NEW TECHNOLOGY EXPANDS VIDEO ON DEMAND

A system that will purportedly enable cable TV providers to vastly expand their video-on-demand offerings at a relatively low cost is due to be unveiled at the International Broadcasting Convention (IBC) in Amsterdam on Friday. The system, the result of a collaboration between Alcatel-Lucent and Concurrent, will give cable companies the ability to offer subscribers […]

DVD COLLECTIONS MAY WIND UP IN THE CLOUD

Santa Clara, CA-based Rovi Corp. has unveiled a system that will allow consumers to purchase digital copies of their DVDs that can be stored in the cloud and accessed via the UltraViolet platform. Unlike the new Walmart solution, users do not have to bring their discs into a store to have them verified. They simply […]

PEOPLE STILL PREFER TO RENT MOVIES ON DISCS

Netflix chief Reed Hastings may be doing all in his power to encourage consumers to forsake disc rentals and switch to streaming video, but a new study by Rentrak indicates that — by a wide margin — consumers still prefer renting standard DVDs and Blu-ray Discs than streaming them online or renting them via video-on-demand […]

TWO MOVIES RELEASED ONLINE BEFORE THEATER DEBUTS

Theater owners have yet to react to a report that both Amazon and Google are currently offering Magnolia Pictures’ The Hunter for streaming, ahead of its theatrical release on April 6. The report appeared Friday on Home Media magazine’s website, which also reported that Google is currently offering Lionsgate’s Dark Tide, which doesn’t hit theaters […]

$60 TO RENT A MOVIE? IS THAT A TOWER HEIST?

How much will consumers be willing to shell out to watch a movie while it is still playing in theaters? Universal apparently believes that $60 sounds like a reasonable figure. It will soon find out. They’ll be making their Eddie Murphy-Ben Stiller comedy Tower Heist available via video-on-demand at that price beginning on November 23 […]

PARAMOUNT TO OFFER LATEST TRANSFORMERS MOVIE ON OWN SITE

In a landmark antitrust ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1948 (United States vs. Paramount Pictures) motion picture studios were barred from owning the theaters that showed their movies. Since then, they have operated through distribution companies (most of which they own themselves) that are essentially middlemen between themselves and theater owners. A similar […]

BLU-RAY TO SURPASS DVD NEXT YEAR

By next year, Blu-ray will surpass DVD as the preferred home video format in America, and by 2014 it will account for 41 percent of total home entertainment spending, according to a study by the research firm Futuresource Consulting. By that year, DVD spending will be down to 26 percent of combined entertainment spending, with […]

HULU WON’T LOSE ANY OWNERS BUT WILL UNDERGO CHANGE

The three media conglomerates that own Hulu — News Corp, Disney, and Comcast’s NBCUniversal — are going to stick with the online video site — contrary to what several analysts have been predicting — but they might allow fewer shows on Hulu’s free service, restricting them to its monthly Hulu Plus subscription service, the Wall […]

MICROSOFT BUYS SKYPE FOR $8.5 BILLION

In its biggest deal ever, Microsoft announced today that it had purchased Skype, the company that permits users to make audio and video phone calls over the Internet, for $8.5 billion. But it was not clear what the company plans to do to make Skype profitable. While it said that it would merge the company […]

COMCAST NOW OFFERS VOD FROM ALL NETWORKS

Throw away the TV guide. If you’re a Comcast subscriber, you’ll be able to watch many network television shows any time you wish. Comcast said on Wednesday that it has become the first cable-TV provider to offer programs from all four major television networks, ABC, CBS, NBC, and Fox, on its video-on-demand service beginning the […]

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