World in motion - 12:01am

Just in from MGM are details on a half dozen new additions to their popular World Films collection, all debuting on 11/5. Leader of the pack is Paul Verhoeven's influential early Dutch effort Spetters, presented for the first time on DVD in its unrated director's cut. The disc includes an anamorphic widescreen transfer, the original Dutch mono mix, an audio commentary with Verhoeven, and the trailer. Other titles in the line include legendary Italian director Pasolini's The Decameron, The Great Wall is a Great Wall, Madame Bovary, My Father's Glory, My Mother's Castle, and Too Beautiful for You. All are presented in anamorphic widescreen (except Madame Bovary, which is 1.66:1 non-anamorphic widescreen) with trailers. Retail is $19.95 a pop.

MGM has also announced specs for another 11/5 arrival, the recent Christina Ricci indie comedy Pumpkin. Pickings are slim: only 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen and full screen transfers, English, French and Spanish 5.1 Dolby surround tracks, production notes, and the trailer. Retail is $26.95.

'Rings' rules the charts - 12:01am

When a big-time studio decides not to play the numbers game, isn't it worthy of a plug? Or is it just a slow news day around here? It was certainly a forgone conclusion that the when The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring debuted on DVD earlier this month, it was going to easily obliterate the competition right out of the gate, likely on its way to becoming one of the top-selling DVD titles of the year, if not all time. But rather than play that old industry shell game - "front load" zillions of copies of a title, proclaim yet another blockbuster seller to the press, then quietly sit back and watch as the following months see a substantial percentage of copies returned from overstocked retailers - New Line opted instead for a policy rare in the industry: honesty.

At the Lord of the Rings Central Park "party on the lake" kickoff on August 3rd, New Line Home Entertainment president and COO Stephen Einhorn simply stated "We won't ship as many copies as Harry Potter," referring of course to parent company Warner's blockbuster release last spring, and predicted that the days of "front loading" blockbuster releases are "obsolete." Thankfully, don't expect a press release heralding Rings as the latest "Fastest-selling DVD of All-Time!" anytime soon...

But perhaps more interesting to the readers of these pages were New Line's official estimates of total DVD versus VHS shipments, as well as widescreen versus pan & scan breakdown. The studio placed total initial shipments at 65 percent DVD to 35 percent for the VHS, and 54 percent of total DVDs shipped widescreen, versus 46 percent pan & scan. Further sources indicate that more mainstream mass merchants, such as Wal-Mart and Target, made for a disproportionate number of the pan & scan shipments, compared to the more "high-end" retailers, such as Tower Records, which reported a sales ratio of 8 to 1 in favor of widescreen.

From these numbers it is clear that there is no denying that pan & scan has become a highly-requested DVD feature for retailers, if not consumers. But the numbers are also doubly surprising (and likely troubling to many) for a title that most previously predicted would skew heavily towards a demographic (mostly males 18-to-34) that already favors widescreen. So with a preference for widescreen versus pan & scan likely approaching the halfway mark, is it only a matter of time until the DVD format becomes even more mainstream and "full frame" becomes the preferred method of viewing for the majority? We can still hope not... but stay tuned.