Looking for stories that used to be listed above? Use the button bar or these links to access the following sections: Reviews (DVD, laserdisc and hardware reviews), FAQ & Archives (old feature stories and interviews, and Jim Taylor's Official DVD FAQ) and Upcoming DVD Art (at look at upcoming cover artwork). Finally, My Two Cents - Archives contains all past daily editorial posts dating back to 12/97.
GIVEAWAYS
THE GIVEAWAYS ARE ON!
We've kicked off a new Giveaway, offering each of you the chance to take home copies of Warner and the BBC's Red Dwarf: Return to Earth and Fox's Aliens in the Attic on DVD. Entries will be accepted until Noon (Pacific) on Sunday, November 15th. Click on the links and follow the instructions to enter. Good luck!
Don't forget, you can always find a list of the winners for our previous contests and giveaways in The Winner's Circle. Congratulations to all!
Editor's Note: The Consumer Electronics Association has discontinued its reporting of DVD player sales data, and they have not begun reporting on Blu-ray player sales. However, our original CEA DVD Player Sales chart will remain available here for future reference.
TOTAL DVD TITLES (10/22/09 - DVD Release Report): 105,954*
*Net total of R1 DVD-Video discs released/announced. Discontinued & adult not included.
TOP 10 SELLING DISCS (10/11/09 - Nielsen/VideoScan):
1) Snow White... Seven Dwarfs
2) Monsters vs. Aliens
3) Year One
4) X-Men Origins: Wolverine
5) Bones: Season Four
6) The Wizard of Oz
7) My Life in Ruins 8) Tim Burton's Corpse Bride
9) Edward Scissorhands
10) Trick 'r Treat
TOP 10 RENTAL DISCS (10/11/09 - Home Media Research):
1) Year One
2) Monsters vs. Aliens
3) Ghosts of Girlfriends Past
4) My Life in Ruins 5) Management
6) X-Men Origins: Wolverine 7) Observe and Report
8) State of Play
9) The Brothers Bloom 10) Lies and Illusions
TOTAL BLU-RAY DISC TITLES (10/23/09 - DVD Release Report): 1,872/131*
*Net total of Region A discs released/announced. Discontinued & adult not included.
TOTAL HD-DVD TITLES (FINAL FORMAT TALLY as of 7/4/08 - DVD Release Report): 429/0*
*Net total of R1 discs released/announced. Discontinued & adult not included.
SOFTWARE MARKET SHARE - BD VS DVD (YTD through 9/27/09 - Nielsen/VideoScan):
Released/Announced or In Development - ( ) Not yet available on DVD.
MY TWO CENTS - 11/23/09 - by Digital Bits editor Bill Hunt
Well... good evening, folks! Man, have I ever had a day...
So there I am last night, working on a couple of disc reviews... watching discs on my PC to check various quality issues... when suddenly my Windows Vista desktop completely freezes on me. Just totally locks up, nothing to do for it but reboot. And then, when I reboot... every time it gets to the desktop, same result. Crash! Again and again, with me getting more and more pissed off. So after a night (and most of today) of troubleshooting, turns out the culprit is my NVIDIA graphics driver. I'd recently (about two weeks ago) updated my video card drivers, and apparently Vista didn't like it one bit, but took a couple weeks to let me know about it. HELL'S BELLS! Once I suspected what the problem was, I went and picked up a new video card - with an ATI chipset, cause NVIDIA can BLOW ME - ripped out the old card, swapped the new one in, and bam - problem solved. Then I went online just to see if anyone else had been having such problems, and it turns out something like 30% of the Vista crashes are because of corrupt or buggy NVIDIA drivers. Go figure. Tell you what: I will NEVER buy an NVIDIA graphics card again. Not for a very long time anyway.
And yeah... I know you Mac guys are all smirking your asses off right now, thinking how superior your hardware is versus anything running Windows, and I don't even want to hear it. Bastards. ;)
All right... the long and the short of it is, here's a review: The promised Farscape: The Complete Series, newly re-issued on standard DVD from the good folks at A&E Home Entertainment. The Cliff's Notes version is that the set is pretty good, especially if you've never owned the show on DVD before. For the SRP and sale price, it's a great value. But if you already have the previous Starburst Edition discs from ADV, you'll definitely want to stick with those instead. Anyway, you'll find all the details in the review. Enjoy.
Back tomorrow with more news, etc... hopefully with less aggravation involved. Stay tuned...!
11/20/09
Afternoon, everyone! Today's post is going to be a quickie, but we've finally got a couple of those reviews for you...
Our own Barrie Maxwell has checked in with a look at Sony's new Angels & Demons: Two-Disc Theatrical & Extended Edition Blu-ray, which hits stores next Tuesday (11/24). Also, Jeff Kleist has turned in his thoughts on Disney and Pixar's excellent UP Blu-ray, which is now available. Both are well worth your time and attention, so enjoy!
Meanwhile, I'm working on a review of A&E Home Video's new Farscape: The Complete Series DVD box set, among other titles. There's a LOT to cover in the box, but I hope to have that review for you on Monday.
Before we sign off for the week, however, I do have one quick update for you on Let the Right One In. As we posted yesterday, Magnolia has finally re-released the Region 1 DVD version in the States with corrected theatrical subtitles, but a corrected Blu-ray version is still MIA here. HOWEVER, the good news is that if you love the film and you just can't wait for Magnolia to get its BD fix in stores... we're told that Momentum Pictures' U.K. Blu-ray release (available here at Amazon.co.uk for about $22 USD shipped to the States) DOES have the correct theatrical English subtitles AND it's an all-region disc, compatible with U.S./Region A players. Thanks to all you crafty/import-savvy Bits readers who sent us e-mails to let us know about this edition. Where there's a will, there's a way... [EDITOR'S NOTE: We're now getting reports that the DTS-HD MA track on this import BD is defective, and that Momentum will have fixed copies available soon. Wait to order your copy until we've confirmed that fixed copies are in stock at Amazon.co.uk. Guess this film just had bad luck all around on Blu...]
All right, it's back to Farscape for me. Have a great weekend and we'll see you back here on Monday!
