TheDigitalBits has tons of DVD announcements which will make the rounds sometime this year, including The Godfather trilogy, Star Wars EP1, The Simpsons S1, Citizen Kane, etc...

For the complete list check the rumor mill

Work is ongoing on both the new version of Zoom Player and DVD Genie 4.0.

Problem is, getting these releases out is a bit of a hassle, lots of documentation writing and what have not, stay tuned.

Expanded the Video Capture guide with additional information.

Another great review by Kelly, An in-depth review of CoolDVD v2.1.

Took longer than expected as the initial review was for version 1.10 and had to be rewritten for the new version.

The Digital Bits is reporting that Warner Brothers have announced the release of one of my favorite movies, The Goonies!

Amazon was quick on the ball and already has it for Pre-Order at $18.74 with an August 21st release date!

A few DVD announcements:
Proof of Life: June 19th, $17.49
State and Main: June 19th, $17.49
Rio Bravo: May 8th, $13.99

A few more announcements can be found at TheDigitalBits. In some sort of weird release schedule, the complete first 4 seasons of South Park are being released as boxed sets (1 season per box). The weird thing about it, is that they are released out of order!

In any case, here are the details:
Season 4: April 16th, £40.19
Season 2: April 28th, £30.19
Season 1: May 7th, £32.75
Season 3: June 18th, £40.19

New mirror in place, thanks to Pisho.net.

Kelly has done it again. An in-depth review of SoftDVD MAX 6.0.

This review has taken longer than any previous, mainly due to constant updates from MGI (as you can read in the review). Interested to know what's new? read it here. OK, it seems that DVD Alliance couldn't support the bandwidth requirements of mirroring DVD Genie and the various files offered on this page. I will be trying to arrange for a new mirror, but if anyone can provide a site with FTP access for upload and HTTP access for download, please contact me.

Looks like 80's TV series are making their way onto DVD!, check these out:

Knight Rider, The A-Team, The Six Million Dollar Man, Airwolf, Miami Vice, Bionic Woman, Columbo, Ironside, The Incredible Hulk, Kojak.

And even one show from the 90's:

Third Rock From The Sun.

Announcing Zoom Player 1.32.

A few important bug fixes, a few user requested features and a new built-in Chapter editor, enjoy.

Download the latest version here.
And the complete history list here.

Looks like one of my favorite films, Goonies is going to be out as a special edition sometime during October, looks this this X-Mas shopping season will be packed with DVD releases.

TV Tool 5.0 is out.

TV Tool is a tweaking tool for NVIDIA based card that use the bt868/bt869 for TV-Output. It improves TV quality considerably and is a worthwhile download.

The mirror problems should be resolved now (hopefully).

In other news, work toward the next version of DVD Genie is progressing nicely. With the help of several people who eMailed me a few specs about their RPC2 drives, I have been able to write an RPC detection code which will be implemented into the next version of DVD Genie. Hopefully this will lessen my load of eMails regarding locked drives.

A special edition of The Fugitive is set for a June 5th, no details about extras are known at this time.

I still need a mirror for DVD Genie and the other releases I'm working on, if you can supply a mirror, please Contact me.

I'm working on the next version of DVD Genie and for that I need your help, please read this.

A couple more release dates:
Dungeons & Dragons - Platinum Series: May 15th, $17.49
Tootsie: May 29th, $17.46

The Digital Bits is reporting that Miramax has quite a few titles in the work including a re-release of Pulp Fiction and Kieslowski's color trilogy.

Here are several other releases of note:
Defending Your Life: April 3rd, $13.99
Bounce: April 10th, $20.99
9 to 5: April 17th, $17.49
Working Girl: April 17th, $17.49
Little Nicky - Platinum Series: April 24th, $17.49
All the Pretty Horses: May 6th, $17.46
Pay it Forward: May 15th, $17.49

Jeremy Hummel reports that "O Brother where art thou?" has been released in Finland last week at an estimated price of 169 FIN. Unfortunately I'm not really familiar with retailers that carry these for global shipping.

Jeremy also reports that a 2-Disc edition of "Dawn of the Dead" has been released by Future Films and contains both a Director cut and a European cut of the film.

AICN has dared to make a guess at the Star Wars:Phantom Menace release date, take a look.

While Amazon has "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" for sale in June, it seems that the UK is one upping the Region 1 release so to speak. BlackStar has Brother up for an April 9th release date, currently retailing at £17.99 (including world wide free shipping). This is probably the case since this movie was released in Europe prior to the American release. If you're unfamiliar with this movie, it's probably one of the Coen's brothers best films to date, in my view solidifying Clooney's range as an actor. Really a good funny story being told here.

And in other release notes, Farscape's 2nd disc of the 2nd season has been announced for May 7th, for more information on this release, click here.

P.S.
Farscape Season 3 premiered yesterday on SciFi, gonna watch it soon, should be a riot as Season 2 had one of the most memorable cliff-hangers of recent times.

I have it, the Highlander R2 DVD.

Ok, I'm, not really a reviewer so I'll just point things out from a viewer's point of view.

The DVD Comes in a Transparent Amaray Keep Case. The Transparency is used to it's full effect as the jacket is printed on both sides, looks very nice.

When loading the DVD it does something I've never actually seen before on a DVD, which is to ask you which language you want the menu to be. Menu languages include French, English, Spanish and Italian. All the menus are animated and include some action sequences from the film. They are nicely done.

The extra features on the disc include Filmographies of Christopher Lambart, Sean Connery and Russel Mulcahy which reach up to 2000. Additional features include a Trailer, Posters, Posters Projects, Photo Gallery and an 8 minute French (english subbed) Interview with Christopher Lambart which for some strange reason can't be seeked?!.

The movie itself defaults to French subs (Dutch subs are also optional), but luckily enough, they are not forced and can be disabled. The video itself seems to be anamorphic widescreen, but it's slightly shrunk, giving a black border, presumably to combat overscan, although personally, I would prefer the extra pixels to go towards video.

The Video and Audio quality can not be compared to the R1 release as it's the R1 release was the worst DVD ever released (quality wise). The quality in the R2 release is good. It's not reference quality, but it's quite nice.

In conclusion, if you've been waiting for a good version of this film on DVD and you can play Region 2, go for it. The link above points to BlackStar which has it for sale at £11.69 with free shipping world wide.

Looks like the Star Wars feeding frenzy is up at arms again. Memos, rumors and leaks are abound, some say a December release date, others list Supplemental Features.

There's even a memo pertaining to be from the DVD Authoring house.

Of course, this is rumor #45532 with regards to Star Wars DVD, so take it with a grain of salt.

Just spent the latest several hours writing a very nice article on Video Capture. Something that might benefit quite a few people I know.

So, if you've even been interesting in getting the best out of Video Capture, click here.

I got a few eMails about this ... I still haven't received my Highlander R2 DVD, the moment I will I'll do a bit of comparison against the R1 version (or the "Worst DVD Ever" as I like to refer to it).

If it isn't detained, it should be here shortly (within 2-3 days) and then I'll post a news-bit.

Yet another announcement:

O Brother, Where Art Thou?: June 12th, $20.99

Special note... this movie is very funny, Clooney shows more diversity than one would expect from him.

Even more pre-orders!

The Emperor's New Groove - Ultimate 2 Disc Edition: May 1st, $27.99
Quills: May 8th, $20.99
Sex and the City - The Complete Second Season: May 22nd, $34.99
Vertical Limit: May 22nd, $14.97
Close Encounters of the Third Kind: May 29th, $19.57
The Mexican: October 2nd, $24.49
Chocolat: October 30th, $24.49

Announcing the release of DVD Genie v3.86.

Ok, here is the new DVD Genie, this version mainly improves CineMaster 2.0 engine support, check it out.

For the complete history list go here.
To download DVD Genie v3.86, click here.
To download additional language files, click here. I am in need of additional mirrors for DVD Genie and the rest of the files offered on this site, if you can provide a mirror I can upload to directly, please mail me.

I've begun work on revamping some of the CineMaster/ATI code in DVD Genie so it will work better with the newer versions out there. If all goes well, DVD Genie 3.86 might be out this weekend, stay tuned. Wow, a barrage of new kick-ass pre-orders!

Unbreakable: June 19th, $20.99
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: July 5th, $20.99
Castaway: July 12th, $20.99
Hannibal: October 30th, $24.49
The Grinch: December 11th, $24.49

This seems like a new trend, announcing a movie that's over 6 month away. A bit early to start hitting up for that holiday cheer, but hey, I'm not one to complain. If you're up for a laugh, click here.

Tripods. Sort of expanding on the premiss of War of the Worlds, tripod is based on the John Christopher trilogy in which aliens conquer the earth and enslave humanity, traveling in Insect-like traveling machines (see picture). In my youth I was fascinated with this series and watched the first two seasons. I never actually found out if they ever filmed the third season as it wasn't aired in my country. BlackStar has it priced at £22.49 with a March 19th release date and free shipping world wide.

On a side note, March seems to be an awefully busy month for good releases, both in Region 1 and Region 2. May also seems to be building well.

It seems DVD is finally getting an additional push. Lets just hope some of the people who hold back will move forward (I could use Goonies:SE, Back to the Future trilogy and of course the Indy trilogy). Lam informs me that the T1:SE listed below will also be released in Spain on March 8th, priced at 4500pts.

I can't believe I didn't catch this one sooner! Looks like after they test-released this in Australia, The Terminator (the first one) is now being released in the U.K. It's a 2-Disc special edition with the following goodies: Remastered with 5.1 audio. Terminator - A Retrospective. 'Other Voices' documentary. Deleted scenes. Foreign trailer. Alternative trailer. Teaser trailer. TV spots. James Cameron's artwork stills. Production photos. Stan Winston's photos. Visual effects photos. Publicity material. Original theatrical script stills. And even more goodies for DVD-ROM: Original theatrical script. 1984 4th draft script. Final shooting script. BlackStar has it priced at £22.49 with a March 19th release date and free shipping world wide.

BlackStar is running a DVD clearance sale, with some titles up to 50% off, check it out.

A bit late, but ... Announcing Zoom Player 1.30.

This version was a long time coming, I've implemented tons of back-end functions and fixes. There's simply too many changes to list here, so take the time and go over them by using the History List link below.

Download the latest version here.
And the complete history list here.

Some forthcoming release news and rumors:

It seems that Star Trek: Deep Space 9 and Voyager may be coming to DVD sooner than you might think, possibly as early as the 4th quarter according to rumors coming from TheDigitalBits.

It seems that due to the way The Next Generation's first seasons were shot, it would be easier for Paramount to release the newer seasons first (less restoration work needed).

In other release news, Close Encounter of the third kind may find it's way to DVD in May, not exactly sure which cut it will be, more details to follow.

It's march again, and lots of good movies are released this month.

Some last-minute preorders: DVD Name: Date: Price: Discount: Meet the Parents 6th $18.89 (30%) Rear Window 6th $20.99 (30%) Almost Famous 13th $18.89 (30%) Ben-Hur 13th $17.49 (30%) Bedazzled 13th $18.89 (30%) Legend of Drunken Master 13th $20.99 (30%) Roughnecks - The Starship Troopers Chronicles 13th $17.46 (30%) Wonder Boys 13th $20.99 (30%) Remember the Titans 20th $20.99 (30%) Frank Herbert's Dune 20th $17.49 (30%) Dancer in the Dark 20th $17.49 (30%) Red Planet 27th $13.99 (30%) Charlie's Angels 27th $19.57 (30%) The 6th Day 27th $17.46 (30%)