As many of you have been emailing and asking about the Iron Maiden - Rock in Rio DVD and Live album, we here at Maiden HQ went and got you the low down on the progress of each.

Despite rumours early on of a pre-Xmas 2001 release the production of the DVD has taken much longer than anyone anticipated owing to a number of production problems and delays throughout the year. As always with Iron Maiden the DVD is being made the best it possibly can and has had involvement with companies both in Los Angeles and London who have worked on a number of major Hollywood Studio releases as this project is a massive piece of work. The show itself was shot using 18 cameras and the documentary footage adds up to nearly 80 hours of footage.

The rumour also that Steve Harris has taken over the reigns to finish the editing of the DVD is also correct. As many of you know Steve is very precise about the way things are done with any Iron Maiden releases. Many of you have seen the rough cut version of "Hallowed Be Thy Name" which appears on the Classic Albums "Number Of The Beast" DVD and I think this shows that the footage both looks and sounds spectacular.

As of now there is still no solid release date as the project has not yet entered the final authoring stage of the DVD creation process but the good news is we can confirm that the Live in Rio Album will be being released in the spring and www.ironmaiden.com will be the first place you’ll here about that and the progress of the DVD.