OAR outrage in Minneapolis (!?) (1 Viewer)

[Jonathan Burk]

A friend forwarded me the following article from the Minneapolis Star Tribune. It deals with OAR violations on DVD, focusing on recent Disney releases.
http://www.startribune.com/stories/389/2877512.html
Interestingly, the article ends with:

Coming soon to this space: Widescreen 101, a series of columns on understanding how movies are adapted for home viewing.

Go Minneapolis Star Tribune!

 

[Damin J Toell]

FYI, the author of the article, Randy A Salas, is a fairly active HTF member.
DJ

 

[george kaplan]

It's nice to see a mainstream piece that gets it right!

 

[Jonathan Burk]

FYI, the author of the article, Randy A Salas, is a fairly active HTF member

I totally missed that. No wonder he was so well informed.

 

[David Lambert]

Good job on the article, Randy!
I only have one bad thing to tell you about it. That's about your "In stores next week" listing. The 2 WB titles you mention (Innerspace and Oh, God!) dont' street until 7/9...6/11 is only their order-due dates! And Brideshead Revisited steets on 6/25. The only ones you were right about were Buffy, Yonkers, and Genius. Sorry to be the messenger! :frowning:

 

[Randy A Salas]

Thanks for the heads up, David. That was an outdated "In stores next week" list, compiled from an old release schedule before I left on vacation and never updated. It didn't run in the actual newspaper--I had to make more room for my rant and the Widescreen 101 blurb--but it never was cut from the computer file that went online.

 

[Dave F]

*sniff* This makes me proud to be a Minnesotan.
Nice work, Randy!
-Dave

 

[David Lambert]

The only problem is, is that a certain Minnesota-based chain already GETS the concept of selling OAR releases!
Randy, do you think your column could be syndicated out to any newspapers in Arkansas?

 

[Malcolm R]

Mr. Salas seems to have a decent outlook on DVD issues. I've read several articles at the Star Tribune website recently and other than a few minor factual errors on street dates and format availability, they are mostly well written.
However, I have to take some issue with this item from his "DVD Notebook: Best of 2000" list:

The inclusion of a DTS 5.1 audio track -- in addition to a Dolby Digital 5.1 track -- on some releases often leaves no room for meaningful extras, such as the interesting ''Into the Black'' documentary that didn't make it onto the ''Pitch Black'' DVD.

Movie first, extras are extra IMHO. For me, DTS enhances the movie. Extras are secondary to the presentation of the film itself.

 

[Brian Kidd]

While that may be true that the movie is the most important, I get a little miffed too when good documentaries are left off the disc to make room for a DTS track. Of course, nowadays most docs are bad EPK fluff. Thank God for Laurent Bouzereau (sp?) and the folks at Criterion and Anchor Bay. These people consistently put out quality supplements.

 

[Craig W]

Hopefully the studios are starting to realize that the hardcore movie fans are the ones driving the home video business. Most of the early DVD owners bought 20+ DVDs a year and are still buying at a fast rate. J6P is equating DVD to VHS with better picture so they may buy a few more titles at first, but I bet most of them will be buying around 5 or 6 titles per year and will rent mostly. They will snap up things like Harry Potter, but will mostly over look catalog titles that are being released new to the format.

Again to the studios, OAR or no money for you.

 

[MartinTeller]

For me, DTS enhances the movie.

For me, extras enhance the movie.

Remember, EVERYONE can enjoy a documentary. Not everyone has fancy-schmancy expensive HT equipment. I think the DTS track should be the first thing to be dropped when there's space issues.

 

[Matt Meyer]

I also enjoy the dts track over the extras. I don't mind if the studios release separate versions one with a bunch of extras and one with less extras and dts.
Best of both worlds.
Matt

 

[MartinTeller]

I also enjoy the dts track over the extras. I don't mind if the studios release separate versions one with a bunch of extras and one with less extras and dts.
Best of both worlds.

Yep, I agree. Make everyone happy.

 

[Jesse Skeen]

Why the f--- does it show Snow Dogs (released only in pan and scan) as the #2 best-selling disc???

 

[Ken Garrison]

I've compared DTS and DD 5.1 at my Uncle's place. There is a difference. DTS seems to have better and cleaner separation. I have Rush Hour 2 on DVD and it has DTS ES, Dolby 5.1, Dolby 2.0, and the Commentary track along with the Infinifilm stuff. I don't see why all the DVD companies can't fit DTS on a DVD when they did on Rush Hour 2. Rush Hour 2 has TONS of stuff on it. And it probably would fit more on it.

 

[Jason Seaver]

Rush Hour 2 is also < 90 minutes long.

 

[Randy A Salas]

Thanks to everyone who posted nice things here and to all who have emailed me privately. I'm just returning to work after some vacation time, so I'm playing catch-up. I'll reply to all of the emails by the end of the week.

Malcolm, I'm not sure what you mean by errors in format availability. If you could take the time to email and clarify, it would help me be more vigilant about making sure such mistakes don't happen in the future. Thanks.

As far as the whole DTS/DD debate, it's off the topic of this thread and I won't get into this hotly contested, complex issue here. I will say, though, that I worded that write-up from two years ago extremely carefully. The key phrase was "meaningful extras." I'll take the latter any day over a duplicative feature such as an alternate 5.1 track.

 

[Randy A Salas]

Randy, do you think your column could be syndicated out to any newspapers in Arkansas?

David, funnily enough, Scripps Howard News Service has just picked up my article. It moved today on the entertainment wires. Any newspaper that has access to SHNS can run it starting tomorrow. The wire slug for the article is BC-DISNEY-DVD(SH).

 

[David Lambert]

Heh...my local paper is a SH! I hate that paper, but I'll look for your article nonetheless. It will be great to see it locally, and see what people think!