DVD is going mainstream. With 17.5 million households now wired for the format, the DVD phenomenon is evolving to appeal to a much broader audience, not just film buffs, techies and early adopters.

Recent research by MGM Home Entertainment found that nearly half of DVD consumers appear to prefer fullscreen pan & scan films over widescreen editions, when two separate versions are offered.

"As the market's broadening, we're seeing a real demand for full-frame versions," said Corie Tappin, MGM's senior VP of marketing. "It has been very skewed to widescreen. In the beginning it was 80/20, but now it's 55/45. We didn't really think that was the case," Tappin continued, "if people are so interested in better picture and better sound with DVD, as they say they are, then we thought they would want to see the entire picture. But they just don't like the black bars."

As such, MGM will soon begin to offer both pan & scan and widescreen versions (the first title being The Silence of the Lambs, coming Aug. 21) - with all new releases containing both options on one disc beginning next year.

MGM's move follows strong pan & scan sales for Buena Vista's Remember the Titans and 102 Dalmatians. The versions surpassed widescreen sales after several weeks of release, according to VB sales data.

This is not surprising as many mass merchants that have now gotten into DVD sales (including grocery stores, drug stores and Toys R Us) only order fullscreen versions whenever possible. Widescreen may be king of sales at video chains such as Best Buy and Tower, but smaller mainstream stores prefer not to see the black bars that come with widescreen presentations

Demand for fullscreen is so strong that it's worth the extra expense providing both options, even if that means the studio has to press two discs to accommodate both versions and extras.

Consumers also seem to love the extras DVD offers, but only to a point. "As DVD's audience broadens, we assumed interest in DVD extras would diminish, but that hasn't been the case," Tappin said. "It seems the mainstream audience wants 5.1 sound, deleted scenes and bloopers."

For the die-hards and the film buffs (me, for instance), price is no option for content. But the mainstream consumer is more price sensitive. The days of selling a $34.98 special edition are over because consumers won't fork over that much. These days, for instance, MGM doesn't price any special editions above $29.99.

As a recent example, the lower-priced version of The Emperor's New Groove ($29.99) outsold the special edition ($39.99) by a 3-1 margin, even though the 2-disc set offered considerably more supplementary content. But then again, MGM was also pleasantly surprised that the recent special edition of Some Like It Hot, priced at $24.98, sold 63% more units than the standard, $14.95 option.

As a final blow to the film buffs, MGM's consumer study also found that demand for extra features also appears to be shifting away from another film buff staple - the filmmaker commentary.