blu-ray disc

Director Stephen Sommers might want to discourage the production of animated lead-ups to his feature films. They keep outdoing the movies they're supposed to set up for audiences.

Before his Van Helsing reached theaters in 2004, Universal released Van Helsing: The London Assigment. Written by Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens, the animated half-hour was clever and action-packed. Van Helsing? It was not clever and action-packed.

Now, the DVD release of G.i. Joe: Resolute, an 11-episode series of animated shorts that originally aired on Adult Swim before the release of Rise of Cobra, brings a cooler and more visually compelling "Yo, Joe!" to screens.

You probably didn't know this but, according to research performed by Warner Brothers, there will be 25 to 28 million households with HDTV consoles by the end of this year. To all of you I have one thing to say: can you please send some bling my way so I can be added to that list of households? Oh, and add in about $130 so I can purchase The Sopranos Season 6 (Part 1) on hi-def DVD.

Yes, you heard me right! The Sopranos will be the first TV series to be released on the emerging HD-DVD format. HBO Video states that the hi-def set, which will average $129.99, $30 more than the standard DVD version, will arrive in stores on November 7th. HBO also said that a Blu-ray Disc version of Season 6 (Part 1) will be available next year.

For those of you still using those primitive low-def DVD players, HD-DVD and Blu-ray Disc are the next generation optical-disc formats competing for dominance in the the ever growing HDTV market. Currently, there are only two brands of HD-DVD machines in the market, and they are both made by the electronics giant Toshiba.