I haven't had a chance to watch the three documentaries on the second disc, but the three "extended musical sequences" are a big disappointment. Rock and Roll Ruby only adds about a ten second instrumental lead in from the film version. Jackson pieces together two separate sequences from the film (the end concert and the Vegas concert) in order to make a complete song. This same pieced together film sequence was part of the enhanced CD content of the film's soundtrack. Finally, Cocaine Blues only adds the final line of the song, which was edited out of the movie. I really would have preferred to see more of the songs that were severely edited down for the film like Ring of Fire or Wildwood Flower. The film's co-writer Gil Denis was quoted as saying the original cut of the film was 3.5 hours long so I'm pretty sure the material is out there.
Depends where you look. I went to 3 different places in town and the 2 disc was only $3 more than the single disc. To me, an extra $3 is a small price to pay. To each t heir own though.
I picked up the single disk yesterday, as it was the first thing i saw. When I came home I opened it and it dawned on me that i wanted the 2 disk set. Oh well. Live and learn. The movie is excellent. I watched it last night and am thinking I may rewatch it again tonight with my buddies.
I don't like the cover art for the "Collectors Edition" I'll be remaking the cover soon. But really the only reason it seems to me to get the 2 disc set is if you're a huge fan of Cash, I am so I got that one, but I probably would've been OK with the one disc until a directors cut or something came out. This'll probably hit HD-DVD or Blu-Ray soon after they get released later this year anyway.
As for the commentary it's alright, but I was hoping that Jim Mangold would talk more about the talks he had with Johnny or more on the making, while he does talk about it, he more or less talks about how long he's wanted to make the project, who he wanted involved in it and then proceeds to near foreplay talking about them. Occasionally he'll mention John or some conversation they had, but it barely gets mentioned. There's a section in the beginning where he goes off about how he didn't want to bash people over the head that these people were Elvis, or Roy Orbison or Jerry Lee Lewis or make it too obvious that Joaquin was Johnny. Overall I stopped listening right after John and June meet in the diner, it got old. I wish Joaquin and Reese had their own commentary tracks, Joaq's would've been cool. The one thing I will say that I learned from the commentary, that Joaquin's nickname is Joaq (pronounced as walk.)
I love the movie though, easily one of my favorite films of all time, just a bland dvd treatment, imo.
There are no Tower stores in my state, but we have plenty of CC, BB, Walmart and Targets where the price difference is much greater. It looks like they're mostly a California retailer.
The three stores I price checked were HMV, Cinema 1 & Rogers Video. All three had the single-disc edition for $26.99. The two-disc sold for $29.99. Canadian dollars of course. If the difference were much greater, the likelihood is I would've passed on the 2-disc myself. But for $3 difference, I saw no reason not to get it.
I also felt that the audio levels were quite inconsistent throughout the movie. Listening to the DTS track, I found the concert performance scenes much louder than the dialogue scenes - about a +/-10 step difference on my Onkyo. Increasing the center channel output didn't help much, either. A few of the "worst" scenes (from my memory) for whisper-quiet dialogue were the opening flashback with Jack and J.R. in their room and the later diner scene with Johnny and June. If I didn't have to worry about upstairs neighbors I would've just played the dialogue scenes at normal levels and then let my speakers bring the house down during the performances , but I found it a bit irritating that I constantly had to have my thumb on the volume controls throughout the film.
This was just my experience with the DTS track, but it looks like someone else had the same problem with the Dolby flavor as well. I realize that some of it may come down to personal tastes in volume levels/speaker configurations, but all in all it made the movie-watching experience less than optimal. I could never really "lose myself" in the movie because I had to keep anticipating the next dramatic volume change.
Not sure whether or not you are still having issues with Power DVD or not, but I've had squeezed image problems also and solve them by bringing the image into Paintshop, where I use the deformation tool to re-size them properly. Please forgive me if this is something you have known for years...