided, a 144kbps AAC stereo track and a 384kbps 5.1 Dolby Digital track.

Compared with the DVD, the iTunes HD version is presented at the more accurate 1.66:1 aspect ratio, generally adding more information along the bottom. To my eye the 1.66:1 presentation is more compositionally pleasing than the 1.78:1 anamorphic presentation from the DVD.

Both DVD appear to be from the same film-transfer. Horizontally, every shot I could find lined up precisely.

Unfortunately that’s where the good news ends. The iTunes version looks to be from the same transfer as the DVD, except in HD (good) and 1.66:1 (also good) and orange-and-tealed up (very bad).

I’ll walk you through some comparisons:

Herby – The Love Bug, iTunes on the left, DVD on the right. Notice the blue shadows…

The end titles really are the give away. iTunes left, DVD right.

Much more subtle, flesh-tones to orange, boosted blues/teals. iTunes on the left.

Look at the gray car in the background – suddenly blue… iTunes on the left.

Conclusion

Two out of five: poor. While the grain stays, the orange-and-tealing is depressing and unnecessary. I can’t recommend the iTunes version. Fingers crossed any Blu-ray release reverses this mess.