ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT REPORTS FROM THE TIMES, NEWS SERVICES AND THE NATION’S PRESS.

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

‘Sopranos’ Headed to Video: All 13 first-season episodes of HBO’s acclaimed mob series “The Sopranos” will be released on video and DVD on Dec. 12. The five-volume HBO Home Video collection and the four-disc DVD series will sell for about $100 each.

Commercial-Free ‘Crossing’: ABC will premiere its new Andre Braugher medical drama, “Gideon’s Crossing,” without commercials on Oct. 11, at 10 p.m. ABC noted that the 57-minute episode, to be sponsored by Johnson & Johnson (which will have announcements at the program’s beginning and end), will be the first commercial-free broadcast of a network drama. However, there is some precedent: NBC televised the Oscar-winning film “Schindler’s List” without ads in 1997.

Less Administration, More Music: Conductor Daniel Barenboim will step down as artistic director of Berlin’s German State Opera, known as Unter den Linden, when his contract expires in 2002 but hopes to instead become the company’s musical director. Berlin culture officials said Barenboim, 57, does not want to continue with the administrative aspects of his current job; the new post would allow him to spend more time on strictly musical duties, such as conducting. However, Barenboim has said he will remain in Berlin only if government funding is increased for all three Berlin opera houses. Meanwhile, Barenboim told the weekly German news outlet Focus that he recently had been offered a post overseeing all three Berlin companies but turned it down.

Downey’s Life After Prison: In his first post-prison interview, Robert Downey Jr. tells Details magazine in its October issue that being sent to prison “felt like a death sentence,” but that he now has new respect for the judicial system. “Certain ideals have changed for me,” the self-proclaimed former drug addict says. “I would have been the first to say it’s unconstitutional to put drug abusers in jail. Well, it’s unconstitutional to be a human being and screw your life up that way. . . . Lock ‘em down.” Downey adds: “I’m proud of . . . the choices I’ve made since I’ve been released,” noting that his first post-prison actions were eating a fajita pita and attending a 12-step meeting. Meanwhile, Downey has returned to work, taping eight episodes of Fox’s “Ally McBeal.”

QUICK TAKES

“Survivor” winner Richard Hatch has lost his lucrative book deal. The Web site Inside.Com has reported that Hatch, who was bound by a CBS contract not to include details about life on the island so as not to compete with the official “Survivor” tome, had submitted a different proposal to St. Martin’s Press than the one approved by the network. Meanwhile, CBS will now air an hourlong “Big Brother” finale at 8 p.m. on Sept. 29, preceding the repeat of “Survivor’s” two-hour close-out. A two-hour “Big Brother” finale was previously scheduled for Sept. 30. . . . California Democratic Party Chairman Art Torres has been named to head the Walker Kaitz Foundation, a national nonprofit group funded by the cable industry to expand diversity among its executives. . . . Mary Tyler Moore, a spokeswoman for the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation, will address a Senate subcommittee in Washington today to urge federal funding for diabetes-fighting stem cell research.