Friday, October 23, 1998
Giving credit where credit is due. It's been real easy to criticize Paramount for one thing or another. Of course the first thing to complain about was their support of Divx over DVD. Then, we complained when months after finally announcing support for open DVD, title announcements were excruciatingly slow in coming. Lately, Paramount has been taking its lumps for moving away from anamorphic transfers in their second batch of titles, which include CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER and TOP GUN. Well, hold onto your seats, folks. While CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER was somewhat of a disappointment during some spots (slight shimmering and soft images on occasion), TOP GUN really impressed us last night. Bob's working on our full review, but let me just say that Paramount must know something that a lot of other content providers don't when it comes to mastering a non-enhanced DVD. For the vast majority of the movie, the images were exceptionally sharp, but never over-enhanced. There wasn't even a hint of ringing around the edges in high contrast scenes, but there was some over saturation in a couple of shots. Of course, an anamorphic transfer could have only made things better, but in all candor, there's no reason to avoid these discs if you like the titles. Paramount, whether anamorphic or not, is doing a very fine job, in our view. And the DD 5.1 mix was a winner as well. Not as aggressive a mix as more modern movies filmed in the 90's, but if you have a sub-woofer that can rattle the windows -- have no fear -- TOP GUN will rattle your windows. So will CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER, for that matter.

Thursday, October 22, 1998
7:27pm PDT - Looking for a cheap date and a good laugh tomorrow night? Read Jeff's review of Universal's Collector's Edition of ANIMAL HOUSE. Remember the chorus of boos and jeers that accompanied last February's PAN & SCAN release of this comedy classic? Looks like the lads at Universal took notice and really got it right this time. It's almost worth throwing a toga party over!

12:43pm PDT - Joshua Mays e-mailed us to say that "some of the first titles resulting from the MGM/Polygram buyout are already announced on Ken Crane's website for preorder. The 2 BIG ones that stuck out to me were DVDs for "The Princess Bride" and "When Harry Met Sally" Both of them street on January 26th with an MSRP of $29.99. There were probably a few more but those were the 2 that caught my attention. No word on features yet." We've been waiting for these two outstanding titles for a long time. A few more months isn't going to kills us. Good news! Thanks, Josh! According to DVD Review, however, the release date of these two films may be altered, pending the timing of the takover. The moral of the story? As usual, nothing is set in concrete at the moment.

9:19am PDT - MGM buys Polygram - minus their awful slider DVD cases. Special thanks to TBP reader Chad A. Beaudin for the heads up and the link. Does this mean more titles for Divx? Or will Divx already be a thing of the past when the acquisition is completed in January?

9:04am PDT - CORRECTION: When Bob's review of TRUCKS was posted last night, it should have had a rating of three out of five, not a rating of four. Sorry for the fumble.

1:51am PDT - Want to know which studios own what percentage of the home video market? Check here.

1:38am PDT - First, an apology for the sparse news yesterday. We had some fires to put out, some reviews to load up and a baseball game to watch, plus a movie that we'll be reviewing imminently: ANIMAL HOUSE:SE. Bob has been busy -- catch his reviews of CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER and Stephen King's TRUCKS. Be on the lookout for a review of TOP GUN soon, too. And by the way -- congratulations to the 1998 New York Yankees, arguably the best baseball team of the 20th Century. Here in San Diego, we're still proud of The Padres for clinching the National League Championship and making it back to the series. Nice how a ball game can open up conversation between strangers and bring everyone closer together when their city is directly involved.

Wednesday, October 21, 1998
12:58pm Looks like the Ultimate Bulletin Board is turning into the ultimate bad trip for our friends at DVD Resource and Home Theater Forum. As most of you know, Steve Tannehill had to shut down the DVD Resource Forum recently because of software related issues. Then today, without notice, Ron and Parker over at HTF were forced to shut theirs down. A real shame, as we consider Home Theater Forum to be one of the finest gathering spots on the Internet. We wish both sites a speedy -- and permanent end to their server hassles. To that end, it appears that DVD Resource is close to solving their problems and HTF is close to finding a solution as well. That's good news. Packy has asked us to request that if you have any questions about the status of HTF, please e-mail him directly. In the meantime, we welcome all visitors, temporary or otherwise, to The BIG Picture DVD & Home Theater Forum.

Tuesday, October 20, 1998
11:39am PDT - If you purchase DVD's on line, you should familiarize yourself with DVD Price Search. This cool site will find the best pricing from a list of most major on-line retailers and display the top several for you to shop and compare. They even include shipping and handling charges in the totals. What a great idea. Of course, there's a lot more to shopping than price alone. Quick turnaround, friendly attitudes and excellent customer service should all be considered when shopping anywhere. Of course, we hope you'll choose one of the sponsors that help us keep The BIG Picture going when you make your on-line purchases. We are truly grateful for their support, but even more grateful for yours. Because without you, we'd have no sponsors at all! So thanks!

10:04am PDT - Once again, TBP separates the wheat from the chaff... Lay your fears to rest about DREAMWORKS. I just concluded an extensive and very cordial chat with their DVD Production Supervisor who assured me that all three upcoming releases are not only anamorphic widescreen but also Dolby Digital 5.1! CORRECTION: MOUSEHUNT (not Small Soldiers as we earlier reported - our mistake) will be a dual-format disc with widescreen anamorphic on one side and full frame on the other. In addition, SMALL SOLDIERS will be the first in Dreamworks' "Signature Series" which carries the blessings of the director and is loaded with extras. THE PEACEMAKER will be RSDL. I was also told that Dreamworks is trying to ready ANTZ for DVD release along with the next wave with PAULIE and AMISTAD. The bottom line? DREAMWORKS has heard our collective calls for anamorphic widescreen and DD 5.1 titles and are VERY interested in presenting their titles in the highest quality that the format allows. That should be very gratifying news for all of us. Let's just hope that Dreamworks will adopt these high standards as SOP and not slack off the way Paramount has already...

8:20am PDT - Laserviews updated their new release page with a few title announcements, street date confirmations, changes, etc. Drawing the most attention (and ire) from DVD enthusiasts, is the apparent lack of DD 5.1 sound support on the first three Dreamworks titles. Alternately, drawing much praise, is that the Dreamworks 3 will be enhanced for 16x9 viewing. We've left a message with our Dreamworks insider and will hopefully have confirmation one way or another about the sound issue later today. But at first glance, it would appear that Dreamworks is batting .500.(Editor's Note: After speaking with Dreamworks directly about this issue (see above), it would appear that they are indeed batting 1000 right out of the gate, which is more than I can say for our poor San Diego Padres -- so far...)

Speaking of batting .500, we screened Paramount's CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER last night and while the images were fairly solid most of the time, the lack of 16x9 enhancement was really noticed with a bit of shimmering here and there and a real lack of facial detail in the long shots. If we gave out "half-globes", we'd rate it at a three and a half, but we don't, so we're rounding it up to a four. Bob Banka is working on the review right now. It's coming soon.

Monday, October 19, 1998
6:45pm PDT - BIG RELEASE NEWS. One of our readers, Robby Huckell, e-mailed to alert us that "According to today's Hollywood Reporter (Oct. 19, page 3, under "CLIPS") Universal announced 10 Speilberg DVD's to be released within the first 6 months of 1999." Since we aren't card carrying subscribers to the HR, we could only see three of the ten titles that will NOT include JAWS or JURASSIC PARK. The only ones we know at the moment are BACK TO THE FUTURE (Hooray!!), THE FLINTSTONES and 1941. Not satisfied with this "teaser" info, we immediately called our rep at Universal Home Video to leave a message -- and lo and behold!! He was there at this late hour!! The rest of the Spielberg/Amblin titles for the first six months of '99 will be BACK TO THE FUTURE PART II (YES!!!), BATTERIES NOT INCLUDED, HOW TO MAKE AN AMERICAN QUILT, THE MONEY PIT, THE LITTLE RASCALS, ALWAYS and HARRY AND THE HENDERSONS. Speilbergs's first directed feature, DUEL, is also scheduled for release. From what we understand, they will be "Collector's Editions" from Universal.

Other titles being released by Universal in January are the Collector's Edition of OUT OF SIGHT, a fully-restored version of ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT, CLOCKERS, COP AND A HALF, DARKMAN II, HELLFIGHTERS, MAJOR PAYNE, SLAP SHOT and SWASHBUCKLER. In January, all of Universal's original titles that came in jewel cases last year will be reissued in snappers: BABE, BACKDRAFT, WATERWORLD, THE PAPER, THE SHADOW, SUDDEN DEATH and BEETHOVEN. Gee, I sure wish they'd re-issue BABE in widescreen while they're at it, but hey! We'd have to say that today's news from Universal, is universally great!

4:27pm PDT - As part of our Halloween "fright" series of review, here's another scary one from TBP -- David Cronenberg's SHIVERS. Read Bob's review, it'll give ya the quivers...

1:15pm PDT - Well now! THAT was sure fast! Maybe posting "the finger" on our DVD sPy page was too obvious. Congratulations to Ton Vu of San Jose, California for winning the free SUICIDE KINGS DVD from The BIG Picture! For the intensely curious (but not for the squeamish), click here to see "the finger".

FREE DVD ALERT!! Want to win a FREE copy of SUICIDE KINGS? Find the graphic of Christopher Walken's RING FINGER posted on one of our pages after 1pm PDT today. Click on it and be the first to e-mail us with the phrase "Thanks for giving Divx the finger, BIG Picture!" and you'll win!

The DVD Dish has it that all three of Dreamworks upcoming titles will be 16x9 enhanced. Bully for you, Dreamworks. We'll look forward to getting their official anouncement one of these days... This dish also has news about Universal's release of OUT OF SIGHT in January.

At 12 noon PDT, we'll be providing details about how you can win a FREE copy of SUICIDE KINGS today from The BIG Picture! While we're on the subject of SUICIDE KINGS, please don't grind us about the San Diego Padres. Ouch!

One of our visitors, Ernie Ligon, wanted us to be sure and remind everyone that the October issue of Home Theater has an extensive article about journeying to San Francisco's downtown Circuit City and Good Guys to shop for DIVX player/disks... and offer an appraisal of the product(s). Sure thing, Ernie!

WEEKEND UPDATE
Good news. Most, if not all of the missing threads in our forum have been restored, thanks to exemplary the efforts of Mike Bagneski, the author of our forum software. Thanks, Mike!

There's a very interesting first-person account of someone who purchased and ultimately returned a Divx player after giving it what I perceive as being a very objective evaluation. He provided very thorough, in-depth accounting of his experiences. Special thanks to ace cub reporter Dana for finding his story and sharing it with us. With the author's permission, I've reprinted his newsgroup posts on TBP Forum. Good reading -- you should check it out.

I decided to kill some time this afternoon while my wife was shopping, so for the first time in over a year (Since September 8, 1997, to be precise), I ventured into my local Circuit City store to see what was going on with Divx. I didn't flag any salespeople down to try and ensnare them in a lie or falsehood. In fact, when one approached me in the television section, I politely declined any help, saying that I was just looking around. Of course, there were Divx signs everywhere. One thing that I thought was interesting was that no salesperson approached as I was looking at the Divx display, featuring an informational pitch. I was there for several minutes -- all by myself -- despite the fact that there were lots of shoppers and store personnel milling about. Another interesting thing is the way they are trying to beef up the number of available movie titles in their brochure, which stated "Over 250 movies -- in stock or coming soon!" There was a list of movies inside the flyer, many of which are not available, but there was nothing in the flyer to differentiate between what is available now, versus later. Each component for sale in Circuit City has a little placard in front of it that lists all the specifications of the particular component in question. The first checkbox, conspicuously blank for open DVD players, says "Will play both Divx and standard DVD discs". I perused the Divx title selection that didn't seem to have a shortage of titles, but there were many spaces as wide as a disc with a placard that gave a title and below it, it read "coming soon". In other words, lots of "blanks" were used to take up space, creating the illusion of more titles than there were. As in the hardware section, I was the only person checking out Divx titles. I also noticed a cardboard "Divx recycling" container, with a request that customers not wanting to keep the discs discard them in the box. It was empty.

Here's a reprint of an article in Barron's latest "Market Week section, courtesy of Dana:
"DVDS REACH CRITICAL MASS,", declared the front-page headline in last week's Computer Retail Week. Cynics would want to add the word: Maybe. For nigh on two years, DVD industry cheerleaders such as Warner Home Video's President Warren Lieberfarb have been touting the time of the new entertainment technology. But somehow the good times never arrived, and
sales of the new devices trailed most targets over two successive Christmas selling seasons.

A number of things went wrong, not least that the $600-plus players were too expensive, even as there were too few movies out in the new format. More recently, of course, there has been the additional problem with Divx, the rival DVD format planned by Circuit City that threatened to both confuse DVD buyers and split the market into incompatible factions much like Betamax and VHS did.

But now, for all these snags, it really does appear that the time of DVD is imminent. First, the makers of the DVD players have moved far enough along the technology learning curve to be able to make full-featured machines that sell at under $400, a price that could make DVD the hot item under this year's Christmas tree. Moreover, as a visit to any video or CD store will
confirm, there are now literally hundreds of movie titles available on DVD, with Disney, DreamWorks and every other major Hollywood studio now turning out movies in the new format.

At the same time, the threat of Divx has faded. Sure, the new players are becoming available in Circuit City Stores, but word is they're not moving fast. Indeed, so limited is the apparent potential that the company has seemingly given up on its attempts to seek an additional financial partner to fund the launch. No one was interested! The changes have not gone unnoticed in the DVD fraternity.

After a trial run at a few of its stores, Wal-Mart has concluded that DVDs could be hot, and it now plans to offer both players and discs nationwide. Others, like Target and Blockbuster Video, are also jumping on the DVD bandwagon.

When and if DVD does take off, some gain will flow to the makers of the players, the likes of Sony, Philips, Matsushita and Toshiba, all of which have lacked any really hot new consumer product since the compact disc. The same goes for the electronics stores. But the biggest eventual beneficiary, ironically enough, could be Circuit City. "A big success with DVD would not necessarily be all bad for Circuit City," says Harry Katica, who follows the company for Prudential Securities out of Atlanta. "Sure it would be better for them if Divx hit a home run, but most investors have long since discounted that possibility."

The worst scenario is that Circuit City keeps spending big bucks in a fruitless attempt to make Divx take off. A better one is that DVD is such a success that Circuit City gives up on Divx before pouring more money into the sinkhole. Explains Katica: "If they quit Divx, I'd be jumping for joy." So, too, might the stock, which now trades at 33 3/8, up from 32 15/16 a week ago, but down from a summer high of 55."

Here's another article appearing in Stereo Review:
DIVX UPDATE: Rumors of Divx's Demise...

No sooner did we herald the arrival of Divx ("Divx Is Here!") last month, than the first reports appeared that Circuit City would consider pulling the plug on the fledging pay-per-view video format. The company's inability to land an investor to help carry the burden of the promotion costs (Circuit City reportedly threw millions of dollars at Hollywood studios to get them to back the format) raised the ire of stockholders, who've been seeing Divx eat into their Circuit City dividends. When a stock analyst asked CEO
Richard Sharp if he'd be willing to write Divx's obituary late next year should the project falter, he responded, "If the performance of the business reached a point where we believed that it was not an attractive business for our shareholders, we would have to make the right decision."

Is Divx dead? Hardly. An outside investor could still step in to save the day. In the meantime, Circuit City has added $75 million to its initial $100 million investment to help Divx through the holiday season. Keep in mind, too, that Divx has just become available nationally, more stores will be signing on, and more players and software will become available as the holidays approach. Still, while the rumors of Divx's death have been greatly exaggerated, that hasn't stopped the vultures from beginning to gather.

--Michael Gaughn

The DVD sPy tells us that Warner Brothers will officially announce LETHAL WEAPON 4 on DVD, December 15, 1998.

And the hits just keep on coming! Bob Banka goes the full-tilt boogie route and reviews THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE as part of our October Fright series of DVD reviews. Better Bob than I to watch and review this Tobe Hooper horror classic. Although after sitting through DEAD-ALIVE recently, I suppose I could withstand just about anything. Yechhh!

TBP has another review ready for you -- We take an early look at Tuesday's Special Edition release of Artisan's SUICIDE KINGS. What's it all about, Alfie? Check Jeff McNeal's review of SUICIDE KINGS. This self-proclaimed "comedy-thriller" is no laughing matter -- but it is one great DVD! Oops! We almost forgot to mention -- we'll be giving away a copy of SUICIDE KINGS on Monday! Details coming soon!

One of our friends in Germany, Bjoern Roy, found something real interesting in Paramount's KISS THE GIRLS DVD. Two THX Trailers!! One anamorphic and one not. Real interesting, since KTG isn't a THX certified title. "Title 5 and 6 are THX trailers. (Titles NOT chapter of course). In the menu press STOP. Then select Title 5 or 6 and the the THX trailer starts, nicely followed by the movie." On our Sony DVP-S7000, we flipped up the door on our remote, selected "search mode" until "title" appeared, then entered the numbers that Bjoern mentioned and hit "enter". Voila! There were the trailers. Interesting! Thanks for the unintended Easter egg from Paramount, Bjoern!

Bjoern also had some interesting comments about the oft-complained about title THE SAINT. "The reason why the Panasonic players A110 and A310 seem to have problems with the picture quality of the disc happens to be a mastering error. If you skip still frames one after another, there are always 3 normal ones followed by two that display the even field of the current frame and the odd one of the next or last. Since those flags seem to be mixed up, the 4:3 downconverting from the anamorphic material does not work properly. Anamorphic display works."

Here's a Divx-related article from TWICE that slipped under our radar last week.

Think that a Divx ad might appear during The World Series?

Chris, from the excellent Anime on DVD website, shared this interesting interview with us from John O'Donnell, the head of Central Park Media, that provides an interesting rumor as to why we haven't seen any of Disney's animated classics on DVD. It's a controversial theory that if true, is sure to stir up some heated reaction from DVD fans. Thanks for the heads up, Chris -- and good job!