Warner Bros. Home Entertainment

Background

Warner Bros. Home Entertainment, the home entertainment division of Warner Bros. Entertainment, itself part of WarnerMedia (formerly "Time Warner"), first started off in 1980 as Warner Home Video (initially as "WCI Home Video"; "WCI" stood for "Warner Communications, Inc.") to distribute on video the film and television library of Warner Bros. Studios, and when Time Warner acquired them, programs from other Time Warner companies. In Australia, it was one of the Magnificent Seven home video distributors. Currently, they also serve distribution for television and/or movie products released by BBC (w/ 2 Entertain), Lifetime, Cartoon Network, Turner Entertainment Co., Viz Media, TruTV, TNT, National Geographic Society, and MGM in the U.S., as well as products from the NBA, NFL, and NHL. In 2005, Warner Bros. Home Entertainment was founded to bring together all of its parent company's businesses involved in the delivery of home entertainment content to consumers. The company structure includes subsidiaries such as Warner Home Video, Warner Bros. Digital and Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment. In 2017, the Warner Home Video brand was made its in-name-only division. In January 2020, it was announced Warner Bros. and Universal Pictures Home Entertainment would be partnering to form a 10-year joint venture, which will see new and library titles from both companies being released on 4K UHD, Blu-ray and DVD under one entity; the venture is expected to launch in early 2021, pending regulatory approval.

Warner Home Video

1st Logo (June 1980-January 1986)

WCI Home Video (July 1980)
Warner Home Video (September 1980)
Alternate variant seen on some French VHSes.

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Nicknames: "CGI Invisible/Visible Shield", "Shield of Boredom", "Peaceful Shield", "CGI WB Shield II"

Logo: Against a backdrop of clouds, a clear WB shield with a wordless banner slowly fades into view. Then the words "WARNER HOME VIDEO" are wiped onto the banner as the colors slowly appear on the shield.

Alternate Descriptive Video Transcription: In the logo, clouds swirl in the blue sky. The letters WB appear in a golden shield: Warner Home Video.

Byline: From 2002-2004, the byline "An AOL Time Warner Company" was seen below the logo. The shield is a lot smaller in this version. Some DVD releases of VHS releases, such as Scooby-Doo, A Walk to Remember, Ocean's Eleven, Feardotcom, and The Powerpuff Girls Movie, use the regular variant, even though their VHS releases use this variant.

Variants:

In 1998, like other Warner labels, a 75th Anniversary version was made. This used a smaller shield with the banner reading "WARNER BROS", and featured a giant "75" behind it. "YEARS ENTERTAINING THE WORLD" is seen below with "YEARS" a bit bigger and in spaced-out letters. This logo is seen during the year at the beginning of home video releases before the trailers, such as Lethal Weapon 4, The Outsiders, Trojan War, and some trailers. At the end of the trailers on VHS releases, the normal variant can be seen.
A rare version had a still logo in the style of the 1992 WB logo with the Warner Home Video banner replacing the Warner Bros. Pictures banner and the Time Warner Entertainment byline below that.
A silent version with an already-formed shield appears at the start of the featurette Bruce Lee: In His Own Words on the 1998 VHS of Enter the Dragon.
On a French 1999 VHS of The Iron Giant, a darker/high contrast version of the logo is seen.
Some early tapes with the AOL Time Warner byline have the byline sloppily chyroned in over the standard variant; the byline's fade out is also out-of-sync with that of the video behind it in this version. This can be seen on Uprising.
There is a 4:3 version of the AOL Time Warner byline variant that is rendered with wide angle lens. It is also videotaped without the byline in place. This has also appeared without the byline on several Scooby-Doo and Scrappy-Doo DVDs.
On all Blu-ray, HD-DVD, and the 2010- DVD releases, the sky background is zoomed in by 20%. For Blu-ray, HD-DVD, as well as 2010- fullscreen DVDs, the Warner Home Video shield is zoomed out 10% and as with the full-screen open matte version of the logo (the one used on the AOL Time Warner years but without the byline), it has not appeared on any of the 2010- DVD releases. Some Blu-ray releases from 2006-2009 have the aspect ratio in 2:35.1.
French releases have a weird variant, where it starts on a messy view of the logo. Eventually, the camera pans to the center of the messy part and zooms out, revealing a still version with the text "PROCHAINES SORTIES LOCATIONS" in grey.
On some promos and TV spots, the logo is superimposed.

FX/SFX: A simple, effective logo animation.

Music/Sounds: A quiet piano tune with two ending types:

A calm string theme; this is used for all VHS, Laserdisc and UMD Video releases and Stereo and Mono DVD releases. Few 5.1 DVD releases from 2000-2005 use this tune.
A synthesized version of the tune; all 5.1 DVDs and Blu-ray releases use this variant. The piano section pans from the left channel to the right. On NTSC releases, it is dual, though this does not occur on 4:3 DVDs (DVDs that have the "This film has been modified..." notice after the logo).

Music/Sounds Variants:

Sometimes on the NTSC AOL Time Warner version, the regular string theme is in a lower pitch. This can be found on the VHS and DVD releases of Scooby-Doo, The Powerpuff Girls Movie, LeapFrog: The Talking Words Factory, Caillou: It's a Party!, Uprising, The Adventures of Pluto Nash, Analyze That, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, A Mighty Wind, Insomnia, White Oleander, Ghost Ship, Tom and Jerry: Whiskers Away!, Kangaroo Jack, Batman: Mystery of the Batwoman, South Park: The Original Unaired Pilot, The Majestic, Queen of the Damned, The Animatrix, Death to Smoochy, Dreamcatcher, and Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, as well as Space Ghost Coast to Coast: Volume One and the first Looney Tunes Golden Collection DVD sets.
On the screener VHS of The Replacements and Mickey Blue Eyes, several DVDs of Scooby-Doo and Scrappy-Doo which feature it in open matte, and the 1997 WarnerVision Entertainment release of The Chain (1996), which WHV distributed, the regular WHV logo is used with this same pitch.
On a 2006 TV Land airing of Night Court, the beginning of the logo uses the closing theme to the show (plastering the 1984 WBTV logo, while omitting the Starry Night Productions logo), while the rest is silent.
A silent variation can be seen on the DVD copy of The Big Red One.
On the 2003 Special Edition DVD of Dennis the Menace and Caillou's Holiday Movie, the NTSC AOL Time Warner byline version has the regular tone acoustic strings.
The messy French variant has the same announcer from 2nd logo's "PROCHAINES SORTIES LOCATIONS" variant, with an added whoosh-like sound.

Music/Sounds Trivia: The music was originally written by Mad Bus Music.

Availability: Very common.

The print version of this logo was introduced in mid-1996.
This was used concurrently with the previous logo on 1996-1997 WHV tapes. Tapes that are marked as "DIGITALLY PROCESSED" carry the previous logo.
As of June 2017, it is also used in conjunction with the next logo below, as this is still seen on Warner Archive Blu-ray releases.
The first products to have this logo include the 1996 rental VHS release of A Time to Kill, released on December 30, 1996, the VHS of Bogus, released on February 4, 1997, and the first DVDs from Warner Bros. (one of which was A Time to Kill), released on March 24, 1997.
Some of the last films to use this logo on VHS were the 2005 releases of The Aviator, Racing Stripes, and The Polar Express, before finally concluding with Must Love Dogs on December 20 that year.
Surprisingly, this logo was seen at the end of some episodes of Whose Line is It Anyway? on ABC Family, a 1990 episode of Night Court on TV Land, certain broadcasts of the 1983 movie The Outsiders on A&E, a Czech TV airing of What a Girl Wants, and a episode of Veronica Mars on Hulu. It is possible that the episodes were ripped from DVD sources/masters, and they forgot to edit the logo out for broadcast.
The version with the AOL Time Warner byline can be found on most tapes and DVDs from 2002-2004, including The Great Dictator and the 2003 Special Edition release of Dennis the Menace. This can be found at the end of Caillou's Holiday Movie after the Cinar logo, but on TV airings of the movie, this and the Cinar logo are plastered by the Cookie Jar logo.
As for the wide angle full-screen version of the byline variant on DVD, it has been spotted on the two Leapfrog DVD releases of Math Circus and Talking Words Factory 2: Code Word Caper released by Warner. It was also included on the Warner screener DVD Grow With Us.
It can also be seen on international home video releases of Warner Bros. films that are distributed internationally, such as South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut, Beowulf, and Interstellar, which are all distributed domestically by Paramount Pictures.
The AOL Time Warner variant was also spotted in the 2006 PlayArte DVD of Caillou's Holiday Movie, but in a lower quality due to being sourced from a poor video master.
Don't expect to find this on releases from Viz Media, Lightyear Video, Warner Archive DVD releases, or the Paramount DVDs that were reprinted by Warner Home Video (which contained the print logo on the back cover and sometimes, especially in the case of Paramount, the spine). This also goes for Sesame Street DVDs that were released by the company. The same applies for most MGM video releases from 1996-2000. Some later reprints of MGM/UA Home Video releases from the early '90s used the Warner Home Video print logo on the tape label or the packaging, but all were of the Turner library and used either this logo or an MGM/UA logo (examples which used this logo include a 2000 tape of the colorized version of Arsenic and Old Lace, which had a Warner label and used the 1992 MGM/UA box, and a 1999 tape of Casablanca, which used the 1994 MGM/UA box and had a later MGM label). Also, don't expect this on Walt Disney Home Video/Touchstone Home Video/Hollywood Pictures Home Video DVD's they distributed in Australia and Europe (even though the logo can be seen on the back cover, but they would use the 1995 Disney Videos logo, 1987 Touchstone Home Video logo and 1991 Hollywood Pictures Home Video logo respectively)
The still logo with the Time Warner Entertainment byline is extremely rare and was only seen on a few trailers from 1996-1997. Examples include the "Reel Rentals" trailer seen on the demo VHS of Kingpin, an ad for Cats Don't Dance, on the VHS releases of Shiloh, The Swan Princess: Escape from Castle Mountain, and trailers for The Spitfire Grill and Lone Star on a 1997 VHS of Extreme Measures from, ironically, Columbia TriStar Home Video (the latter three titles are from Castle Rock Entertainment, and it is possible that Warner handled sales and marketing for these titles).
PBS Home Video DVD and VHS releases from 1997 to 2004 had this logo. The 1997 PBS Home Video release of Barney: Families are Special had this logo (despite using Turner packaging).
On their Big Idea releases, the only time it appeared was on The Wonderful Wizard of Ha's; if not, look hard for a DVD/VHS with this logo.
This is also seen at the beginning of the direct-to-video movie A Cinderella Story: If the Shoe Fits.
This was also seen on 2016 UHD 4K Blu-rays that Warner released.
The messy French variant can be seen in French VHS releases from the time.
This logo was surprisingly spotted on a TV spot for the VHS release of Batman Forever.

Editor's Note: It's a clean logo, but it isn't as popular as the previous logo. It is also worth noting that it's one of the few logos that continued to carry the word "Video" when most companies moved on to using the term "Home Entertainment".

Warner Bros. Home Entertainment

(March 14, 2017-)

Nicknames: "CGI Invisible/Visible Shield II", "Shield of Boredom II", "Fan-made Shield", "The Cheesy Shield II", "CGI WB Shield III"

Logo: Same as the 3rd Warner Home Video logo, except the sky background is different, and the logo seems to be in a more 3D look with the colors looking more solid along with the text on the banner being replaced with "HOME ENTERTAINMENT".

Variant: An open matte version exists.

FX/SFX: Same as before.

Music/Sounds: Same as before, but now is in low pitched.

Music/Sounds Variant: When it first made its debut, a "remastered" version of the NTSC AOL Time Warner variant of last WHV logo was used.

Availability: Current. It was first spotted on the DVD release of The Jetsons & WWE: Robo-WrestleMania!, and the Blu-ray release of Collateral Beauty, both of which were released on the same date, and appears on newer home media releases from the company. Again, this doesn't appear on any Viz Media and Sesame Workshop releases.

Editor's Note: Although not a horrible logo, it was initially thought to be a fan-made project (hence one of the nicknames). When it was confirmed to be real, a lot of logo fans were disappointed with the result.