News and Opinions

HBO Home Video will release the Complete Sixth Season of OZ on September 5th. This 3-disc set will inclued all 8 season three episodes presented in 1.33:1 Fullscreen along with Dolby Digital 5.1 audio. Extras will include three episode specific audio commentaries (with series creator Tom Fontana and members of the cast), original cast audition tapes, 30-minutes of deleted scenes and an extended cut of the series finale: Exeunt Omnes.

Warner Home Video will release the Complete Third Season of Nip/Tuck on August 29th. This six-disc set will present all fifteen season three episodes in anamorphic widescreen transfers, along with Dolby Digital 2.0 (English) auido tracks. Extras will include a documentary, unaired scenes, and a "revealing look" at the season finale.

The DigitalBits RumorMill is reporting that late 2006 will see the release of the originial (Han shoots first) versions of the trilogy released to DVD. Keep your fingers crossed!

Click Here to see the Guardian's Top 10 (Blade Runner, 2001, SW: ESB, Alien, Solaris '72, T1/T2, The Day the Earth Stood Still, WoW '53, The Matrix, Close Encounters). Got it? Now, compare and contrast with the Top 25 as detemined by UpcomingDiscs DVD BATTLE. Ummm, someone vote down "Aeon Flux" already. Please.

Lorin Thwaits dissects an HD-DVD Player

Some crazy dude bought a Toshiba HD-DVD player and pulled it apart to find that its essentially an off the shelf desktop PC using a Pentium 4, a gig of PC2700 ram, and RedHat Linux stored on a 256MB NAND flash module. There's also apparently a USB bus, and all sorts of interesting stuff in there. So - does this make the Tosh player a super-hackable ultrafun home theatre accessory? Yes....Perhaps its an adoption strategy a la Tivo to drive grassroots support; or maybe its just a rush-it-to-market design strategy byproduct.

UpcomingDiscs is proud to release our new site design. Along with the new look, we have also added some new functionality (i.e. enlarging cover thumbnails and screenshots, comment on blog posts, new RSS feeds), and fixed some old functionality (i.e. DVD Battle). Please add your comments on the new design.

Fox Home Entertainment will release the 2006 remake of The Hills Have Eyes in separate R-rated & Unrated editions on June 20th. Each will be presented in 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen transfers, along with Dolby Digital 5.1 and 2.0 audio tracks (the R-Rated version will also include a 1.33:1 fullscreen transfer). Extras will include an audio commentary (by director Alexandre Aja, screenwriter Gregory Levasseur & producer Marianne Maddalena), A behind-the-scenes documentary made up of a collection of featu...ettes, a music video & trailers.

New Line will release the teen-horror flick Final Destination 3 in separate widescreen and fullscreen "Thrill Ride" Editions on July 25th. Both versions will be include English DTS 6.1 ES, Dolby Digital 5.1 EX & 2.0 audio tracks. Extras will include an audio commentary (by director and co-writer James Wong, co-writer Glen Morgan & director of photography Robert Mclachlan), a "Choose-Their-Fate" Interactive feature, two featurettes ("Dead Teenager Movie" & "Planned Accidents"), a "Kill Shot: The Making of ...inal Destination 3" documentary, an "It’s All Around You" animated short, a deleted scene, and the theatrical trailer.

UMD looks like its on its way out, with Wal-Mart purportedly taking UMD off the shelves, studios stopping UMD production, and backlash building against proprietary formats.

Warner Home Video will release the Harrison Ford & Paul Bettany thriller Firewall on June 6th. This disc will be presented in a 2.40:1 anamorphic widescreen transfer, along with an English Dolby Digital 5.1 audio track. Extras will include a conversation with Harrison Ford & director Richard Loncraine, a "Firewall: Writing a Thriller" featurette, & the theatrical trailer.