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Media
Information > Media DVD Coverage 
Archive
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| Updated December 18, 2007 DVD
NEWS DIGEST
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Ratatouille Walt Disney/Pixar
A major retailer has begun testing vending machines that rent new movies for $1 a night. That's $3 less than a five-day rental at the retailer's stores. Two other major outlets are offering the same price for DVD rentals. A typical new DVD rental costs $4 and doesn't have to be returned for five days. The $1 DVD rentals can be returned to any dropoff point in the retailer's chain of stores. A fast food chain also has DVD rental machines at its outlets. "It's a natural affinity," the company CEO said. "You are seeing a consolidation of food and entertainment. It definitely drives traffic."
The concept of the special edition emerged in the 1980s when the Criterion Collection started including supplementary features for laser discs. With its commitment to picture and sound quality and in-depth extras that provide a historical and cultural context for the film, the New York-based company has long been the widely acknowledged gold standard in the DVD market. But what was once considered a bonus is now a come-on for the casual viewer -- even ordinary DVD releases these days have blooper reels or alternate endings. On some level the glut of extras and the growing attention to packaging (with the inclusion of booklets and even coffee-table books) are a bid to reinforce the sense of DVDs as collectible physical objects, even as the looming threat of downloads seems poised to change the business. Good supplementary features stand as works of film history and scholarship, and some of the most valuable extras are being produced for older movies. In the case of "Ford at Fox," entire films are being made available to viewers for the first time. Of the 24 titles in the box, 18 are new to DVD.
Three-quarters of a million Americans now own a dedicated HD DVD player or Xbox 360 add-on drive, the HD DVD Promotional Group said. To date, 750,000 HD DVD devices have been sold in North America, the organisation said, citing "retailer reports and other point of sale data". It pointed to busy post-Thanksgiving purchasing as one of the reasons for the growth in sales of HD DVD kit. Seven months ago, in April, the HD DVD Promotional Group announced that hardware sales had passed the 100,000 mark - a year after the first players went on sale. By June, the total had risen to just 150,000. So, two months to increase 50 per cent, then five months to increase by 400 per cent.
The World Trade Organization has launched an investigation into Chinese restrictions on the sale of U.S. movies, music and books — Washington’s fourth commercial complaint against Beijing in a little more than a year. The U.S. says that “less favorable distribution opportunities” in China for foreign-made CDs, DVDs and computer software have cost U.S. media companies millions of dollars. Beijing said it was disappointed with the U.S. complaint, which it said was made “despite the ample market access that China grants to foreign publications, films and audiovisual products and services.”
The Korean Film Council [KOIFC] kicked off a new campaign against film piracy focused on raising public awareness of the serious effects of piracy in Korea. KOFIC unveiled a new public relations video designed to emphasize the dangers piracy poses to the local movie industry. That video will air in movie theaters, on cable TV channels and on DVDs. Despite Korea's thriving theatrical boxoffice, which topped $1 billion in 2006 -- the fifth biggest in the world -- DVD sales are anemic, less than $80 million and declining.
Domestic Trade Ministry authorities raided a house in a Kuala Lumpur suburb and arrested four people working in a secret laboratory. Some 340 optical disc burners were seized, crippling an operation that had the potential to produce 18 million DVDs per year with a revenue of about US$52 million (€35 million). It was the biggest seizure of DVD burners in a single raid in Malaysia. end
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