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Media
Information > Media DVD Coverage 
Archive
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| Updated August 30, 2005 DVD
NEWS DIGEST
1 -
The Pacifier (Full Screen) Walt Disney Pictures
Since March, movie theaters in Japan have been screening a short advertisement before films are shown calling for an end to the pirating of movies. Five foreign film companies joined forces to produce the clip for screening in the nation. "Piracy could seriously damage the film industry," said the general manager of a film sales company. The shadows of people moving around in the cinema where the movie was secretly filmed can often be seen in pirated movies. "The sales of pirated software are a source of funding for organized crime groups," said an official of the Anti Counterfeiting Association formed by the Japan Video Software Association and the Japan and International Motion Picture Copyright Association, Inc. (MPA). About 2 million pirated DVDs have been seized in China and Taiwan so far this year.
More and more, Americans like their entertainment to go. They're watching DVDs in planes, trains and automobiles, on laptops, portable DVD players, and mobile DVD players that hang from the ceilings of their SUVs. • 22 new vehicle models now offer DVD players as standard features, while nearly 20% offer them as options, according to Autobytel Inc.'s Automotive Information Center. • Sales of DVD players for vehicles are projected at 447,000 units this year, up 15% from 2004, says the Consumer Electronics Association. • Portable DVD player sales are projected to grow 57% from last year, to 662,000 units, the CEA says. Gary Delfiner of Global Multimedia, a leading supplier of budget DVDs, says that to capitalize on the spike in mobile DVD players, he's soliciting gas stations to sell his DVDs, priced at $1.99 or less. "We have even created a special display that sits on the counter."
Purchases of previously viewed DVDs helped U.S. movie rental chains offset a slight drop in rental demand in the first-half of 2005, according to a company that tracks the sale of home videos. Rentrak Corp. said Americans spent $3.99 billion on DVD movie rentals in the first half of the year, down 2.3% from the same period in the prior year. But including revenue from purchases of previously viewed movies, the market was unchanged year-over-year. Rentrak said Americans rented more than 1 billion DVDs during the first 26 weeks of 2005, an increase of 17.7% from 856.5 million units last year.
Speech-language pathologists Bill Murphy of Purdue University and Kristin Chmela of Northwestern University present practical strategies teachers can use immediately to help children feel more comfortable talking in the classroom.
For as long as North Americans have piled the kids into the car and taken vacations, they have shared the bond that comes with the pure tedium of a good, long road trip. But now, with the proliferation of attention-grabbing DVD players that can be used in cars, boredom seems to be disappearing. "It's the best investment we have ever made," said one parent. DVDs were first offered in cars in the late 1990s, and they're now readily available in hundreds of models. In most models, the screens flip down from the centre of the ceiling directly behind the front seats, though some are fitted into the backs of front seats, like on airplanes. Many parents also use portable DVD players, especially if they have multiple children who don't like to watch the same shows. Many of today's parents say movies are necessary because they're up against more than their parents faced. For starters, a lot of not-so-long trips stretch on for hours because of traffic jams. Not exactly much to see there. Also, today's parents make more trips because family and friends tend to live farther from each other.
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