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Media
Information > Media DVD Coverage 
Archive
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| Updated August 9, 2007 DVD
NEWS DIGEST
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The Last Mimzy New Line Home Entertainment AP: Five Met operas to be released on DVD The Metropolitan Opera is getting back into the DVD business. Five of the Met's eight live high-definition movie-theater broadcasts next season will be released on DVD. The releases include Puccini's "Manon Lescaut" with Karita Mattila, Marcello Giordani and conductor James Levine; and Verdi's "Macbeth" with Levine conducting Lado Ataneli. It has been six years since the Met last recorded an opera that was released on DVD. The other operas in the new DVD crop will be Britten's "Peter Grimes" with Anthony Dean Griffey (a High Point native), Patricia Racette and conductor Donald Runnicles; Puccini's "La Bohème" with Angela Gheorghiu, Ramon Vargas and conductor Nicola Luisotti; and an English-language version of Humperdinck's "Hansel and Gretel" with Christine Schaefer, Alice Coote and conductor Vladimir Jurowski.
Overall sales rose by 12.6% in the first six months of the year, during which 108 million DVDs were sold. "DVD continues to prove its strength as a format and demand from customers keeps rising," BVA director general Lavinia Carey said. She also drew attention to a 4.7% increase in DVD rentals in June - the first rise in 12 months.
One of China's most notorious retailers of pirated goods has been ordered to pay damages to a quartet of film studios over the sale of thousands of fake DVDs of Hollywood blockbusters. Underlining China's apparent determination to crack down on intellectual property abuses, Yue Ying, a Shanghai-based company, has been ordered to pay about £15,000 in damages to studios including Columbia, 20th Century Fox and Paramount. The ruling by the Shanghai No 1 Intermediate People's Court marks a small victory in a long-running war against piracy being waged by the Motion Picture Association of America (MPA) and other bodies attempting to safeguard intellectual property rights in China.
Portable DVD players have exploded in popularity since their introduction in 1998, although the market has cooled a little with the advent of downloadable movies onto iPods and other digital media players. Still, the more durable and easier to operate portable DVD players remain popular among families with young children. They're also often used by couples -- husbands will enjoy their favorite DVDs while their wives watch something else on TV. And in a pinch, a portable player can be connected to a home entertainment system and used like a regular DVD player. And there are other uses: Matt Eventoff, a New Jersey-based public communications specialist, said he uses portable DVD players to review speaking performances with clients immediately after taping them. The screen quality, sound characteristics, and size of portable DVD players has improved through the years, even as cost has fallen. Many quality portable DVD players can now be purchased for under $200, said consumer electronics analyst Rob Enderle of the Enderle Group, a San Jose-based research firm.
A new series of electronic DVD "postcards" feature Christchurch and 18 other regions across New Zealand. A further 34 will be released in October. Each DVD is a 12 to 15-minute film featuring scenery and other highlights. The discs can be sent anywhere in the world, just like a postcard, and the recipient can watch the DVD and see what the region is like. The producer hoped to sell 400,000 Post a Movies this tourist season and has already sold 35,000 since they hit the shelves in December. New York Times: Instant DVDs CustomFlix Labs, a DVD manufacturer, announced that they were going to make shows from the archives of ABC News available on demand. When a history buff wants to buy a DVD about a famous event, they can order it online, pay for it, then wait two or three days for delivery. The DVD will be copied from digital files stored at CustomFlix. The market potential for on-demand DVD sales is considerable. For Amazon alone, projected sales of DVDs should be just under 5 percent of its $7.6 billion domestic sales revenue in 2007, said Aaron Kessler, a senior research analyst at Piper Jaffray. Some 300 titles are available, including daily news coverage, celebrity interviews by Barbara Walters, special reports and segments from “Nightline” and “20/20.” CustomFlix also has titles from CBS, NBC and PBS. end
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