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Media
Information > Media DVD Coverage 
Archive
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| Updated August 31, 2006 DVD
NEWS DIGEST 1 -
The Benchwarmers - Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
For traditionalists who don't watch movies on their PSPs while commuting to the office, Tokyo Metro will start offering 10 DVD vending machines with up to 330 titles each. The machines will dispense all the latest Hollywood and Japanese titles 24 hours a day for ¥350 [ about $3.15 ]. Users must register and pay by credit card. The machines will be installed in 10 heavily trafficked stations:
A film industry group is set to remove some of the procedural hurdles that prevented the legal recording of movies onto blank DVDs in a further sign that Hollywood studios are preparing to expand what consumers can do with downloadable movies. Under rule changes expected to be finalized soon by the DVD Copy Control Association, retailers could create movie jukebox kiosks with which customers can select, say, an obscure title and burn it to a DVD on the spot. The impending technical and policy changes involve the copy group's proprietary technology known as the Content Scramble System, or CSS. The association, an arm of Hollywood studios, licenses the encryption technology to makers of DVD players and other electronics companies and applies it widely to movies on DVDs to restrict illegal copying. The group also is working with disc makers to produce CSS-compatible blank DVDs. McClatchy Newspapers: Funerals Latest DVD Keepsakes Funeral homes nationwide are beefing up their services by offering to create "life videos" of the deceased. The videos, displayed like slide shows during funeral services or at wakes, are often montages of photographs from the family. Funeral videographers go a step further, capturing every moment of that solemn day - from the hours before the service to the burial. After the funeral, the videographer edits the footage and makes it into a DVD keepsake for the family. "From time to time, you may want to sit back with your family and remember the person you truly cared for," said a man who has shown his funeral DVDs to out-of-town family members unable to make it to the actual services. "Videos help families keep a legacy of their loved ones in their minds," said Richard A. Kurtz, owner and funeral director of Roy Mizell & Kurtz Funeral Home in Fort Lauderdale.
"Sumo Health Exercises,'' released by the Japan Sumo Association this month, contains 12 sets of stretches, squats and splits demonstrated by professional wrestlers. "The exercises can help strengthen the lower back and legs,'' said Hideki Yazaki, a Sumo association official. "They're fun, so we hope parents can get kids to do them instead of playing computer games all day.'' The sumo moves include squats that the wrestlers perform before and after bouts, and a ceremonial move in which a wrestler lifts his leg sideways until it is pointing at the sky. In fact, the difficulty of the exercises demonstrates the wrestlers' legendary agility, despite their impressive body mass. Sumo stars can weigh as much as 225 kilograms (500 pounds). Wall Street Journal: Music Albums on DVDs The music industry has for years struggled to develop a new physical format that could spark increased sales by replacing the CD. One producer is planning an aggressive attempt to address the issue by pushing consumers to buy their music on specially outfitted DVDs. The DVDs would include a music album that plays in both stereo and surround-sound on a standard DVD player -- plus video footage that plays on a DVD player or a computer. There will also be song remixes, ring tones, photos and other digital extras that can be accessed on a computer. The company plans to make the new format available to its subsidiary record labels for product-planning purposes and to introduce the discs to consumers with a handful of titles in October. A full-blown launch is planned for early next year. The DVD album is the latest in a parade of would-be successors to the CD, including the surround-sound products Super-Audio CD and DVD-Audio, and most recently DualDisc, which plays like a CD on one side and like a DVD on the other.
Young mothers who were raised on TV and movies are being targeted in a marketing push for animated DVD versions of children's picture books. Unlike cartoons, the picture book DVDs move slowly so viewers feel like the story is being read to them. A Japanese company released 10 storybook DVDs between last fall and spring, each containing three stories, and 10 more will be added by early next year. Targeting kids age 2 to 6, the DVDs are priced at 1,000 yen [ about $9 ].
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