Netflix has been making a few moves to separate its DVD business more from its streaming operation, and today brings news of the latest move in that direction: the company has bought the domain name DVD.com, the company has confirmed to us.
The news raises questions of Netflix possibly getting ready to pull a Qwikster on us after all and separate its streaming and DVD businesses — something others have suggested it might do — but TechCrunch understands that there are no plans to spin off its DVD business into a separate company, à la the Qwikster strategy of last year that so qwikly spiraled into a PR disaster for the company, and was then abandoned. → Read More
Two big Japanese electronics companies, namely Hitachi and Mitsubishi, are to stop producing parts of their product portfolio domestically: Hitachi announced [JP] it will end production of plasma and LCD TVs in Japan, marketed under the Wooo brand, by September this year.
The company owns a plant in Gifu prefecture in central Japan that churns out about 100,000 TVs per month (pictured: a Hitachi Wooo plasma from 2009). Citing price competition in the TV business as the main reason for the move, Hitachi said the plant will be used to produce projectors and chips instead. → Read More
The move to all-digital distribution is already well under way, and it poses a problem for businesses that have based themselves around the sale of shiny plastic discs. That, combined with the rampant piracy of these discs when they’re released has particularly hurt independent pro-wrestling organizations (to pick something out of thin air). Gabe Sapolsky, vice-president of Dragon Gate USA, owner of Evolve, and former head booker of Ring of Honor, was recently interviewed on Figure Four Daily, a podcast dedicated to pro-wrestling and MMA news, and said that the only way these companies will survive is if a new technology, Internet Pay-Per-View, becomes viable. → Read More
Having essentially liveblogged the iLife ’11 presentation yesterday, one thing that struck me: where’s the love for iDVD? Apple‘s DVD authoring suite hasn’t seen any new features since iLife ’08, and it’s beginning to look long in the tooth. But does it even matter? Given that Apple has thrown so much weight behind the MacBook Air, which doesn’t have an optical drive, and the Mac App Store, which delivers and installs software through the magic of the Internet, we have to ask ourselves: is the DVD well and truly on its way out? → Read More
Now why would a cable company that handles pay per view movies and programming team up with a video store? I have no idea. But for whatever reason (perhaps desperation?) Comcast has joined forces with Blockbuster to deliver DVDs by mail. You’d think Comcast would just deliver the content via their high speed internet feeds, or receiver based delivery systems. Perhaps this is just a marketing scheme by Blockbuster to try and prop up their now archaic and failing business model. Only time will tell. [via Zatz Not Funny] → Read More
We have numerous super-light laptops, a plethora of netbooks, and the iPad to choose from. But some companies still produce portable DVD players. One example is Sony, which yesterday in Japan announced [JP] just that, the DVP-FX950. The player has two selling points: a 9-inch LCD screen that features an LED backlight and a battery life of 7.5 hours (up 25% from the previous model). → Read More
Right around the time the world’s financial markets started to collapse, back in 2008, RealNetworks, the folks behind RealPlayer, released RealDVD. It was a short-lived piece of software that made making DVD movie backups fairly painless—too painless for Hollywood, which immediately took RealNetworks to court, claiming all sorts of copyright infringement hokum. That’s all in the past now, for RealNetworks has settled with the six “major” Hollywood studios to the sum of $4.5 million. Ouch. → Read More
Teenage movie sensations Twilight and New Moon have grossed over $1 billion at box offices worldwide so far (New Moon is still in theaters), and both movies have proven to be extremely successful in the world’s second biggest movie market, Japan, too. That’s perhaps the reason why the second movie (New Moon) gets a special treatment in this country, namely a huge and Japan-only DVD premium box. → Read More
If you live in a northern climate, tomorrow marks the first real day of hunkering down for the cold, cold winter with nothing to look forward to until spring. We used to have the new season of Deadwood starting up in February, but HBO killed it. → Read More
Proving once again you can find a study to prove almost anything, a report came out today showing that Redbox will bring down the movie industry by continuing with their $1 a night business model. Sounds like some sour grapes to me. → Read More
New kid on the block Cranberry claims that their new DVD will last 1,000 years. Of course no one will be around to dispute that claim, and by then we’ll be using some kind of organic memory light data cell, but hey! Who knows, maybe future generations will want to see those vacation photos you took of Grandma Rhoda and Aunt Suzy. → Read More
This is just wrong. I’ll admit, I didn’t enjoy “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen”. I thought the plot was weak and contrived, and I was slightly offended by the dumbing down of the film (robot urination and racial stereotypes? give me a break). I realize that the original “Transformers” wasn’t exactly the height of cinematic art, but it was better then the sequel. → Read More
If you long for the ability to watch high definition TV on a seven-inch screen that’s resolution is a mere 480×234 but you also want to have the option to watch standard definition DVD’s as well, then here’s your next purchase.
According to Hammacher Schlemmer, this is “The First Portable HDTV And DVD Player.” → Read More
Some Netflix news for you this morning. It looks like a 49-year-old post office worker is facing a maximum of five years in federal prison after having plead guilty to federal theft charges. What was he stealing? Oh, you know, some 3,000 Netflix DVDs over the years. → Read More
Amazon’s lopped over $60 off the 22-disc “Total World Domination Collection” of Family Guy episodes, bringing the total price to just $75 (good today only). → Read More
Toshiba, the company behind the now dead HD DVD format, first talked about joining the Blu-ray bandwagon back in June, but it seems there’s no hurry. The company announced a total of three new Vardia DVRs today [JP], and they all use DVDs and HDDs to store data. → Read More
A Utah company claims to have developed a DVD that will last 1,000 years under normal, everyday conditions. (You don’t have to be a professional archivist, in other words.) And while that’s an impressive achievement, if it is indeed true, there’s one small problem: what are the odds that, 1,000 years from now, Future People will derive any value at all from said discs? → Read More
After losing the format war against Sony, Toshiba is yet to produce Blu-ray hardware, but at least they keep on rolling out DVD hardware in their VARDIA series. The company yesterday announced two new HDD/DVD recorders for the Japanese market [JP]. → Read More
RealNetworks is currently entangled in a legal case over a prototype hardware DVD ripper called “Facet.” Described as “TiVo for DVDs,” the $300 box aims to replace set-top DVD players by allowing owners to rip their movie collections directly to a 500GB hard drive for quick and easy access and playback. → Read More
If you haven’t seen The Kids in the Hall, you haven’t LIVED! Put it on your bucket list! If you’ve seen and enjoy the wonderfully weird sketches, you may be interested to know that Amazon is selling the entire five-season Kids in the Hall series for $109. It spans 20 DVDs and contains all the episodes, plus a bunch of behind-the-scenes stuff, interviews, deleted scenes, and some of the original live theater performances. The Kids in the Hall Megaset [Amazon.com via dealspl.us] → Read More
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