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Friday, March 19, 1999
9:34am PST - Swimming with the fishes... Here's another interesting article about the possible Blockbuster/Divx bailout. Judging by the early results of our poll above, it would appear that as far as the early DVD adopter market is concerned at least, Blockbuster's support of Divx would be tantamount to wearing cement shoes for a long walk down a short pier...

8:22am PST - Did you know, remember (or care to reach back that far) that Fleetwood Mac was orignally a very blues-oriented band? Who's first hit in 1968 was "Black Magic Woman"? And here we thought it was a Santana original all these years!! Be sure to check out Image's THE ORIGINAL FLEETWOOD MAC: THE EARLY YEARS video collection, featuring 15 tracks. Some of the videos are in color, most are in black and white. Some of the tracks are in mono, others in stereo. It's a mixed bag throughout, but very interesting and entertaining. Check it out.

12:33am PST - Dreamworks hasn't been bugging us... Gee, we'd love to be able to tell you how wonderful Dreamwork's new DVD of ANTZ looks and sounds... but after our unbiased, tough-love comments about SMALL SOLDIERS and THE PEACEMAKER last quarter, it appears as though we've been kicked off the "A" list for advance reviews. But that's okay. We're not writing our reviews to make the studios glow and tingle -- we're writing them for you, so you know what to expect before laying down your cash. It's in our Mission Statement, remember? Rest assured, we'll share our objective impressions of this highly-anticipated title in the near future.

As for that interview with the development team for A BUG'S LIFE at Pixar? After we submitted our questions in advance, per Buena Vista's directive, the interview that was supposed to have taken place this week didn't materialize. A special thanks to all who responded to our invitation to submit questions last week. Right now, we're not sure when, or even if the interview with Pixar is going to take place -- the ball is in their court. Maybe they didn't like our (your) questions? We'll keep you posted.

12:10am PST - LaserPacific Media has posted fiscal 1998 year-end gains, based largely on their emergence as a DVD authoring and hi-definition industry leader.

6:25pm PST - With E-Town's recent (and long overdue) overhaul of their "It's All DVD Forum", which went to hell in a handbasket about the same time that Divx was introduced (a coincidence, we're sure), The BIG Picture DVD and Home Theater Forum remains one of the last frontiers of anonimity for people that want to discuss DVD and Home Theater related issues without having to "register" and follow a bunch of rules. All that we ask is that you keep it clean and that you don't pee on the rug while you're in our house, which is something we really haven't had a problem with. In other words, if you're housebroken, don't do or advocate anything illegal and can keep a civil tongue, you are welcome on our congenial and well moderated (if we do say so ourselves) user forums -- nicknames and all.

5:13pm PST - The BIG Picture takes you as our guest to the New Line Editor's Day, which we attended yesterday. Hear what we heard and learn what we learned about the making of PLEASANTVILLE and other cool behind-the-scenes stuff! While you missed out on the lavish buffet, you can still drink what we drank as you attend our exclusive, virtual cyber-conference (just go to the fridge and crack open a bottle of Coca Cola while you read the report).

1:51pm PST - Fasten your seatbelts and prepare to get mad. Very, very mad... If you thought that the Wal-Mart/Divx rumor was bad, this news will make you positively ill: In a stunning move, Blockbuster Video is rumored to be coming to the rescue of Divx -- and the news sent Circuit City's stock sharply upward today. For details on this development, check http://biz.yahoo.com/rf/990318/w0.html , http://www.snap.com/main/finance/news/story/0,234,-41481880,00.html or http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,33964,00.html?st.ne.lh..ni

Oh, and be sure to drop Blockbuster a line while you're at it -- at customer.service@blockbuster.com

12:15am PST - Let's start the new day with a big stack of hotcakes, three scrambled eggs, three sausage links, five strips of extra crispy bacon and two glazed donuts, shall we? Or, we can choose life instead and just slap another lean DVD review on the griddle. What do you say? Bob dishes up another grand slam breakfast with his review of BULWORTH.

11:46pm PST - We had a good, productive information session with the staff of New Line today at their "Editor's Day" in Beverly Hills. TBP is working on a Special Report, whih we'll post tomorrow. The idea behind the event was to better educate the press about the behind-the-scenes work that goes into their Platinum Edition DVD's. New Line used their latest release of PLEASANTVILLE for their example -- and we'll share some fascinating insights into the production of that DVD, which actually surpasses the quality of the theatrical presentation. We'll explain how tomorrow. We also enjoyed meeting Bill Hunt of The Digital Bits and shared our own behind-the-scenes "war stories" after New Line's presentation, which included sneak previews of upcoming films, including Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me. The banquet room was rolling with laughter during that trailer! We can't wait until June 11th!

7:44am PST - Top 'o the day to ya... The BIG Picture is cruising from the beach (San Diego) to the den of inequity (Hollywood) for a special New Line-hosted "Editor's Day". So this will be the last news item for the day... However, we'll return with photos and a full report for you tomorrow, to let you know what we've learned. Until then, we couldn't leave before wishing you a safe and sane St. Patricks's Day! But just don't tie too many on or you'll wind up looking like this:

12:54am PST - Like oil and water... MSNBC reports that lower-end Dell Inspiron (laptop) DVD-ROM drives crash whenever trying to play a recent Paramount DVD. The article seems to suggest that it's a Dell problem -- but what about Paramount?

12:30am PST - Here's more MGM news. They've bought their way out of the distribution deal with Warner Bros. Their agreement originally stipulated a cutoff in 2003, but after forking out millions and millions of dollars, MGM will be cooking with its' own gas beginning in February, 2000.

6:42am PST - Looks like MGM is cranking up the war machine once again, with the May 18, 1999 release of RUN SILENT, RUN DEEP and PORK CHOP HILL in both P&S and Widescreen -- along with Pan-And-Scan only versions of THEY WERE EXPENDABLE and BATAAN. MGM will also be repromoting A BRIDGE TOO FAR, THE DIRTY DOZEN, and THE GREAT ESCAPE. All titles include the original Theatrical trailer and eight-page booklets showcasing behind-the-scenes facts, title-specific trivia, and production notes. None of the Widescreen versions appear to be anamorphic.

6:45 a.m. PST -Columbia TriStar has announced the day and date release of STEPMOM starring Julia Roberts and Susan Sarandon on April 27th, 1999. As usual, this will be a dual-aspect disc with both full and Widescreen enhanced versions, and a Dolby Digital 5.1 mix with an English-only subtitle and language selection. STEPMOM will contain two Theatrical trailers: one for Stepmom and the other for My Best Friend's Wedding. Also on April 27th, Columbia TriStar will release THE THIEF, in Widescreen anamorphic only. This Russian film, written and directed by Pavel Chukhrai provides "a compelling and haunting look at life during Stalin's regime in postwar Russia... through the eyes of a six year old boy". Presented in its native Russian language, IN THE THIEF will feature it's original Theatrical trailer and subtitles an English, French and Spanish.

2:22pm PST - If you dig that Japanese Anime, then be sure to read this good news for fans of the genre from SycoNet.com.

2:15pm - Pack 'em up and move 'em out! Sonic Solutions has announced new DVD authoring tools at the DVD Pro University conference in Santa Barbara, to increase production of "high quality" DVD content in less time.

2:12pm PST - The New York Daily News has a nice little primer today for those wanting to dip their toes into the DVD pool.

2:01pm PST - PR Newswire reports that Oscar.com (www.oscar.com), the official Web site of the Academy Awards(R), has signed BigStar.com as its e-commerce video and DVD partner and lead advertiser. BigStar.com hosts the official Oscar.com store, which features discounted prices on movies that have been nominated for an Oscar, or have previously won an Oscar(R), as well as other movies in which 1998 nominees have starred.

1:48pm PST - It's not nice to fool Mother Nature... The BIG Picture reviews one of the latest eruptions from TCFHV -- VOLCANO.

10:25am PST - Call it VersaDisc no more... The folks at DVD4U.COM that brought us the original VersaDisc have done some remodeling. No longer calling the free DVD a VersaDisc (originally proposed as a monthly freebie -- so far, we've seen just one after a lengthy delay on their original target launch), the new VOB discs will still contain a full-length, full-frame feature film, but will also be loaded with lots of other cool stuff we all love like Theatrical trailers for current DVD's and upcoming theatrical releases. Wanna see what in the heck VOB stands for, anyway? Click here for lots of detail and some beautiful screen shots.

2:04am PST - Have you had the chance to check out TBP's WORLD EXCLUSIVE first look at PLEASANTVILLE yet? Our recent reviews have really been turning some heads! We've also added some new graphic images to our Pleasantville review.

We stopped by one of our local computer stores and picked up a 3rd generation Hitachi DVD-ROM drive off the shelf for a mere $125 and plugged that baby into our recently upgraded computer system.We were a bit surprised that the DVD-ROM drive was bare bones -- no cables, no software, no documentation -- no anything, except the drive itself, under some shrink-wrap plastic. Undaunted, we went about with the installation, which was fairly easy; we just used a spare IDE connector and connected power to the drive after we secured it in a spare bay on our PC. For sound, we connected a digital cable from the special digital out connector on the drive, to the corresponding digital input on our Soundblaster Pro Live card. Our system recognized the IDE device with no trouble -- but of course we learned (the hard way) that without a decoder (hardware or software), our DVD-ROM drive was dead in the water.

Anxious to get something working late Friday night, we scoured the Internet for a solution. What we found might be a good stop-gap measure for DVD movie viewing (so long has you have at least a PII 333 with plenty of RAM). A search of "DVD decoder" on the web produced some nifty sounding software called Power DVD Gold version 1.5, which works pretty good on our PII-333Mhz processor with 128k of RAM.

Power DVD offers an easy to use interface with plenty of options (except slo-mo and reverse). You can adjust the screen size to everything from a small window to a full-screen display. The software automatically senses the discs' aspect ratio and displays the correct one at all times.

Playing DVD's definitely puts a load on the processor, though, so we've sent invitations to both ATI and Sigma Designs to see if they'd be interested in having The BIG Picture put their DVD hardware decoders through their paces in a comprehensive review of DVD hardware and software decoders. For a long time, readers have been asking us to do hardware reviews, but we really weren't sure where or how to start... Perhaps this could be our first step in that direction. The graphics from our recent review of PLEASANTVILLE were all obtained with the Power DVD Gold software, which can be downloaded in a trial version for free, with a full, licensed version available for about $45.

Be looking for a comprehensive review sometime this week with the folks behind A BUG'S LIFE at Pixar. Disney has set up the interview for us, and The BIG Picture's VIP members have submitted many, many GOOD questions for us to ask.

Bob Banka has taken a look at the second in the DIE HARD trilogy -- DIE HARD 2 - DIE HARDER. It's a good read. We hope you enjoy it.