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Media
Information > Media DVD Coverage 
Archive
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| Updated April 12, 2006 DVD
NEWS DIGEST
1 -
Rent (Widescreen Special Edition) Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
As the DVD business matures and sales level off, studios are looking for ways to get fans excited again. One way is to add extras they can't get anywhere else. For the DVD release a recent film, 11 special features were created, including a documentary and a cooking segment related to the film's plot. • An exclusive documentary on Johnny Cash's pivotal Folsom Prison concert, plus interviews with a prison guard and prisoner who were at the concert. • The celebrated 1972 television special Liza With a Z includes backroom footage, including Liza Minnelli interviewing John Kander, who with the late lyricist Fred Ebb composed Cabaret and Chicago. "It's these kinds of distinctive, one-of-a-kind additions to a film's DVD release that make them more than just a movie on a disc," says a producer. "They become sophisticated experiences."
A theater chain owner says he thinks DVD's have been the savior of not only the studio model but have been beneficial to theater owners, too, because it funnels more money back into the studios, which in turn fuels higher production budgets, greater numbers of films, and so on. "We have seen the window shrink from an average of about six months between theatrical to video 10 years ago to about four and a half months today. Some compression of that window over time is justified, or has been justified at least in the past, because we generate our piece of the pie at the box office much quicker today than we did a decade ago. "People who run the studios are smart people, and I think they realize the tremendous value of having that theatrical launch pad. And I don't think that's going to change. They make films to be released on the big screen." New York Times: Amazon Looks At DVD Download Service Amazon.com is in talks with three Hollywood studios to start a movie download and DVD burning service that would allow consumers to buy movie and TV titles and burn them to DVD.
With the growing popularity Music DVD and the latest technological advances, the recovery of images of jazz saxaphonist John Coltrane's concerts constitutes an authentic happening for jazz and blues fans that now have something so esthetically satisfying available that previously was unimaginable in terms of quality and clarity. In the Stars of Jazz series both diehard aficionados of these musicians as well as jazz lovers in general who are constantly on the lookout for new enriching experiences will find, without a doubt, the best visual and auditory legacy which has been bequeathed to us by the great mythical names of Jazz and Blues. Local schools are to be given DVDs and CD-ROMs to aid them in the fight against bullying in the classroom. The digital toolkit has been designed to show different bullying scenarios and a CD-ROM with 50 anti-bullying ideas. It is hoped they will be used in schools and youth centres. "We want all our children and young people to become confident, responsible citizens," said Robert Gordon, the county council's executive member for education.
"Harry
Potter and the Goblet of Fire" has broken first-day sales records
with about 5 million copies of the movie sold in North America.
The movie, released on video Tuesday, is on track to becoming the
best-selling Harry Potter DVD ever. Bloomberg News: Film firms' DVD victory French consumers are not entitled to make personal copies of DVDs, even if they do not distribute them, France's highest court said Wednesday in a victory for film companies. "This means that if one pays €20 for a DVD, one is just buying the right to use that one DVD," Ahmed Baladi, a Paris-based lawyer at Allen & Overy, said. "This ruling will have an influence on neighboring sets of laws, including those regulating the music industry." The
judgment comes amid efforts by French lawmakers, music and film
publishers and lobbyists to strike a balance between copyright protection
and consumer rights. AP: DVD piracy in Russia said growing A senior U.S. official said that piracy of CDs and DVDs in Russia is growing despite Moscow's efforts to battle international property theft, and stressed that better performance is key to meeting requirements to join the World Trade Organization. "Unfortunately there is an overall growth in the number of optical disk plants and their capacity ... the reality is there's overall growth," Chris Israel, the U.S. government's international intellectual property rights enforcement coordinator, told reporters. Russia has brought its intellectual property laws largely in line with international norms and treaties, but enforcement in Russia remains weak in spite of occasional raids that are widely publicized in state media. Stalls selling pirated music and software as well as DVDs of the latest Hollywood films can be found throughout the Russian capital and other cities.
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