Garrett Lee
Director of Marketing

Why is it that Image discs hardly contain subtitles at all, or if they do only English ones, completely ignoring the French or Spanish speaking audience?
We do not feel the expense is warranted to include foreign language subtitles for English language films. We are not receiving complaints about it either. We believe that the overwhelming majority of consumers who purchase Image DVDs speak, read and understand English. Just to include a number of foreign language subtitles “because you can” is not worth the expense and, in many instances, these subtitles are not available for the titles we release.

Does Image have any plans to get rid of the Snapper- cases and switch to Amaray cases at some point?
For the present, we will continue to release our programming in the snapper packaging.

"Dances With Wolves" is the first Image RSDL release, I have seen. Are there plans to utilize this feature more in the future to allow for better quality video and/or extra features? Why will the upcoming DTS version of "Dances With Wolves" not be available on an RSDL disc?
We have released MANY RSDL discs. Dances With Wolves is definitely not the first. We have, and will continue to use RSDL whenever necessary. The forthcoming DTS edition of Dances With Wolves will be a two-disc DVD set comprised of one RSDL disc and one single layer disc.

What is the reasoning behind enhancing the video throughput on the DTS version of "Dances with Wolves", in a release that is predominantly bought for its sonic quality - or to ask differently, why didn't you use the higher video bitrate on the Dolby Digital version as well?
The Dolby Digital and DTS editions of Dances With Wolves were compressed by two different people at two different facilities. The engineer who worked on the Dolby Digital edition of the film found that an average bit rate of 4.7 Mbps (with peaks over 8 Mbps when necessary) would replicate every bit of detail from the new master we created for this release. Even at this bit rate, the DTS edition could not fit on one RSDL disc due to the additional space needed for the DTS audio track. So, knowing that the DTS audio would require a second disc, the engineer working on the DTS edition of the film “upped” their bit rate to an average of 7 Mbps. The DTS version averages a constant 7 Mbps throughout the program. This does not necessarily mean that the picture will be better on one disc over the other. A better comparison could be achieved had the two versions been compressed at the same facility, by the same person, at the two different bit rates.

We feel that the Dolby Digital DVD of Dances With Wolves, fitting in its entirety on one RSDL disc, will more than please DVD owners. The phenomenal reviews we’ve received point to this. The DTS edition, while spread to two discs, will appeal to the consumer that has DTS decoding capability in their system. It is important to note that, contrary to earlier speculation, the DTS audio carried on this DVD is run at the highest bit rate possible for DTS audio (1.536 Mbps). There has been no compromise to the DTS audio bitstream for DVD. If this uncompromised bitrate necessitates a second disc, so be it. The overwhelming majority of DTS DVDs will fit very nicely onto one DVD disc.

So, in conclusion, we are completely satisfied that our two editions of Dances With Wolves will blow the socks off of anyone purchasing them.

Can you tell us why Image DVD releases have so limited extras?
We believe that as the DVD market shakes itself out, special edition DVDs will be the exception to the rule. We believe this because we have an 18 year history of laserdisc AND 20-plus years of home video to draw upon. There are certainly DVDs on the market that richly deserve the preferential treatment and expense that the studios have lavished upon them. There are probably more DVDs out there that don’t deserve such treatment, but were given it nevertheless as a way of showing off the capabilities of the technology in order to hook early adopters.

There is nothing special about a special edition if everything you do is a special edition.

Let’s face it, Image is not a “studio” per se. We don’t have the resources at hand to create something on the scale of, say an L.A. Confidential. Warner Home Video has all the resources at their fingertips to release  special editions of  Warner movies on DVD. Image does not have all of the resources at its fingertips to release a special edition of somebody else’s movie. Whenever possible, and feasible, we try to bring a little something extra to our titles. We’ve recorded audio commentaries for Bull Durham and Dances With Wolves. We even went to New York and recorded Stephen Sondheim, James Lapine, Mandy Patinkin and Bernadette Peters for our forthcoming special edition DVD of the Pulitzer Prize-winning musical, Sunday In The Park With George. But would it really have been a wise expense to put an elaborate special edition together for, let’s say, Navy Seals? I don’t think so. The title sold phenomenally without any extras. It continues to sell very, very well. We’ll save the “special” for what’s really special.

Which one has been Image’s most successful DVD release so far?
Our most successful DVD to date has been Terminator; a mono film with absolutely no extras to speak of. Go figure...

Can you give us a brief outlook into what DVD owners can expect from Image Entertainment in 1999?
We will continue to license programming for the DVD, laserdisc and VHS formats. The early part of 1999 will see some high profile music programming from Image as well as an abundance of diverse and eclectic titles that will have people saying, “I can’t believe this is out on DVD!” Hopefully, that will make some DVD owners very happy.

 By Guido Henkel

November 30, 1998