Disc 7 which contains just the extras and is also Dual Layered :-
1) The Beginning
2) Selected Crew Analysis - Year One
3) The Making Of A Legend - Year One
4) Memorable Missions - Year One

As for the expected Retail Price...that's still unknown.   However, if you take into consideration that Paramount DVDs usually sell for $39.95, based on the "wholesale" price of their DVDs and their final "street" price, TNG should "street" for some $235. 
Now i must stress that is NOT a definite price, this is my own calculation based on the figures and prices i DO have access to.  And if you think $235 is WAY too expensive for a DVD Boxset,  look at it as being $9-$10 per TNG episode (with a digitial remastered picture and Dolby Digital 5.1 sound)..which is pretty darn cheap really.

Don't forget, we have pictures of the offical region 4 boxset (as well as the RENTAL verison amaray cases)

• Click HERE to goto the DVD Slicks and Menus Page

Paramount April/May DVD Specs
Coming this April from Paramount is the following :- Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Jennifer 8, The Longest Yard, Lara Croft : Tomb Raider, Love Story, Star Trek : The Motion Picture & Save the Last Dance.

• Click HERE for Paramount's April DVD Specs

The Region 1 release of Star Trek : TMP was something of a monumental event, for Director Robert Wise was never truly happy with the final version of TMP.  Quite a few of the special FX shots, and what not were never completed and were subsequently dropped from the film.
The DVD release fixes all this as he was given the chance to go back and rework his film to the way he wanted it.  Millions and Millions of dollars later we now have the director's cut of TMP. 

Our Region 4 DVD version sports a brank spanking new Anamorphic Widescreen Transfer with remixed and remastered Dolby Digital 5.1 sound (if it's anything like the region 1 DVD  its gonna look and sound fabulous :)

The specs that we were given were unusually very detailed, AND sadly there was no mention of the 2nd "extras" DVD which was included in the USA DVD release :(.  It would be a crying shame for Paramount Australia to deny us this disc, as it's quite an important edition to the new Version of the movie (not to mention the bags of hate mail Paramount would get from Star Trek Devotee's of region 4 :)  So we're chasing this one up  (everybody cross their fingers now please :)

Coming in MAY from Paramount is a film that (sadly) i've been hanging for...actually its the start of a movie series i've been (sadly) hanging for.   Friday the 13th Part 2 is on it's way with the rest trickling out each month or so thereafter.  So What happened to Part 1 i hear you all say? (well all 3 of you anyway :)  Well, good question.  Last time i checked WARNER held the distribution rights to Friday the 13th in Australia.  Now this was a LONG time ago that i last checked, but we're following that up to.

Other Than FTT:P2, there's also Alive, Amazons and Gladiators, Blackrain (sadly it's 4x3 letterbox), Marathon Man, One Night at McCool's, The Saint (the Val Kilmer one), War of the Worlds and You Can Count on Me.

• Click HERE for Paramount's May DVD Specs

PS Contrary to what Buena Vista's Spec Sheets say, Disney's ATLANTIS DVD contains a DTS5.1 Audio Track AND a Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround EX track with the "EX" flag to auto switch amps!  YAY!!   (the DTS track in ES Matrix 6.1 is phenomenal!)

...

Rush Hour 2 "6.1 Surround Sound" Review
Just released to region 4 is The Jackie Chan vehicle Rush Hour 2.   The DVD sports remixed Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround EX AND DTS ES Discrete 6.1 soundtracks and we've Fully decoded both mixes for review!

• Click HERE for our "6.1 Surround Sound" Review of Rush Hour 2

15 Minutes of Fame Reviews
We'd like to welcome aboard a new reviewer to DVDown Under, Kathryn Tonissen, whose first review is For Love and Country.  Welcome Aboard Kathryn! :)

Also reviewed is a film that didn't do all that well at the box office, but is none the less a fabulous film on a Senstational looking DVD, 15 minutes. 

• 15 Minutes - DVD Review
• For Love and Country - DVD Review
• Rush Hour 2 - DVD Review

Are You Afraid of the Boogeymen?
Universal, via their FILMMIX branch,  are soon to unleash all the main Boogeymen of the movieworld onto 1 DVD.  It's called (if you can believe this) BOOGEYMEN :The Killer Compilation.
Contained within is a heap of Movie Trailers which star a whole slew of horror icons (Freddy, Jason, Pinhead, Chucky, Michael, Leatherface and many more).

While the Trailers are a nice thing to have, the best part about this DVD is that you can play ALL the trailers in one go AND you can do so with a running commentary voiced by Freddy Krueger himself (Robert Englund). 

And if that's not enough for ya, you can activate the FilmMix Fact Track which is a prettied up subtitle stream that reveals all sorts of goodies about the movie your watching the trailer for.

From the looks of the sampler DVD send out by universal Recently, the region 4 version of Boogeymen appears to be exactly the same as the USA region 1 version released late last year.
In terms of picture and sound, the region 1 version was 4x3 with "re-processed" Dolby Digital 5.1 sound...meaning it was "faked" into 5.1.  it sounds fine though :)

Last I heard Boogeymen is due for release sometime in March, along with "Ultimate Fights" (which consists of sword fights, girl fights, fist fights, and so on.

Upcoming DVD Slicks and Menus
We took some menu shots from teh Boogeymen DVD sampler if you're interested, and also of the  upcoming Jurassic Park 3.

• Click HERE to goto the DVD Slicks and Menus Page

Granted, this was suppose to be a kids film (and we all know about Warner USA and their "family pan scan debacle" that plagued USA DVD'ers some months ago) But hands up those who know of their Adult friends who have gone Harry Potter mad also? 

Warner released the technical specs for their May/June releases the other day and the Specs for Harry say "2.35:1" on one line, with "4x3 Pan Scan" underneath. As I thought this was typo, (which I assumed was meant to have read 2.35:1 16x9), I dropped a line to Warner asking for clarification. 
The response back was "the version being released on the 28th May is Pan and Scan only"  NOOOOOOOOOooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!

For some reason, I'm still not 100% convinced of this information as there are several things to take into consideration. 
ONE, is that the USA version is well, TWO versions.  Separate releases of Widescreen AND Pan & Scan. 
TWO, the UK are ALSO getting TWO versions of HARRY.  Being Separate region 2 releases in Widescreen and Pan Scan. 
And THREE, Given this is a Warner Movie release around the world it's seems very much out of character that Warner aren't simply doing the usual region 2/4 encoding on their PAL version of the HP DVD...or DVDs as the case is for PAL for a change.

As uncommon as dual format releases are for Australia, and the UK, this is one instance where a studio HAS actually set out to make 2 different formats of PAL versions, of the 1 movie, and to be honest it seems really stupid to release an overall inferior DVD to the Aussie Market (not to mention the number of region 4 DVD'ers who will no doubt go buy either the UK or USA widescreen version) 

I'm sure this will be a hot topic for the next week or so and no doubt you'll be hearing more on this, well at least until the LOTR debate heats up and we find out whether or not region 4 is also getting two version released several months apart as is happening in the USA :))

Upcoming DVD Slick Shots
The Star Trek Fans among you are no doubt over the moon about the 10th of May DVD release of TNG Season 1 in Australia.
For the DVD release, Paramount are releasing the VERY cool utility-kit box thingy for the RETAIL DVD Box Set, BUT for RENTAL shops, the 7 DVDs will be available in Amarays, with some pretty sexy looking artwork.

We've also some slick shots of The Contender and Along Came a Spider (which is actually a PREQUEL to Kiss the Girls....hmmm)

• Click HERE to goto the DVD Slicks and Menus Page

Warner March/April DVD Releases
Headlining Warner's March DVD releases is the Spielberg/Kubrick collaboration, A.I- Artificial Intelligence.  While not one of Spielberg's most successful films in terms of Box Office Takings, it's none the less a beautifully subtle and very impressive movie experience.  The DVD should be a goer as well, sporting an Anamorphic Widescreen Transfer with a Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround EX track (though unfortunately Warner has neglected to include a DTS track as found on the USA release through Dreamworks :(  The Region 4 DVD is still loaded with extras though.

The TV Series Roots (starring a VERY young LeVar Burton) hits DVD in March..sadly it's another NTSC formatted region 4 DVD from Warner. (why oh why!)

You've also got Series 1 and 2 BOXSETS of FRIENDS,a Mohammed Ali doco, and a bunch of ...Pokemon movies.... YIKES!

THEN, in APRIL  the Mark Wahlberg vehicle ROCKSTAR tops the warner releases. Along with another bunch of NTSC format DVDs, AND what looks to be an RSDL re-release of Amadeus

• Click HERE for Warner's March Releases
• Click HERE for Warner's April Releases

In the upcoming Months there are more than a few DVDs which have movies that were either released to theatres in Dolby Surround EX, or specially remixed for DVD in EX.  (Dolby updates their EX listings about once a month and ALL these titles are included as being EX for upcoming DVD.)  Unfortunately, not all will be autodetected by EX capable amplifiers as the Dolby EX software bits and pieces are still not installed in all Dolby Encoders around the world.  This requires owners of EX capable amps to manually switch into EX mode...gasp :)

Anyway, here's pretty much all the Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround EX encoded DVDs that will make their way to region 4 over the next few months, some advertised as such :) and some not :(

A.I - Artificial Intellegence, Harry Potter, Atlantis, Rush Hour 2, The Mexican, Jurassic Park 3, Spy Kids. 
A Little further down the track you'll see, Monster's Inc. & Lord of the Rings : Fellowship of the Rings (finger's crossed LOTR gets the DTS-ES discrete 6.1 treatment, seeing as it's a New Line made moofy with Roadshow as it's Aussie distributor :)

Of all the DVDs above, only Rush Hour 2 and Jurassic Park also carry a DTS track.
In the case of Rush Hour 2 it was remixed specially for DVD and encoded as DTS-ES Discrete 6.1, and Jurassic Park is merely DTS5.1 Encoded, but rest assured the "EX" matrixed material is definitely embedded in the back surrounds of JP3, so can be played back using either THX Surround EX, "6.1 surround", or DTS ES Matrix 6.1 processing techniques (you just have to manually switch into the appropriate mode for this kick-arse soundtrack)

Finally, Some DVD Reviews
After quite a break away from the DVD Scene, we've a few reviews.  As a huge cricket fan, Paul was quite keen to get his mits on #2 of the Channel 9 Cricket Series on DVD (#3 is on the way folks :).  #2 is entitled, The Modern Masters.
Cass has reviewed Love & Sex, and Something to Talk About It.

• Cricket : The Modern Masters - DVD Review
• Love and Sex -  DVD Review
• Something to Talk About - DVD Review

Warner March/April DVD Releases
Over the next couple of months BV have quite a swag of DVDs coming to region 4, many of which are from their highly reputable Animation Catalogue.  While some of these are merely "sequels" to their better known big budget Theatrical releases, there's also a couple of Disney Classics thrown in for good measure. 

On the "original release" front coming under the "Walt Disney Classic" banner is  Alice in Wonderland, Dumbo and Peter Pan.  Whereas on the sequel front, there's Pocohontis 2 and Cinderalla 2.

February Also sees the release of the somewhat box Office underacheiver (at least for a Disney Film), ATLANTIS.  In the USA and the UK, Atlantis comes in 2 flavours. A Single Discs Edition AND a 2 disc Edition.   Region 4 seeings only 1 version, that being the 2 disc Edition (yay).

• Click HERE for BV February Releases
• Click HERE for BV March Releases

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