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Media
Information > Media DVD Coverage 
Archive
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| Updated December 20, 2006 DVD
NEWS DIGEST 1 -
Cars Walt Disney/Pixar
Mark Anderson, a director of the Ward Anderson group, which owns the Omniplex and Multiplex chains of cinemas, said that studios had begun to respond to counterfeiters by cutting the gap between the appearance of films in the cinema and on DVD, reducing cinema-owners’ potential income. ‘‘The day will come when films will be released in cinemas and on DVD at the same time,” Anderson said. ‘‘The theatrical window will only be open while it’s still economically viable. Piracy is not a terminal illness for the industry, but the studio reactions could be.” Although Christmas is a peak period for video retailers, it has emerged as the biggest selling period for counterfeiters, many of whom are affiliated to organised crime gangs. Brian Finnegan, director general of Infact, said Ireland’s counterfeit DVD trade was almost as large as the legitimate video trade. He said video retailers were losing up to €80 million a year due to counterfeit goods and the country’s top counterfeiters were making up to €80,000 a week The DVD business set a new record for October because 16 theatrical films released during that month together earned $1.1 billion at the box office. X-Men: The Last Stand accounted for nearly 25 percent of that amount. Five million copies of the DVD version were sold during its first week in stores. In an interview with HMR, a producer observed, "The summer box office was up 7 percent this year, which is translating into a strong fourth quarter for home entertainment."
Both spurred and anguished by China’s market potential and rampant piracy, respectively, 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment announced it will shorten — by an undisclosed period — the release window between theatrical and home entertainment. With more than 100 million DVD players in Chinese households, sales of DVD and VCD discs were expected to top $1 billion in 2005. Numerous reports suggest upwards of 90% of all entertainment DVDs sold in China are pirated and obtained on the black market. Several Chinese ministries and national departments, including the ministry of public security, state administration of press and publication, national copyright administration and ministry of culture recently concluded a “100 Day Campaign Against Piracy” to encourage a legitimate home entertainment business in China. Hamilton Spectator: Medical Records on CD/DVD Doctors have not caught up to the modern recordkeeping technology. If a doctor had a laptop computer in each of his examining rooms and a CD/DVD for each patient, he could then just type in his notes and he would have a better record, more easily read by subsequent readers. And storing the records would not need much space. For the changeover to CD/DVD record keeping, the paper records could be kept handy for a couple of years for reference purposes only. Then the paper records could be given to the patient for safekeeping. The problem of storing records would be eliminated. Doctors or clinics would not need an extra storage space; this would also reduce not only their space requirement, but would also reduce their overhead costs. end
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