Eagerly awaited, the Special Edition of James Cameron’s original Terminator has once again been delayed. The title was first planned for release late this year and eventually moved to the first quarter of 2001 and has now been moved for release in the fourth quarter of next year. The reason for this significant delay are of legal nature. MGM Home Entertainment has acquired the rights to “Terminator” earlier this year but there are still contracts in place from the original owners, which give certain publishers a window to safely sell off existing product and empty their stocks. MGM Home Entertainment has to honor these contracts and has as a result delayed the release of the title to make sure no conflicts with these contracts arise.

DVD Review also had the chance yesterday to take a first look at the newly restored version of “Terminator” with the brand new 5.1 EX audio track that will be part of the DVD release, and I can promise you that you will be absolutely blown away by the richness of both, the image and the sound!

As we had pointed out during VSDA already, MGM Home Entertainment is ramping up their DVD release plans and has currently well over 300 titles scheduled for release in 2001! During a meeting with representatives of the studio yesterday, we were able to take a first look at these plans, while also discussing with them general DVD issues. DVD Review was invited to offer feedback and suggestions to help MGM Home Entertainment create DVD releases that are appealing to the DVD community. Many topics were covered over the course of this meeting, during which we tried to explain in detail, what DVD users expect from their releases according to the feedback that we receive here.

As part of the massive DVD roll-out next year, MGM Home Entertainment will introduce many of the lines they had established for their VHS releases, such as the “Soul Cinema” line, the “Contemporary Classics”, “Vintage Classics”, “Avant Garde Cinema” and “World Films.” One of the highlights to introduce MGM’s new commitment to DVD will be a Special Edition of When Harry Met Sally which will be released in January with a number of great extras. 44 titles are currently slated for release in January, so keep your eyes open for a full announcement of these titles in the weeks to come.