HOME ENTERTAINMENT : Confusion Looms for Digital Video Discs

What’s the latest in the digital video disc wars?

Some major technical changes and a change in initials that’s liable to confuse consumers who are trying to keep up with all this.

The digital video disc is a 5-inch, high-resolution, CD-like disc that will supposedly supplant the videotape sometime in the next decade. The first digital video disc (DVD) machine, priced at about $500, is due next year.

The problem is that there are two types of digital video discs--one made by Sony-Philips, the other by Toshiba-Time Warner. Like Beta and VHS videotapes, they aren’t compatible.

A few months ago, it seemed that Toshiba-Time Warner, which apparently had most of the support of the major movie studios, was in the driver’s seat.

But what’s happened is both have refined their discs, coming up with different versions of a dual-layering process that allows for more information to be packed on one side of a disc. In terms of the war, the Sony-Philips refinement was more significant, considerably boosting its capacity and bringing it very close to Toshiba-Time Warner’s disc.

Meanwhile, Toshiba-Time Warner’s disc has been newly dubbed SD-DVD--the SD meaning super density. Sony-Philips is calling its disc Multimedia CD, or MMCD.

The digital video disc initially was being promoted primarily as a means of marketing films. While that may change, with video games and music becoming part of the mix, movie studio support is still crucial to both sides.

Insiders are saying that the recent changes indicate the two camps are closer to merging the formats and coming up with a single standard. That would please retailers, who aren’t happy about stocking two versions of the same technology. Earlier this month, a panel of engineers representing heavyweights from the computer industry strongly urged the adoption of a single format. They expect the technically superior digital video discs to eventually replace CD-ROMs.

The VCR-videotape industry isn’t particularly concerned about all this yet because there’s one refinement that neither camp has made: The discs still aren’t recordable.

*

Foreign-Language Films: If you like oddball romances, they don’t come any weirder than Columbia TriStar’s Spanish “I Don’t Want to Talk About It,” with Marcello Mastroianni playing an aging ladies’ man who falls in love with a dwarf (Alejandra Podesta). For a taste of the unconventional, this is one of the best bittersweet romantic movies of the last year.

A couple classics have been polished and reissued. In the late ‘70s, critics were raving about Luis Bun~uel’s “That Obscure Object of Desire,” a surrealistic, 1977 black comedy about an older man (Fernando Rey) with a fixation on a young maid. What’s bizarre about this intriguing movie is that the maid is alternately played by two actresses--Carole Bouquet and Angela Molina. From Home Vision at $30.

The other one is “Alexander Nevsky.” Film buffs in particular will be interested in the restored version of this famed 1938 film about the Russians battling Germans in the Middle Ages. Noted for his skill at composing scenes, director Sergei Eisenstein creates some breathtaking images. Otherwise, it’s dull but worth renting to savor both Eisenstein’s style and the thrilling score by Sergei Prokfiev. From BMG Classics, at $25.

Special-Interest Videos: “The Great Wine Adventure: A Journey of the Senses” is 30 minutes worth of useful tips for those who know little about shopping for wine and ordering it in restaurants. It also explains how to open a bottle and clarifies esoteric terms such as texture . From Blue Sky Productions, for $20. Information: (800) 358-0022.

With summer vacation just around the corner and the kids home all day, parents will once again be looking for ways to keep them occupied. Disney has an answer with “Pooh Fun ‘n Games,” a series of delightful, play-along adventures--stressing cooperation and sharing--that feature Christopher Robin and Pooh. This 33-minute tape, the fourth in the excellent Pooh Playtime series, sells for $13.

What’s New on Video: “Bullets Over Broadway” (Miramax): When a playwright (John Cusack) accepts mob backing to get his play produced on Broadway in the 1920s, he gets nothing but headaches. A temperamental leading lady (supporting actress Oscar winner Dianne Wiest) and a no-talent gangster’s moll (Jennifer Tilly) with acting aspirations are only half his problems. He gets help from a surprising source, a bodyguard (Chazz Palminteri) with playwriting talent. Excellent performances in this very funny farce, directed by Woody Allen.

“Speechless” (MGM/UA): A screwball comedy about a romance between speechwriters working in opposing political camps in a Senate campaign in New Mexico. Much of the sparring between the Republican (Michael Keaton) and the Democrat (Geena Davis) isn’t funny and the ending is silly. Still, it’s passable entertainment thanks to appealing performances by the stars.

“The Professional” (Columbia TriStar): A French hitman (Jean Reno) living in New York is a loner until he rescues a young neighbor (Natalie Portman) whose family is gunned down by a renegade DEA agent (Gary Oldman) and his henchmen. Of course, the precocious, needy youngster melts the hitman’s icy heart. Their odd father-daughter relationship is the heart of this otherwise violent movie. Far-fetched and mawkish at times but, for the most part, a riveting action movie.

“The War” (MCA/Universal): In this family drama, set in a Mississippi town around 1970, Kevin Costner stars as an emotionally crippled Vietman vet who can’t get used to being a civilian husband. This movie, though, is more about the vet’s kids (Elijah Wood and Lexi Randall), who are warring with thugs over a treehouse. Not a good movie--message-crammed and trite.

“Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle” (New Line): Playing acerbic writer Dorothy Parker, Jennifer Jason Leigh uses an affected, supposedly upper-crust speech pattern that makes her hard to understand--and also makes Parker seem like a caricature. As Parker and her literary pals trade quips at the famed Algonquin Round Table meetings, the repartee is not that interesting because these characters, nearly all snobbish, self-destructive drunks, aren’t very likable. This biography, by director Alan Rudolph, is slow and depressing.

“The Jungle Book” (Disney): Rudyard Kipling’s adventure about a boy (Jason Scott Lee) raised by wolves in the jungles of India. Inevitably, he encounters civilization--and gets into trouble. He falls in love with the lovely Kitty (Lena Headey) and gets mixed up in a hunt for hidden treasure. The stars are kind of dull but the supporting cast--including Sam Neill and John Cleese--is outstanding. When the hero interacts with animals, the movie is terrific and lots of fun for kids.