This DVD transfer from the TV miniseries:
1.) Does it do the book justice?
2.) What's the transfer quality like?
3.) If it's over 300 minutes, How many DVDs is it? Any insight would be appreciated. Thanks

My DVD hasn`t arrived yet, but I can tell you it`s an excellent adaptation of the book. One of the best TV movies/mini-series I`ve ever seen.
I read a review of the DVD that says the transfer is excellent. Not to mention the fact that the commentary track is very entertaining, featuring Stephen King, the director, and some of the cast.
"The Stand" is on only 1 DVD. It is one of the first DVD-18s.

Just got E-MAIL'd yesterday that Reel.com shipped my pre-order copy. Its 366 minutes on 1 DVD. Can't wait to get my copy, I love that movie.

I'll wait and see the shakedown of how this disc performs on everyone's players. Hopefully, we won't see another "Matrix" disaster.

Isn't this one a 2-sided disk? Like a lot of laserdiscs are? Not that I blame them, 5 hours is a lot for one side.

It's 2 sided. Dual layered on both sides. It's an episodic movie though, so there are sort of "intentional breaks" in between sections of the movie.

I received my copy yesterday afternoon from Reel. I started watching it last night, with no problems so far. I'm got a Toshiba SD3109.

I got The Stand a few weeks ago, and finally got around to watching it. Got it from the Columbia House club. Which, if you haven't checked out, look in the DVD Bargains forum, as this is no doubt the best way to get this and many other high priced dvds short of stealing them.

The Stand is a mediocre adaptation of a fantastic book. Like It, it's difficult to put some of Kings best stuff onscreen and get a good translation. It felt to me like this movie was more like an outline of the book. As I read somewhere on this forum, if you haven't read the book, read it. It's more satisfying that the movie.

The movie is okay. Good for one watching. Six hours is a long time, but, since it was made for tv, it has lots of natural breaks. The sound and picture are okay. It was all filmed in 16mm, (except maybe a couple of stunts which looked like they were shot on video--example, perspective shot from motorcycle as Harold is about to go over the side) and most of the film looks fine. Some of it looks like a soap opera as they did have a limited budget on this made for tv special. But so what. The only thing I really objected to was the cheesy makeup on the badguy. They were showing off the fact that they could morph, which was fine, but what they morphed to looked like just what it was: a big makeup job. If they'd have cut out that cr@ppy makeup, it'd have been a better movie... in my opinion.

The extras on this DVD were okay. The featurette wasn't fantastic, but was it was informative. And, as a King fan, the important thing is that you got to see and hear Stephen King talk about this movie and this story. The storyboard comparison wasn't much, maybe a few minutes of pictures. I don't remember if I watched the Makeup effects, but as I said, I didn't think much of some of the makeup (although, Ruby Dee's makeup was fantastic--she is a beautiful woman who they made effective as a centenarian).

The commentary track was the best part for me because here's where I got to hear Stephen King talk about where some of the characters came from. Got to hear how the book almost never happened. Got to hear many things I, as a fan of his, wanted to know. And that's where the value is. King takes up maybe a quarter of the commentary, which plays over most of the movie. Other commentators include the director and editor, and a few of the actors. Rob Lowe was good w/ insight into acting. Ruby Dee was scatterbrained sounding, which surprised me because I've seen her live, and she was much clearer live. Miguel Ferrer (of Robocop fame--played Lloyd Henreid) was good to listen to. Overall, the commentary is what this DVD is good for.

This is going long. I don't know yet if I'll keep The Stand or off it. But, if you're a King fan, get this for the commentary.