Disney is trying to revamp the home video business with a new market strategy meant to boost sales of high-definition Blu-ray discs, which were slower than expected. The best way to do that was to hire some of the planet’s most popular stars to promote Blu-ray DVD sales, such as Pinocchio or Sleeping Beauty.

The strategy includes five “platinum” titles to be released in Blu-ray format over the next two years: “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,” “Pinocchio,” “Beauty and the Beast,” “Fantasia,” and “Fantasia 2000,” as well as a sixth title, the previously announced “Sleeping Beauty.”

Disney is hoping that with the release of the above mentioned titles, DVD-player owners will change their mind (at least some of them) and switch to Blu-ray players.

According to analysts, Blu-ray sales did not benefit as much as expected from the withdrawal of HD DVD from the competition. A good explanation for that were the prices, which remained high, and even went up after Toshiba’s announcement that it would no longer produce HD DVD players.

NPD revealed that sales went up only 2 percent from February, when Toshiba ended HD DVD production, to March. This was a clear indicator that consumers were not very impressed by the format war, at least not as long as their old DVD players still worked.

In a study released by ABI Research earlier this year, the Blu-ray format was estimated to need another 12 to 18 months before reaching its full potential, and that of course would imply a change in prices. In the meantime, Disney came up with a very appealing marketing strategy, but we still have to wait to see the effects.