Latest video: Get with it, go DVD

By EWAN MCDONALD

Just when you'd got the hang of programming the video, expect a blitz of hype telling you that the machine's about to become obsolete. Yep, the VCR's going into the wheelie along with the turntable and the LPs.

If you believe Hollywood and the manufacturers, that is. Of course, that sort of marketing power has a way of making its predictions come true. Know anyone who's still got a beta video-player?

The new weapon in the campaign to move couch-potatoes from videotapes to the newer, high-capacity DVD, or digital video disks, comes by way of a threat from major film-makers.

They say the latest film may not be coming to a theatre near you. Directors say they are shooting footage for DVD that viewers won't get to see in theatres or on videotape.

Top directors, including Robert Altman, Werner Herzog and Bill Condon, say they are enthralled with the possibilities of DVDs, which allow studios to enhance films with commentary, widescreen and TV-formatted versions and documentaries on the making of the movies. Even alternative endings for viewers who don't like the way the Hollywood version came out.

"Most directors nowadays, even those who haven't paid much attention to video, now are forced to," said the famed American movie critic Leonard Maltin after chairing a panel at the American Video Software Dealers Association convention.

"A lot of them are thinking ahead about video even as they're making the film."

On the set of Gods and Monsters, a writer worked on a documentary about the film's subject, James Whale, who made the classic version of Frankenstein in the 30s, Condon says.

While shooting Kansas City, Altman worked up a 75-minute documentary on the jazz music used in the movie. Altman hopes to include the documentary in the DVD release.

The DVD release for Herzog's 1982 film Fitzcarraldo allowed him to enhance the sound and add a German-language version.

DVDs resemble compact discs but can hold far more information, with room for such added footage as director and actor interviews, movie trailers and scenes from the cutting-room floor.

They offer sharper sound and images than VHS videos, and viewers can skip around easily without having to fast-forward or rewind a tape.

And the movies arrive in the stores quicker. A top ten from one of New Zealand's major distributors last week lists six titles that are not yet available on tape - Wild Wild West, Entrapment, Austin Powers 2, The Haunting and Notting Hill. Arlington Road has only just begun its cinema run.

So how many of these toys are out there? There are no hard statistics from the ferociously competitive New Zealand industry but the number of DVD players in American homes has quadrupled in the past year to about 2 million, according to the Consumer Electronics Manufacturing Association.

In the United States, sales of DVD movies are running at about 10 per cent of the $NZ15.25 billion videotape market, according to industry estimates. DVD rentals lag behind that.

The main reason, industry observers say, is that until an affordable recorder-player comes on the market, videotapes will not go the way of vinyl records. In United States stores, low-end DVD players cost $NZ600 or less, but those that can record on to discs remain out of most customers' price range.

In a major downtown Auckland store this week the only DVD player on the shelves was on special at $899. It's usually $999. The rest of the display was filled with video recorder-players with price tags from $199.