Warner Brothers to announce single Blu-ray/HD DVD optical disc January 4, 2007 9:00 am
Posted by Rosario T. Calabria in Blu-ray Disc, DVD, HD DVD, Movies, News, Television.add a comment
Understanding that consumers are wary of buying into the new high-definition players, Warner Brothers plans to announce a new disc (Total HD disc) capable of playing film and television content in both formats.
Executives at Time Warner (parent of Warner Brothers) hope the disc will generate an increase of sales of the new High-Definition players. Barry M. Meyer, the chairman and chief executive of Warner Brothers, said in an interview that the company came up with the Total HD disc after concluding that neither Blu-ray or HD DVD was going to lose the format war anytime soon.
“The next best thing is to recognize that there will be two formats and to make that not a negative for the consumer,” Mr. Meyer said. “We felt that the most significant constituency for us to satisfy was the consumer first, and the retailer second. The retailer wants to sell hardware and doesn’t want to be forced into stocking two formats for everything. This is ideal for them.”
The disc will be debuted at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas next Tuesday.
Source: — [The NY Times] — New Disc May Sway DVD Wars
LG Electronics set to debut first dual-mode HD DVD/Blu-ray player January 4, 2007 8:45 am
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South Korean electronics giant LG Electronics. Inc. announced Thursday their intention to develop the worlds first Optical Disc Player capable of supporting the two competing disc formats — Blu-ray and HD DVD.
LG will debut the player next week at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. The company had originally planned to release models for each format, but decided against that approach, fueling speculation that they were moving in this direction towards a dual player.
The new model will hit the U.S. market during the first quarter of this year, with LG adding that they will announce a timeframe and price point for the device during CES.
Top DVD Sales for the week ending December 17th December 22, 2006 1:02 am
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Showing just how strong a title it is, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest held off eight new releases this past week to stay atop the DVD charts for a second consecutive week.
Top DVD sales for the week ending December 10th December 16, 2006 12:36 pm
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As was expected, and mentioned here a few days back, “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest” the second of an expected three films in the “Pirates of the Caribbean” movie franchise, was the number one best selling DVD for the past week.
“Dead Man’s Chest” sets one-week sales record for 2006 December 15, 2006 2:57 pm
Posted by Rosario T. Calabria in DVD, DVD Sales, Movies, News.1 comment so far
As was mentioned on Entertainment Now a less than a week ago, first day sales of the second ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ franchise were in excess of 5 million units. Experts were expecting when it was all said and done, “Dead Man’s Chest” would become the best selling one-week DVD of 2006.
Well, the movie accomplished the feat selling a 2006 one-week record of 10.5 million DVD’s. The previous record was held by Disney/Pixars “Cars” which sold 9 million units in its first week.
“With the incredible success of the release of Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest, it is evident that the home entertainment industry continues to flourish,” BVWHE president Bob Chapek said in a statement. “It also further illustrates worldwide phenomenon of everything Pirates of the Caribbean.”
The mark was just a tad short of the previous film in the franchise “Curse of the Black Pearl” which sold 11 million DVD’s and VHS tapes back in its first week in 2003.
The DVD continues to be a huge success worldwide as well, as it sold 1.5 million units in the U.K. (a first-week record) and 1 million units in Japan (the live-action release of all time).
New “Bablylon 5” Direct-to-Video Movie in 2007 November 14, 2006 4:14 pm
Posted by Rosario T. Calabria in Babylon 5, DVD, Movies, News, Sci Fi, Television, TV DVD.2 comments
Warner Home Video and Warner Bros. Television have announced that production has begun on “Babylon 5: The Lost Tales”, a made-for-video movie targeted at fans of the Babylon 5 franchise set for release in 2007.
The DVD movie will include two new stories entitled ‘Voices of the Dark’, with both stories written, directed and executive produced by original Babylon 5 creator J. Michael Straczynski. The story of “The Lost Tales” picks up several years after the original series.
“Monster House” leads the pack of newly released DVDs November 5, 2006 1:26 am
Posted by Rosario T. Calabria in DVD, DVD Sales, Movies, News, Television, TV DVD.1 comment so far
“Monster House” took the top spot among DVD sales for the week ending October 29th. This marks the second week that an animated film took the top spot in DVD sales.
Other new releases for the week that made the top 20 were “Nacho Libre” at #3, “An American Haunting” at #4, “Slither” at #6, “The O.C.: Season 3” at #10 and “The Addams Family: Season 1” at #12.
Rounding out the top 10 then were “Over the Hedge” at #2, “The Break-up” at #5, “Click” at #7, “The Little Mermaid: Special Edition” at #8 and “The Omen” at #9.
Among the top 10 TV DVD sales for the week, the aforementioned tv shows above were followed by the new releases of “Justice League Unlimited: Season 1” at #3, “The L Word: Season 3” at #4 and “Macgyver: The Final Season” at #5.
Rounding out the top 10 of TV DVDs were “Grey’s Anatomy: Season 1” at #6 (the series has been in the top 10 of TV DVDs for a remarkable 34 weeks now), “Charmed: Season 6” at #7, “Grey’s Anatomy: Season 2” at #8, “Scrubs: Season 4” at #9 and “Lost: Season 2” at #10.
Little Mermaid DVD Sells 4M Copies October 11, 2006 8:25 pm
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The two-disc Platinum Edition DVD of the 17 year old animated classic debuted to more than four million units in its first week of release. The movie had been placed in Disney’s “vault” for the past seven years.
That mark makes it the top selling animated movie release for October ever, and surpassed all previous Platinum Edition releases (included classics such as “Beauty and the Beast” and “Lion King”).
Superman Returns DVD Premieres in China October 1, 2006 11:25 pm
Posted by Rosario T. Calabria in DVD, Movies, Piracy, Superman Returns.1 comment so far
The Superman Returns DVD, this past Thursday, launched in China. A full two months before its North American launch of November 29th.
In an effort to combat piracy, a very big problem on the Asian continent, Warner Brothers has decided to release the movie on DVD much earlier than is normal, and for a low dollar amount.
Priced between $1.80 and $2.80, the DVD packs the full release encoded with a hard-to-copy disc encryption. Because the studio has to compete with the pirated copies (in retail stores no less), it’s almost impossible to sell for a higher retail price in China.
You can read more about this and some background on the piracy problems at Video Business.
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