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Media
Information > Media DVD Coverage 
Archive
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DVD NEWS DIGEST
1
- Out of Time MGM Home Entertainment A story about how the $67 billion global cinema, DVD and video industry works notes that the higher margins, rapid payback and longer shelf life of the DVD explain why many in Hollywood are growing eager for shoppers to be able to buy a DVD at the earliest opportunity. Michael Ryan, chairman of the American Film Marketing Association, which represents independent film studios, says: ". . . for eight or nine out of 10 movies made, DVD sales is what is paying the bills, not the box office. " In the US in 2002, revenue from DVD/video sales and rental accounted for 62% of the total domestic income of the biggest studios, according to Screen Digest. Of that, as much as fourth-fifths is estimated to come from the sale of DVDs alone. In Europe, 49% of the studios' total revenues were derived from DVD/VHS sales and rental in 2002 and the percentage is rising as DVD player penetration grows. Screen Digest estimates that 45% of Britain's households had a DVD player by the end of 2003. That is 11.4 million homes, compared with 3 million just two years earlier. Jan. 23 - AP: Group Backs Off DVD Encryption Lawsuit A film industry coalition has dropped its trade secret court battle against a San Francisco computer programmer who in 1999 posted on the Internet code that cracks movie copy-protection technology. "We are not backing off," said Robert Sugarman, an attorney for the DVD Copy Control Association. "We are exploring different routes." The association, an arm of Hollywood studios, sued Andrew Bunner and hundreds of others four years ago, claiming their Web postings of the DVD encryption-cracking code violated the California Uniform Trade Secrets Act and helped users replicate thousands of copyright movies per day. The association said it is considering taking action to enforce patents on its encryption technology.
Story advises how to take care of DVDs and cautions that DVDs are vulnerable to damage because their data is packed more densely. A small scratch that wouldn't affect a CD could disrupt enough data to put a DVD out of commission. Avoid
anything that might scratch either surface of the disc. That includes
laying the disc down on a table, for instance, touching the surface,
or writing on it with a ballpoint pen or pencil. If you must clean one, use a can of compressed air for dust, or a commercial cleaner available in stores for smudges. Clean in gentle strokes from the disc's center hole to its outer perimeter. Never wipe around the disc in a circular direction. Store at room temperature. Intense heat, like that in an attic or parked car during summer, can warp and wreck a disc.
Reviewer writes: "I'm sold on DVD recorders. All the power of DVD's with the simplicity of my good old VCR." Tim Steward, a sales associate at ABT Electronics, said "It is a newer technology but really in the end they work a lot like a VCR. So when people get them home they're a lot more familiar with them than they think they will be.” And there are a lot of benefits. DVD's allow you to jump from one section of a recording to another, have better picture quality, and they don't deteriorate as quickly as tapes. Some of these DVD recorders have a hard drive built in. That gives you some amazing capabilities. For folks who want to make their own compilation of a TV series that they like or want to have a lot of editing capability, where they want to take only certain segments of their home movies and put them onto the DVD, the hard drive is beneficial because you can put it all on the hard drive and rearrange it and then put it on the disc in the format that you want.
Jan. 18 - Akron Beacon-Journal: DVD in TV's Future DVD sales of TV series are adding to revenues. More than 500,000 box sets of one show sold at about $50 each. "DVDs have been really popular," said one producer, "... and it's another way besides the Nielsens of proving we have a loyal and strong fan base.... And as creators and, I think, as performers, too, it's a wonderful thing to know that this isn't on one night and then disappears. It's not disposable. It's going to sort of live forever.'' Actor John Spencer of The West Wing is glad the first season of that show is on DVD. ``We didn't know how we would be received, but we thought we were doing something very special,'' he said. ``To have that immortalized [by DVD] and to revisit it'' is a good thing, he said. Sets he has bought include British productions like Upstairs Downstairs, Brideshead Revisited and The Jewel in the Crown, ``which is in my eyes some of the most perfect television there ever was.''
Jan.
13 - PC World: DVD Recorders Do Double Duty Write-once DVD will soon boast more capacity, reaching up to 8.5GB, say several vendors. Such discs gain the extra capacity through a second layer, although unlike with double-sided discs, you will not need to physically turn over a disc in order to write to the additional capacity.
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