DVD News

The second season of Heroes is available on DVD on August 26.

Here's an idea of what fans can expect if they purchase it:

• ALTERNATE ENDING TO SEASON ONE FINALE
• UNTOLD STORIES - Gripping untold stories that never aired before! 
• SEASON 3 SNEAK PEEK - A behind-the-scenes look at the making of the third season premiere episode.
• DELETED SCENES
• HEROES SEASON 2 “A NEW BEGINNING” - Tim Kring introduces us to the theme of “extraordinary people trying to live normal lives.”  We go behind the scenes with the cast and crew to see what it’s like coming back to a hit show and we also meet new Heroes as they share anecdotes about filming the second season.

We may need to start reading more of the Dallas Morning News.

Check out the praise this newspaper has for Heroes - as well as its first season DVD - and another show we love, Friday Night Lights...

To watch an episode of FNL or Heroes is to want to watch another, and another. And while there are always the Internet and on- demand services, DVDs remain the ultimate expression of this power-viewing style of consumption. Both collections were made with a keen understanding of this, although, as with the shows themselves, they take opposing approaches.

Heroes wears its self-knowingness on its sleeve, tagging each episode a "chapter," feeding its roots in the comic-book/online world with its lifeblood pursuit of everything behind-the-scenes and in-the-margins.

It includes oodles of audio commentaries, how-they-did-it documentaries and treasures such as creator Tim Kring's cut of the "unaired pilot."

FNL's DVD, meanwhile, like the show itself, is all artful restraint and understatement. Packaging is minimal: a few snapshot-style cast-in-character photographs culminating in an inner-jacket, multipanel portrait of stadium lights against the wide Texas sky.

Each approach, as with almost everything with these shows, is just right. Heroes - with its coils of characters and subplots, its intersecting conspiracy theories - benefits from the bag-of-tricks approach. It's fun to have more stuff to pore over; it's great to hear Kring and company talk about all the minute choices, all the incidental details about this scene or that storytelling twist.

It all feeds the fantasy.

Likewise, you don't really want to see or hear a lot about the making of FNL. This show is like a great magic trick, or even better, a beautiful dream – you don't really want to know how they did it; you don't want to be jostled awake. You just want to be caught up and carried away.

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Here is a closer look at what you can find on the Heroes Season One DVD (on sale tomorrow!)...

Extended Pilot with Optional Commentary: This version of the show's pilot runs 73 minutes and includes several extra plotlines. In addition, scenes from the aired pilot sometimes get cut in this version, which was put together by creator Tim Kring. It's very different, even to the point of having another actor playing Sylar (and we're glad that went with Zachary Quinto). There's also a commentary with Kring, who outlines the changes and gives some anecdotes.

Video Commentaries (HD DVD Exclusive Feature): Universal offers picture-in picture commentaries on eight of the season's 23 episodes (for the curious, they appear on "Godsend," "The Fix," "Distractions," ".07%,", "Five Years Gone," "The Hard Part," "Landslide," and "How to Stop an Exploding Man"). These commentaries feature many of the show's cast and crew in rotation. Personally, I quite enjoyed all of these, as it's clear that everyone is really excited about being part of the team and have some good things to say.

U-Control (HD DVD Exclusive Feature): This is Univeral's interactive feature that they have included on many of their high profile releases. Often, we get a lot of fluff and little substance, but that's not the case with Heroes. Probably the coolest U-Control feature is the ability to take a closer look at any of Isaac's paintings. This is really cool, as you can zoom in while you're watching the episode. Considering how vital these paintings are to the series, it's a great way to go more in-depth.

There's a "Character Connections" chart which is more useful than it sounds. Each episode, a few of the characters from each area interact with each other, many of them unaware that they are doing so. This feature charts their meetings in a way that resembles the map made by "Papa" Suresh, with intersecting lines criss-crossing around. Considering how often the characters bump into each other, I found this to be very useful indeed. The final aspect is also the least interesting. Throughout the show, a Helix symbol appears (it's most easily noticed on the cover of the book "Activating Evolution," as well as Jessica's shoulder) and this feature points the symbol out every time it shows up.

Web Enabled Content (HD DVD Exclusive Feature): All HD DVD players are required to have an ethernet connection, which is how Universal is able to put web content on the Heroes HD DVD set. There are two sections to this. One is a "Genetic Abilities Test," which asks you questions and then determines if you too have special abilities (more likely than not it will tell you that you have them). You can then register your powers and your profile online for others to see.

The other part is a download area, which currently has a trailer for Heroes Season One and the upcoming Universal films Talk To Her and White Noise 2. But Universal has promised that more content will be made available in the future. As to whether or not that actually pans out, only Isaac knows.

Deleted Scenes: Most of the episodes contain deleted scenes, some of which are just a few lines of dialog, but others are very substantial and would have done well if included in the actual broadcasts. A mixed bag, but worth going through for the best scenes.

Making Of: Here's where the supplements start to whittle down. This featurette is 10 minutes and it's just fluff, especially if you've gone through the commentaries and Unaired Pilot.

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The Heroes Season One DVD is filled with exclusive interviews and never-before-seen clips. Here's an example:

In the minute-long video below - taken from an unaired portion of the pilot, which originally featured a terrorist plot - Matt Parkman is tracking down a terrorist cell at a park, offering his help to his unbelieving superiors...

Remember: the Heroes DVD goes on sale August 28!

Excited for this Tuesday, August 28? You should be. That's when the Heroes DVD of season one hits stores.

But you can avoid long lines and win yourself a copy right now. Universal Studios is running its own Heroes DVD sweepstakes, giving fans a chance to win the following:

• Five grand prize winners will receive a prize pack consisting of an autographed copy of the Heroes Season 1 DVD, a limited edition Heroes T-Shirt, and a Heroes Hiro Wrist Watch.

• 20 first prize winners will receive the Heroes Season 1 DVD.

• 40 second prize winners will receive a limited edition Heroes T-Shirt.

Follow the sweepstakes link above to sign up. Good luck!

Before you buy your Heroes Season One DVD - and, really, what true fan won't make this purchase? - it helps to know which parts are best.

So let's listen to what Hayden Panettiere has to say about which special feature fans should check out first on the disc:

"I would say it would depend if they've seen the show or not. If they haven't seen the show, I would say watch the pilot - the two-hour pilot. I would say watch that first. And then maybe the deleted scenes, 'cause I'm having fun watching the deleted scenes - but that's probably only because I know what was deleted and what wasn't. There's some great stuff - there's some goofy commentaries, like I'm talking goofy commentaries.

I mean, I think I remember my commentary and I think they probably edited it, but everything on it is great. You know, I love DVDs and you get to go and look at the extras and find certain things."

The disc hits stores on August 28. But the most exciting Heroes news of the day so far is that Veronica Mars alum Kristen Bell is joining the cast!

NBC is starting to put a lot of extras that you'll find from the Heroes Season 1 DVD onto the Web specifically YouTube.

Here's the latest one, a minute and a half scene that was deleted from Chapter 11, the episode "Fallout." In it, Mohinder goes to Isaac's loft, but finds Simone there instead. The two have a conversation. It's nothing too special, but it is new...

There are over 50 deleted scenes like this one on the Heroes DVD that will be available on August 28.

Fans of Heroes caught the first public showcase of the interactive extras on the show's first season HD DVD at Comic-Con International earlier this week.

Robin Cole, group manager for HD DVD consumer technology for Microsoft, showed off the special features for Heroes: Season 1 at the NBC booth on the convention floor, addressing hundreds of people who were wandering this way and that.

"It takes the elements of comic books and puts them on the screen," Cole said, showing how viewers could single out the famous paintings in the series and use picture-in-picture options.

Of course, this set has the usual fare: deleted and extended scenes (50 in all), a never-aired premiere episode with a commentary by show creator Tim Kring, a making-of featurette, etc., but Cole wanted to talk about the interactive features.

"Interactivity — I know, it's one of those buzz words we use," she said.

Cole walked the audience through an extra called The Helix Revealed, a guide to the mysterious symbol that keeps popping up in the show, and Character Connections, which allows viewers to follow just the clips of their favorite characters. There's picture-in-picture cast and crew video commentary and a mind-reading feature. Extras such as these make the viewer feel like they are a part of the show, she said.

Sadly, due to the lack of an Internet connection at the booth, "What I can't show you is the networking," Cole said.

Viewers can take a Heroes' Ability Test, create a profile, upload it to an NBC Web site, and find out via a unique access code what powers they may have. Users can download exclusive content and Heroes updates to their HD DVD player every day.

"This series doesn't end when you buy the disc," she said.

The people behind HD DVD feel this set is their coming-out party, showing what HD DVD is capable of, with Comic-Con as the venue.

"We really want the consumer to understand the experience they're going to get," said Ken Graffeo, EVP of marketing for Universal Studios Home Entertainment, which is distributing the HD DVD.

Heroes: Season 1 will hit stores on August 28 for $99.98.