First of all, the movie that launched Christopher Reeve's career, Superman: The Movie, will finally make its appearance on DVD in early May. There will be a load of bonus material as well as a new digital video transfer and audio remix. You can check out the full press release here, it sounds like it ought to be a winner. In addition to the "main" release, the other three sequels will also be released at the same time. However, they will not be special editions. A box set of all four Superman movies will also be available.

Secondly, fans of Thomas the Tank Engine will be happy to hear that Anchor Bay will be releasing a "Best of Thomas" DVD in the Fall. No details have been released yet, but based on the comments I heard at VSDA, it will be more than just a collection of shows. It'll be interesting to see what they come up with!

Finally, I've been receiving some additional info on the Dinosaur DVD problems. Over the past couple of months, MousePlanet reader Bruce Roberts has been updating me as he's been trying to return his problematic copy, and on March 26th he wrote:

I called the 800-72-DISNEY number today and the first thing I noticed was that the recorded message about problems with this disc was gone. I thought maybe it was a good sign. A live operator came on and I explained what happened in the past. She knew what was going on and told me to call back in 3 weeks as they were still trying to iron out the kinks on this DVD. She did not know how they were going to make this new version stand out from the old version when they do get it fixed. So, another three weeks and I will call again.

Thanks Bruce, keep us updated! I too haven't heard if there will be any differentiation between discs, so we'll have to wait and see what happens. As for my personal experience with this disc, I received my copy of the Dinosaur Collector's Edition last week, and, fortunately, both discs worked just fine on my Pioneer DV-525 (it's about a year and a half old). Additionally, I noticed an interesting statement on Amazon's sales page for the Collector's Edition:

Disney has acknowledged that this maximum-capacity disc may not play well on certain DVD players.

It's not terribly helpful for folks that want to buy it, and I imagine the uncertainty will ward off potential buyers until things get resolved. I'll keep monitoring the situation and provide updates as I get more info.

That's it for now, but stay tuned for more!

3/9/01

2/16/01

2/5/01

12/22/00

11/24/00

10/13/00

8/29/00