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Media
Information > Media DVD Coverage 
Archive
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| Updated September 26, 2005 DVD
NEWS DIGEST
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Kung Fu Hustle (Widescreen) Columbia TriStar Home Entertainment Children can now experience the joy of listening to classic books while watching the illustrations come alive on their TV screen. A toy maker and a book publisher have cooperated to produce Read with Me DVD!, a system that transfers classic books to interactive DVDs. TheRead
with Me DVD! system comes with one DVD book and a special large-button
controller. Adults must synchronize the Read with Me DVD! controller
to their DVD player by following a series of verbal commands issued
by the controller. Since this system uses a DVD player to cycle to different tracks in response to kids' pushing buttons, its slower pace works best with preschoolers or older children who are patient.
The tradition of major films debuting first in theaters, then across staggered release "windows," including pay-per-view, home video, cable and, finally, broadcast TV, is being openly questioned. A film executive recently suggested the day could come when a DVD is released while the movie is still in theaters. The millions of dollars that studios spend marketing first-run movies would serve double duty promoting the more profitable DVDs, making for a faster and more efficient return on investment. "Consumers have a lot more authority these days and they know that by using technology they can gain access to content and they want to use the power that they have..." the executive told financial analysts. "We can't stand in the way and we can't allow tradition to stand in the way of where the consumer can go or wants to go." Studios make the majority of their profits from home video sales, with theatrical runs serving largely as marketing for the DVD. August 28 - Washington Post: DVDs and Fries: New Ways To Consume Technology Customers of some chain restaurants can now pick up a DVD rental along with their food at a growing number of locations. Grocery chains also are rolling out DVD rental machines. Buying technology once meant having to trek to a specialty electronics store. But as the prices have fallen and as gadgets have simplified, other types of outlets have begun to sell technology and entertainment offerings, turning sophisticated items into commodities like milk and eggs. Josh Bernoff, a media technology analyst with Forrester Research Inc., said the idea of stopping by a retail food chain or other type of store to pick up technology appeals to a modern culture that's obsessed with speed and efficiency. At one restaurant chain, each kiosk is stocked with 550 DVD disks offering 35 to 40 of the top new releases. The kiosk is refilled every Tuesday. By the end of the year, about 1,000 of the chain's outlets in the United States will feature the kiosks.
The digitization of music has created a shift in how tunes are shared and consumed. Because it's faster to copy and transmit digital music, more people are copying and sharing tracks. One typical album soon to be released will come with one disc option -- a DVD of music videos that can be manipulated through a computer to download the songs onto an MP3 player or burn them onto a CD.
Entertaining children or other back-seat passengers with DVD's is increasingly popular, as is using a laptop as a DVD player. But putting the two together is a challenge because there is no easy way to secure a laptop in a car. A new product, a computer travel harness, aims to solve this problem. It suspends a laptop behind or between a vehicle's front seats, where passengers can see the screen clearly but the driver, for safety's sake, cannot. The mount also allows easy disc changing from the front or rear seat. And if movies don't hold the children's attention, you could add a navigation module and a mapping program to let them track the journey. August 16 - Australian AP: Remote Aussie Churches Get DVD Sermons Amid a rural clergy shortage, televised pre-recorded services are replacing the traditional minister's sermon in small communities across Australia. The Uniting Church, Australia's third-largest Christian denomination, is exploring the use of weekly DVDs of sermons. The church provides the pre-recorded DVDs to up to 20 village worship groups which are considered either too small or too remote to have their own ministers. Project coordinator the Reverend Tom Stuart said the strategy was conceived to cope with a clergy shortage in his area. He said there had been a handful of detractors, but those involved now saw it as a dynamic, interactive way to reconnect the church and their communities. Stuart said more and more communities were expressing interest in joining the DVD project, and webcasts might be an option in the future.
Nearly 14 million DVD players were sold to U.S. consumers during the first six months of 2005 - a 6 percent increase over the year before - and shipments of DVD titles were up by 20 percent, according to a midyear report by the Digital Entertainment Group. Since the launch of the DVD format eight years ago, more than 140 million players have been sold to consumers including set-top and portable players, DVD recorders, home-theater-in-a-box systems, and DVD/VCR combinations. This brings the number of DVD households in the U.S. to 75 million. While the DEG's numbers reflect growth, the numbers reveal a slowing of the DVD boom, which enjoyed explosive growth during its first seven years. Among the types of players continuing to grow in popularity are car DVD systems, which are now offered as standard features in 22 new-vehicle models. Portable DVD player sales are projected to grow 57 percent versus last year, the DEG said. The industry-funded nonprofit DEG also reported that in the first half of 2005, more than 770 million DVDs were shipped to retailers, a 19 percent increase over the same period last year. This brings the total number of units shipped since the launch of the DVD format to nearly 4.7 billion discs and approximately 47,000 different titles.
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