About Dave's Video

For those unfamiliar with Dave's Video in Studio City, it is a great place to shop for laserdisc, DVD and general electronics products, and is the longest-running disc specialty retailer in California. It is also known to many as the "shop to the stars," with many a legendary celebrity and industry figure stopping by to pick up the latest title or piece of hot equipment. It has a nice, "wide" floor plan, so it was easy to walk around, chat and shop. A cool place worth visiting if you are ever in the Los Angeles area, and the video store to go to for spotting LA celebrities!

Pre-Show?

Just another sign of DVD's emerging importance (and moneymaking capability), Studio Day just capped the end of a busy week of events. Aside from Universal's invite-only party celebrating the new DVD and VHS release of Touch Of Evil, on the Friday before Studio Day, Twentieth Century Fox hosted a demonstration of the new X-Men DVD for the press and visiting members of Home Theater Forum, as well as a preview of other upcoming Fox titles and a roundtable discussion including Fox representatives, Marvel Comics' Stan Lee and X-Men director Bryan Singer.

While we'll have a separate special report on the X-Men show next week, Fox outlined their DVD strategy for the future, previewed some new titles and answered questions from the press on their DVD commitment. Other studios, including Paramount, also hosted members of the Home Theater Forum for tours and previews, so as the DVD format grows, so does Studio Day as an important annual event for the industry and the enthusiast. This year also witnessed a couple of celebrity spottings, with film critic Leonard Maltin once again making an appearance (Mr. Maltin is a diehard movie lover and a true fan of DVD), and even Brent "Data" Spiner was seen walking the aisles...

General Trends

If there was a slogan that best summed up this year's Studio Day, it might be "DVD rules!" With over 10,000,000 players shipped already (and growing), DVD has become big business, as evidenced by the strength of each studio's presence and overall DVD commitment. Many of the most hot-button issues that dogged previous years were answered this time, or may even be considered afterthoughts now. Lack of day & date support, anamorphic enhancement and breadth of supplemental features are all generally supported by every studio, so complaints about these issues were often the exception rather than the rule, though far from nonexistent.

But while it is fair to say the studios in general are lowering prices, delivering better picture and sound, and more extra features than ever before, there are still issues that if not entirely resolved at least seemed to have made headway this year. DTS support, while still spotty, is stable though no explosive growth seems on the horizon. While Dreamworks, Fox and New Line remain interested in offering DTS on select titles, Warner, Columbia, Paramount and MGM remain noncommittal or disinterested. The lowering of prices is also becoming more common, and of course rental pricing remains a wild card. The general party line with every studio rep we talked to (the majority of attendees came from the production or publicity side of home video, not marketing or sales) was "that's a marketing issue, talk to them!" While few studios have come out and said they will attempt a rental pricing model on DVD anytime soon, at least one, Fox, has been open that they are at least toying with different models of DVD/VHS release patterns (see our recent editorial on that subject for more.)

But, the more things change, the more they stay the same. The great debate of packaging seems to remain at an impasse. Warner is still holding on to their venerable "snapper case," so consumer's apparent desire for single, standardized packaging option remains frustrated. And inquiries on the subject of the reissuing of DVD titles often produced cagey responses, as one had to read between the lines to infer that many studios see long-term prospects for DVD, so reissuing titles is a natural progression building upon the common early DVD release strategy, i.e., just get some titles out there and lets see what happens to the format. Now, with DVD maturing, all the studios seem eager to "eventize" their catalogs, picking key releases to promote, and taking more time and care in the selection of what catalog product to release when. And no studio ruled out revisiting early DVD titles again to either do them better, via adding extra content, transfers or sound mixes (i.e., DTS) to "relaunch" them. And not a single studio we talked to was not planning a well-thought out, "staggered" release schedule over the next several years. Don't expect a flood of every big "A"-list titles from any studio; big catalog titles will be released on a deliberate, methodical schedule from here on out.

Finally, even the topic of hotly-anticipated but still missing "A" list titles by certain directors was broached, but you'll have to read each studio's news for more on that!

A Look Ahead To 2001

So, let's get on with the show! Following is a look at what is on the way, broken down by studio. As is always the case, there is never quite enough time to find out about everything, but there is certainly a wealth of good stuff to look forward to. And, it goes without saying that all titles discussed can see their release plans change, but this comes from studio reps own mouths, so as always it should give a good taste of things to come. Also, I'm not going to bother to talk about current theatrical releases very much unless they are something really special or noteworthy, because you already know that hits like Charlie's Angels, Meet The Parents and The Grinch are going to wind up on DVD next year, don't you? And finally, in somewhat of a change from our coverage of previous years' events, we will also be mentioning the many titles asked about that aren't coming out, not just the ones that are. As more and more people write to us and request their favorite titles, we just want to make sure you know when we did inquire about a specific title, but it just isn't in the pipeline. Anyway, off we go!

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