As the software increases and the market widens for the digital video disc (DVD), consumers seeking value judgments on this year’s new video format are finding it easier to compare and rate it against other home viewing options.
Although there are now less than 200 DVD titles on sale, they provide enough evidence to draw certain conclusions about the format.
You may be sure, for starters, that DVDs are always superior in picture quality to the standard VHS videocassettes. As a rule, the DVD also has a sharper, deeper, richer picture than the older, connoisseur’s choice of laserdisc — but not by too much.
So far, laserdiscs, which have led the way in adding scads of supplementary features, such as “making of” documentaries and director’s commentaries, to the video package, are ahead in that area. But, in a few instances, DVDs are making advances there too.
For instance: Director Robert Altman’s 1992 film “The Player” was released for $99.95 on laserdisc in 1993 by The Criterion Collection in a spotless two-disc set that, besides the movie in its original wide-screen ratio, contains this generous menu of special features: audio commentaries by Altman, author Michael Tolkin and cinematographer Jean Lapine; interviews with Altman, Tolkin and actors and screenwriters about the film; deleted scenes; theatrical trailers; an illustrated Altman filmography; a photo history of films about Hollywood; and more than 150 production stills.
The new DVD edition of “The Player” (New Line Home Video N4032) doesn’t have that mass of special features, but, besides a crisp new wide-screen transfer of the film, it does have new audio commentaries by Altman and Tolkin, a video interview with Altman, the same deleted scenes as those shown in the laserdisc edition, and the original theatrical trailer. Unique to DVD are filmographies of the cast and cameo players, and a choice of multiple languages and subtitles. Like most DVDs and laserdiscs, “The Player” also has chapter stops to allow scene selection by the viewer. And all this on one five-inch disc with a retail list price of $24.98.
In a few instances, DVD releases are even outperforming their laserdisc counterparts in added features. For example:
The DVD of “Blazing Saddles” (Warner Home Video 1001, $24.98) for the first time on video shows Mel Brooks’ raucous sendup of Westerns in its original wide-screen dimensions, and, also exclusively, has an audio commentary by Brooks about making the movie.
And “Jailhouse Rock” (MGM/UA Home Video 906611, $24.98), in its DVD release, offers on the same disc both pan-scan and wide-screen versions of the 1957 Elvis Presley movie, plus, as with almost all DVDs, English, French and Spanish soundtracks and subtitles.
Meanwhile, back in laserland:
The World War II musical “The Gang’s All Here” (Fox Video 0182080, $39.98) is at last out on laserdisc., with director-choreographer Busby Berkeley’s surreal staging of “The Lady in the Tutti Frutti Hat,” vivid in its bright 1940s Technicolor.
The color sequences have deteriorated, the subtitles are
