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Media
Information > Media DVD Coverage 
Archive
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DVD NEWS DIGEST
1
- Once Upon A Time In Mexico Columbia TriStar Home Entertainment The original "Star Wars" trilogy, one of the most-requested DVD episodic film franchises, is expected to be released as a four-disc DVD box set September 21. The trilogy, featuring the classic franchise films "Star Wars," "The Empire Strikes Back" and "Return of the Jedi," will be released on three DVD discs, with a fourth disc likely to hold a newly made documentary about the "Star Wars" franchise and never-before-seen footage, among several other bonus materials. Each of the three films in the "Star Wars Trilogy" has been digitally restored and remastered for sound and picture quality. The films of the "Star Wars Trilogy" will be sold exclusively as a collection at a still-to-be-determined retail price and not separately. However, retailers have been known to break up DVD box sets and sell individual titles after the first month out on store shelves.
Sales of VCRs and rentals of video cassettes have been declining for years and this year are millions of dollars in sales behind DVDs in Australia. The VCR market is saturated and replacement purchases are dropping by more than 100,000 a year, according to market analysts GfK Australia. In electronics stores around Melbourne, DVD players now sit front of shop but in stiff competition, driving prices down almost monthly. Even the best brands now sell for about $A500 and the cheaper Chinese-made units for less than $A100. Video rental companies report a huge swing from conventional VHS tape towards DVDs. The Australian Visual Software Distributors Association says DVD rentals, at 17 million for the year, soared past video tapes in 2001-02 and rose 75 per cent to 28 million in the 12 months to July 2003. Video tape rentals fell 13 per cent last year, down from 17.4 million rentals in 2001 to just over 15 million in 2002-03. Sales of DVD players are soaring. Last year 1.5 million DVD players worth $297 million were sold in Australia, up from 170,000, worth $113 million, in 2000, the dollar value indicating the steep fall in unit prices. Feb. 11 - Associated Press: Creator of DVD-Copy Software Expands to PC Games A company whose DVD-copying software prompted copyright and piracy-related lawsuits from Hollywood is expanding into the realm of computer games, rolling out a system that lets game buyers make backup copies. There are some restrictions, including that consumers can't sell a backup copy unless they sell the original with it, said an executive for intellectual property policy and enforcement for the Software and Information Industry Association. The DVD-copying program lets users make backups by defeating the copy protections encoded onto movie discs. The company is being sued by seven Hollywood movie studios that argue that the software violates the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which bars the circumvention of anti-piracy measures. Feb. 9 - USA Today: Fitness Videos Increase DVD Popularity When the format launched seven years ago, marketers felt DVD and fitness would be a perfect match. The ability to randomly access segments of a DVD would allow bedroom athletes to do their favorite routines over and over without having to rewind, and customize their workouts. Women are starting to buy DVDs for themselves as opposed to buying for husbands and children, and the flood of inexpensive DVD players that hit the market over the holidays has encouraged consumers to pick up a second player. Of the 30 million DVD players expected to be sold this year, half are going into homes that already have one, according to The Digital Entertainment Group. An executive with Koch Entertainment Distribution, says 65% of his fitness video sales are now on DVD. A year ago, it was only 25%.
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