Look what's all boxed up and ready for holiday giving: TV shows, movies and music.

There's something for everyone, even those shoppers trying to stretch their holiday dollars. Do the math: Multiply the cost of one video, DVD or CD by the number of items in a set. Chances are, it will be a bargain.

Because we know there are dozens of choices, Enquirer arts and entertainment writers picked their favorites to help make your decision-making easier.

Classical music: Unheralded women, classic pianists

Great Women Composers (CPO Records; $53.99). Although many of these composers were hailed in their time, music composed by females has largely fallen into neglect. In recent years, books and recordings have illuminated this vast unknown repertoire. The latest six-CD compilation unveils the beauty, creativity and truly groundbreaking work of composers Louise Farrenc (1804-75); Clara Schumann-Wieck (1819-96); Anna Bon di Venezia (1740-after 1767); Camilla de Rossi (about 1700); Pauline Viardo-Garcia (1821-1910) and the brilliant Ethel Smyth (1858-1944). Performers include the Radio-Philharmonie of Hannover and the Mannheimer String Quartet.

Dead Man Walking (Erato; $33.99). San Francisco Opera Orchestra led by Patrick Summers, with Susan Graham, Frederica von Stade and John Packard. This is the live recording of the 2000 world premiere production of the opera Dead Man Walking by San Francisco Opera, recounting the powerful journey taken by Sister Helen Prejean as she befriends a death row inmate. Jake Heggie's opera was a musical and dramatic triumph when it was premiered by Cincinnati Opera last summer; several of the same cast members appear on this recording. On the two-CD set, mezzo Susan Graham, who did not appear locally, is simply stunning in the role of Sister Helen.

Original Jacket Collection: Vladimir Horowitz (Sony Classical; $99.99). Yet another compilation of performances by one of the great pianists of all time, this 10-CD limited edition came out late last year. This collection duplicates the original LP releases down to their cover art and liner notes. Its highlights include the great pianist's legendary performances of Rachmaninoff, Scarlatti, Chopin, Schumann and Liszt. The CDs are also sold individually ($16.99).

Glenn Gould: A State of Wonder (Sony; $19.99). Pianist Glenn Gould continues to cast a spell years after his death. This unique three-CD box set of his legendary Goldberg Variations by J.S. Bach offers a side-by-side comparison of his 1955 and 1981 recordings. The bonus CD includes outtakes from the 1955 sessions and Mr. Gould's last interview.

Placido Domingo: Verdi, The Tenor Arias (EMI Classics; $61.99). The four-CD set was released last year to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Verdi's death. Tenor Placido Domingo, who continues to amaze on opera and concert stages (he appears with The Three Tenors on Jan. 5 in Columbus) presents arias from each of Verdi's 28 operas, including signature roles like Otello, Radames and Don Carlo. The survey is from recordings made between the 1960s and the `90s.

Janelle Gelfand

Television: Sample HBO, Simpsons, 9-11 documentary

A trio of HBO's best will be among the most popular DVD boxed sets this holiday season.

Band of Brothers, the terrific 10-hour World War II miniseries from Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg that won six Emmys, comes in a metal box complete with maps and guides ($119.98; HBO Home Video).

The 13-episode third season of The Sopranos is available on four discs ($99.98; HBO Home Video), while the 18-episode third season of Sex and the City arrives on three discs ($49.98; HBO Home Video).

The best box of laughs contains The Simpsons second-season DVD ($49.98, Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment). The three-disc set includes all 22 episodes from the 1990-91 season - the three-eyed fish, Marge protesting Itchy & Scatchy cartoon violence, the first Halloween "Treehouse of Horror," plus the "Do the Bartman" music video.

Chances are you can find a DVD boxed set for every TV fan on your list. New this fall are the complete series of Aaron Sorkin's Sports Night ($59.99; Buena Vista Home Entertainment); the second season of Friends ($69.99; Warner Home Video); and pilot and first seasons for Law & Order ($79.98; Universal Home Video); Felicity ($59.99; Buena Vista Home Entertainment); Once and Again ($59.99; Buena Vista Home Entertainment); and the Mary Tyler Moore Show ($49.98; Twentieth Century Fox Home Video).

If you're on a budget, and can only afford one DVD, buy 9/11, the two-hour documentary shot inside the World Trade Center by brothers Jules and Gedeon Naudet ($29.99; Paramount Home Video).

John Kiesewetter

Film: Great cinema meets wacky sci-fi

An obsessive's delight, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring Platinum Series Extended Edition (Warner Home Video; $39.99) contains a head-spinning array of extras, not least an added 30 minutes of footage incorporated into the three-hour version released in theaters. With commentaries from cast, crew and director, the movie takes up two discs. It takes another two discs to hold all the extra features, featurettes, behind-the-scenes shots, maps, galleries and special effects sketches.

Back to the Future: The Complete Trilogy (Universal Home Video; $56.98. Available Dec. 17). Amazingly, these wildly popular time-travel comedies starring Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd have never been released on DVD before. The boxed set includes the now-customary bells and whistles, including commentaries, trivia, bloopers, deleted scenes, interviews and a Making of Back to the Future featurette.

Classics fans rejoiced over the arrival of the Billy Wilder DVD Collection, (Paramount Home Video; $59.99), featuring three of his best films (not including his greatest comedy, Some Like It Hot). All three films on the three-disc set, presented with few frills, feature one of Mr. Wilder's favorite actors, William Holden - Sunset Boulevard (1950), Stalag 17 (1953) and Sabrina (1954).

Serious students of film, particularly silent film, can hardly do better than to look at Griffith Masterworks (Kino International; $99.95), a boxed set of the most important works from D.W. Griffith, one of the most influential and controversial filmmakers in history. The set includes his incendiary Birth of a Nation (1915), as well as Intolerance (1916), Orphans of the Storm (1921), Broken Blossoms (1919), and a collection of his short films.

For sheer, goofball entertainment value, it is hard to beat Mystery Science Theater 3000 Vol. 1, (Rhino Home Video; $59.95), wherein Joel Hodgson, Mike Nelson and crew eviscerate cinematic dogs Bloodlust (with short subject A Visit to Uncle Jim's Dairy Farm), Catalina Caper (with a performance by Little Richard), The Creeping Terror (featuring a man-eating shag carpet), and Skydivers (with the short Why Study Industrial Arts). For masochists, the four-disc set includes the uncut version of each film.

Margaret A. McGurk

Theater: Put your tickets together

OK, we know theater isn't boxed for sale but we thought it would be fun to put together our own theater package for the play lover on your list. It's simple: buy a ticket (or two) and wrap them up together. It's a gift that will continue to delight long after it's unwrapped.

NYC in CINCY, $126-$256

The best of recent Broadway and off-Broadway is headed for Cincinnati in the first half of 2003.

Proof (2001) and Copenhagen (2000) are both Tony Winners for Best Play. Proof starts with mathematics to explore the many meanings of its title, while Copenhagen fantasizes a World War II era meeting between nuclear physicists.

Contact (2000) is Susan Stroman's dance-as-musical and Lion King (1998) is the king of the Broadway jungle. Syringa Tree is a haunting memoir of growing up in apartheid South Africa. It was off-Broadway's Best Play in 2001

Contact, Dec. 17-29, Fifth Third Bank Broadway in Cincinnati, $20-$65. 241-7469

Proof, Jan. 12-Feb. 14, Playhouse in the Park, $28-$43. 421-3888.

Copenhagen, Jan. 22-Feb. 9, Ensemble Theatre, $28. 421-3555.

The Lion King, March 21-May 18, Fifth Third Bank Broadway in Cincinnati, $20-$75. 241-7469.

The Syringa Tree, May 17-June 15, Playhouse in the Park, $30-$45, 421-3888.

For what you save in plane fare and hotel you can buy the series listed below, too.

MUSICAL ADVENTURE, $122.50-$233.50

The Wild Party, Feb. 27-March 9, College-Conservatory of Music, University of Cincinnati, $23. 556-4183.

Pacific Overtures, March 4-April 4, Playhouse in the Park, $32-$47. 421-3888 or 800-582-3208.

The Lion King, March 21-May 18, Fifth Third Bank Broadway in Cincinnati, $20-75. 241-7469

Blast!, April 8-13, Schuster Center, Dayton, $19.50-$60.50. (937) 228-3630, (888) 228-3630.

Triple Espresso, April 23-May 11, Ensemble Theatre, $28. 421-3555.

Cincinnati audiences love musicals - and there are a lot more to musicals than Broadway in Cincinnati, although you can't say musicals this spring without the next three words being The Lion King. To continue the musical adventure beyond the African savannah consider:

CCM's deservedly acclaimed musical theater students in the regional premiere of The Wild Party, inspired by Joseph Moncure March's Jazz Age poem (recommended for mature audiences); a trip back in time to 1853 Japan with Stephen Sondheim to explore the outcomes of Commodore Matthew Perry's first visit in Pacific Overtures;

Drum and bugle extravaganza Blast! makes its second visit to southwest Ohio, but it's a dandy chance to get a first look at Dayton's new Schuster Center (where the prices look slightly friendlier than at the Aronoff); and, fresh from sell-out runs in Chicago and San Diego, check out a hilariously anguished reunion of coffeehouse entertainers in Triple Espresso.

WALK ON THE WILDER SIDE, $65-$80

The Love Song of Robert J. Oppenheimer, (Rosenthal New Play Prize winner), March 22-April 20, Playhouse in the Park, $30-45. 421-3888

Breath, Boom, April 2-5, Ensemble Theatre Off-Center/On-Stage, $10. 421-3555

The Shape of Things, May 8-10, College Conservatory of Music, University of Cincinnati. Studio production. Free. 556-4183.

Square One, May 8-25, New Edgecliff, The Artery (913 Monmouth St., Newport), $15. 763-3844

This Is Our Youth, May 8-17, Know Tribe, Gabriel's Corner, Sycamore at Liberty, $10. 300-5669.

One of the many great things about a move from the mainstream is that the ticket prices go down.

Oppenheimer, the 2003 Rosenthal New Play Prize is a provocative, dark fantasy that pits the nuclear scientist against a Biblical nemesis; hard-hitting Breath, Boom is a recent New York smash about girl gangs by hot young African-American playwright Kia Corthron; Neil LaBute (Bash, In the Company of Men) lets a woman do the manipulating in a wicked, contemporary spin on Pygmalion in The Shape of Things;

Square One by Steve Tesich (Breaking Away) suggests the aftermath of an unidentified national disaster - written more than a decade before 9/11; Kenneth Lonergan (You Can Count on Me) offers 48 hours in the lives of three young lost souls in This Is Our Youth.

Jackie Demaline

Pop music: Country, soul, jazz pleasers

Dwight Yoakam: Reprise Please Baby: The Warner Bros. Years(Rhino/Warner; $59.98)This is as good as boxed sets get. Well-organized, with lots of artist input, the four discs include about all the Dwight that anyone could ask for. It has the hits ("Streets of Bakersfield," "A Thousand Miles From Nowhere," "Guitars, Cadillac's," "Little Sister," "Fast As You," etc.); the hard-to-find tracks (Warren Zevon's "Carmelita," from a Flaco Jimenez CD); a good representation of his masterpiece, This Time; the best song from his album of inventive remakes, Under the Covers (the Clash's "Train in Vain," done bluegrass style with Ralph Stanley); and more than a disc's worth of unreleased stuff.

There are three pretty good new songs, a couple of nice duets with Kelly Willis, some live tracks and, best of all, his 1981 10-song demo, recorded shortly after he arrived in Los Angeles from his Buckeye hometown, Columbus.

It's a revealing set, with Mr. Yoakam sounding nearly as good as he would five years later on his breakthrough debut, Guitars, Cadillacs, Etc., Etc. His singing is a little self-consciously hammy, less raw-boned country, but he has the voice, the songs and the attitude that would make him the only member of the alt-country-roots community to have mainstream country success.

The booklet is a treasure trove of rare photos, most from Mr. Yoakam's personal collection. He was a country star from his birth in Pikeville, Ky., and the photos include a cowboy-hatted, guitar-picking toddler Dwight. There are also a lot from his days at Northland High in Columbus, and some shots of him with his high school glam-rockabilly band.

But the music is the main attraction. In the liner notes, Chris Hillman compares him to one of alt-country's true pioneers, calling him "the Gram Parsons that worked - the operating model" (Mr. Parsons never achieved commercial success and died of drug and alcohol-related causes at 26 in 1973). More than 16 years into one of the most consistently uncompromising and high-quality careers in any genre, you could also say he's "the Hank Williams that worked."

Sam Cooke with the Soul Stirrers: The Complete Specialty Recordings (Specialty; $44.98). When Sam Cooke joined the Soul Stirrers in 1950, he went from an unknown, 19-year-old, Mississippi-born preacher's son to stardom in one of the world's most successful gospel groups. Replacing R.H. Harris, he soon surpassed the older man and brought a younger audience to gospel.

The art of the gospel vocal quartet was at its peak and the Soul Stirrers ruled. But the addition of the handsome young man blew the roof off. On this astounding three-CD collection, you can hear Mr. Cooke develop the pop style that, after quitting the group in 1956, would bring him major crossover success that ended with his mysterious death in 1964. (He was shot by a woman who claimed he was threatening her.)

Historical importance aside, this is simply great music, exciting, exhilarating and spiritually satisfying. The Soul Stirrers' greatest performances are here: "Jesus Gave Me Water," written by the mother of modern gospel, Lucie E. Campbell; Rev. James Cleveland's "One More River," the classics "Peace in the Valley" "The Last Mile of the Way"; and "Farther Along."

In a New Orleans solo gospel session the singer is backed by a superb band led by drummer Earl Palmer. There also are three Soul Stirrers' tracks from 1955 and the historic gospel concert at L.A.'s Shrine Auditorium, where the hysteria of the female audience members shows Mr. Cooke was stirring more than souls.

The secular hits "Cupid" and "You Send Me" were still in the future, but Mr. Cooke was already a superstar. You'll find proof here, along with some of the most moving, passionate music recorded.

Rod Stewart: Reason to Believe: The Complete Mercury Studio Recordings (Mercury Chronicles; $39.98). Here it is, finally, in one convenient box, all the Rod Stewart you'll ever need. In the early '70s, long before the bleached-blond, "Do Ya Think I'm Sexy" disco years, Rod the Mod was a down-and-dirty blues rocker whose albums rivaled the Stones.

His output included two of rock's best all-time LPs, Gasoline Alley and Every Picture tells a Story. Both are on this three-disc set, along with his nearly-as-good solo debut, 1969's The Rod Stewart Album and his final two Mercury LPs, Never A Dull Moment and Smile.

Along with being at his vocal peak, these albums find Mr. Stewart working in a semi-acoustic rock sound shared by the Stones on Beggar's Banquet and Let It Bleed. (Mr. Stewart's musical sidekick at the time was his old Jeff Beck Group bassist, Faces guitarist and future Stone Ron Wood). It was Gasoline Alley, John Mellencamp once told me, that inspired his own best album, Scarecrow.

For some of the best roots and blues-rock ever recorded, this is the box.

Charlie Christian: The Genius of the Electric Guitar (Sony Legacy; $49.98). Charlie Christian wasn't the first man to play the electric guitar, but he was the first electric guitarist.

Born in Texas, he was raised in the rural black string-band tradition, playing in a family group. But the development of the electric guitar, first by Rickenbacher (which started with Hawaiian steel guitars) and shortly after, Gibson, brought the instrument out of its rhythm position and into its own as a soloist. Mr. Christian was the first to realize its potential for sustained and single-line phrasing, qualities every electric guitarist takes for granted today.

He also was a master at creating simple, memorable melodic riffs and extended solos. He spent virtually his entire tragically brief career (he died at 25 in 1942 of tuberculosis) with Benny Goodman.

This long-overdue four-CD set is cleverly packaged in a reproduction of Mr. Christian's first Gibson amp and spans his time with the Goodman band.

The first two discs focus on the Benny Goodman Sextet, Mr. Christian's main outlet, with such classics as "Flying Home," "Rose Room," "Seven Come Eleven," "Till Tom Special" and "Air Mail Special." There's also a five-song, all-star Benny Goodman Sextet session with Count Basie, his stars (Lester Young and Buck Clayton) and his All American Rhythm Section (Freddie Green, Jo Jones and Walter Page). The high esteem in which he was held is shown in that Mr. Christian is the only other member of the Goodman band present.

The second two discs include the Benny Goodman Orchestra recordings with Mr. Christian, as well as a various alternate takes by both orchestra and sextet.

This is not the complete Charlie. His radio broadcasts with the Goodman band and performance with the group at John Hammond's 1939 "Spirituals to Swing" concert, an acoustic session with clarinetist Edmond Hall and his after-hours, pre-bop jam sessions at New York's Minton's with Thelonious Monk and others are available elsewhere.

But Genius of the Electric Guitar lives up to its title. Set your CD player anywhere on any of the four CDs and you'll find great, dynamic jazz guitar playing.

Gennett Records Greatest Hits Collection (Star Gennett Foundation; $44.95). The three-CD set documents one of the "stranger than fiction" chapters in Tristate music history. In 1917, the Starr Piano Co. of Richmond, Ind., started the Gennett Records label. A who's who of future jazz, blues and country made the trek to the little town in Southeast Indiana to make their first recordings.

The list includes Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington (who recorded with Wilbur Sweatman's band at Gennett's New York studio), Bix Beiderbecke and Hoagy Carmichael (who made the first record of his "Stardust" in Richmond in 1928).

This is not a complete box, and the discography contains major gaps (Georgia Tom's accompanist on "Maybe It's the Blues" is unmistakably the great bluesman Tampa Red, but he's unidentified here), but those are small problems given the regional historical importance and the dozens of seminal jazz and blues performances. This boxed set belongs in any self-respecting collection of Tristate music. Available at www.stargennett.org.