HOME VIDEO : Digital Media : Worlds Open Up on ‘Matrix’ DVD-ROM

Warner Home Video has pulled out all the stops for its lavish DVD version of the exhilarating cyber thriller “The Matrix” ($25).

But if you don’t have DVD-ROM capability, you won’t get the full-tilt boogie experience of the digital version of the box-office hit starring Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne and Carrie-Anne Moss.

For those with regular DVD players, the disc boasts the wide-screen version of the film, the trailer and the “HBO First Look” documentary, “Making the Matrix,” which offers interviews with the stars, producer Joel Silver, special effects experts and writer-directors Andy and Larry Wachowski, who explain how they were influenced by comic books and Hong Kong martial arts movies.

The serviceable audio commentary features Moss, editor Zach Staenberg and visual effects supervisor John Gaeta. Among the fun features is the “red pill,” which appears on the menu. If you click on the pill with the remote, up pop mini-documentaries on the special effects, including the slow-motion “bullet time.” Behind-the-scenes featurettes on the construction of nine action scenes can be accessed every time a white rabbit pops up on the screen during the film.

The disc also includes a music-only audio track with commentary by composer Don Davis.

Those with DVD-ROMs can read the screenplay and follow the creative process by viewing each scene’s storyboards, stills and final cuts. A “Do you know kung fu?” feature jumps instantly to fight scenes. Three original essays offer a retrospective on comic-book-based films, the martial arts and sci-fi films.

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Columbia TriStar’s digital version of the 1937 Frank Capra classic “Lost Horizon” ($28) is one of the best archival DVDs to be released this year. Ronald Colman, Jane Wyatt and Thomas Mitchell are among the stars of this Oscar-winning adaptation of James Hilton’s fantasy about a planeload of people hijacked to an idyllic valley in the Himalayas where time has literally stopped.

The DVD features the fully restored and digitally remastered version of the film. Originally running 132 minutes, “Lost Horizon” was cut to 116 minutes for general release in small towns and pared down to 108 minutes when reissued during World War II. Though the entire soundtrack has been found, seven minutes of footage are still missing. So production stills now accompany the dialogue of the missing footage.

Also presented on the disc is the sappy alternate ending that was forced on Capra by Columbia studio head Harry Cohn. Capra, though, won out and removed this ending within the first two weeks of release. A before-and-after restoration sequence narrated by UCLA film archivist Robert Gitt illustrates how tears were removed digitally. Also included are three scenes that didn’t make the film. Though the soundtrack is missing, Gitt reads the dialogue from the script.

Though the film’s original negative had disintegrated by the late 1960s, Gitt was able to find the original negative of stock footage from the film, which is gorgeously pristine.

“Lost Horizon” historian Kendall Miller narrates a fascinating documentary on the production, which includes rare, behind-the-scenes photographs and script excerpts of the extensive flashback sequences that originally opened and closed the film. The icing on the cake is the compelling audio commentary on the restoration by Gitt and former Times arts editor Charles Champlin.

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Horror fans can get their kicks with New Line’s ambitious “A Nightmare on Elm Street” box set ($130). The collection features all seven “Nightmare” films, the specially created “Nightmare Series Encyclopedia” and glasses for the 3-D sequence in “Freddy’s Dead.”

Created by Wes Craven (“Scream”), the original 1984 “Nightmare on Elm Street” is still effective in creating goose bumps. Craven explains in his commentary that he got the idea for the film from reading about Vietnamese teenagers who suffered from violent nightmares and died in their sleep.

John Saxon, Heather Langenkamp, Johnny Depp and Robert Englund, who became a cult figure as the deformed murderer Freddy Krueger, star in this cult classic, in which Krueger stalks, slices and dices the children of the lynch mob who killed him.

The original “Nightmare on Elm Street” disc includes enjoyable commentaries from Craven, Langenkamp, Saxon and the director of photography.