Tag archive: DVD

As announced by the Los Angeles Times earlier today, Coinstar's popular Redbox brand has made a decision to ignore Warner Brothers recently announced 56-day plan that would restrict when a consumer has access to renting a new release on DVD or Blu-ray through the popular red kiosks.    Company officials at Redbox have decided to purchase all new Warner Brothers releases in bulk through retailers like Amazon, Target and Wal-Mart, but at a… Read More

According to a new study conducted by the NPD Group, video-on-demand and streaming video from services like Netflix were on the rise during 2011 and 31 percent of all rentals in North America are attributed to digital delivery options. Alternatively, total physical DVD and Blu-ray rentals fell by 11 percent over the year due to the decline in Blockbuster as well as flat Netflix growth. Redbox is the only bright spot in the physical rental… Read More

Disc burners can only get so small, but Pioneer thinks it has hit the threshold. The company has unveiled the BDR-XD04, the “world's smallest and lightest portable burner supporting BDXL currently available.” It measures only 5.2 inches by 5.2 inches, is only half an inch thick and weighs about half a pound. If you record at slower speeds, the unit can also be entirely powered by USB.It can read and write to all BDXL formats… Read More

HBO delivered a figurative slap this week to its growing competitor Netflix. The premium cable network has apparently cut Netflix off from discounted DVDs, forcing the company to look elsewhere for supply. According to the New York Times, HBO stopped providing DVDs to Netflix on January 1. HBO is, of course, the network behind hits such as “The Sopranos”, “True Blood” and “Boardwalk Empire”. As Netflix takes… Read More

Here are some of the hottest, most buzzed-about books this week. Download them on your Kindle, read them on your iPad, or go to a bookstore if you like to keep things old-school. 11/22/63 by Stephen King Fiction big-name Stephen King is back with a gripping novel about the day President Kennedy died — as the title would suggest. In this version, however; a man travels back in time to attempt to stop the shocking assassination that rocked… Read More

According to a report released by the Digital Entertainment Group, Blu-ray sales are up 58 percent during the third quarter of 2011 compared to the previous year. In fact, the amount of money that consumers spend on home entertainment has seen the first increase since the U.S. recession began in early 2008. With a five percent increase over the previous year, a portion of that was driven by Blu-ray sales as well as a 13 percent increase in… Read More

While a judge issued a temporary injunction against Zediva's operations during August 2011, Zediva has been officially shut down for good by U.S. District Judge John Walter as of this week. When Zediva launched earlier this year, the service streamed brand new movie releases for $2 each. Rather than negotiating any type of streaming rights with the movie studios, Zediva would purchase new releases at retail prices and incorporate… Read More

Earlier today, Coinstar announced an increase in price on DVD rentals at Redbox kiosks from $1.00 a day to $1.20 a day. The price hike takes effect on Monday October 31 at all 34,000 Redbox stations in the United States. However, two dollar a day video game rentals and $1.50 a day Blu-ray rental prices will remain unchanged for the time being. The company claims that the price alteration was needed due to rising operating costs such as larger… Read More

Streaming movies are all over the place, but not on iTunes. Today, the LA Times is reporting that Apple is in talks with Hollywood studios to launch a streaming movie service that's somehow connected with iCloud. This would mean that users who purchase a movie on iTunes would then be able to watch or download that movie on any device. The service may launch later this year or early 2012.  One of the biggest draws of Apple's iCloud… Read More

Well, that was “qwik:” a scant three weeks after announcing it was spinning off its DVD rental business as the horribly-named Qwikster, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings has sent word down from on high: Qwikster will never be born, and Netflix will keep its streaming and DVD rental businesses unified. Customers will continue to be able to manage streaming and DVD rentals from a single account on a single Web site, with unified reviews,… Read More

CEO Reed Hastings turned Netflix into the country's largest movie subscription service, but lately he can't seem to get things right. After publicly announcing plans to spin off Netflix's DVD-by-mail service as a new company called Qwikster, Hastings has completely backpedaled. DVDs will now stay at Netflix.com. The Qwikster.com domain now leads straight to Netflix.  “It is clear that for many of our members two websites… Read More

When Netflix announced a price hike earlier this summer, it nearly ignited a user revolt. Renting both DVDs and using Netflix streaming meant subscribers would be forced to pay more, and try as it might, Netflix failed to sell this as an improvement. The company has kept its claim over the living room, but its stock performance felt some hurt as a result of the price changes. And now it’s decision time. This Thursday , September 1, the higher… Read More

Here are some of the hottest, most buzzed-about books this week. Download them on your Kindle, read them on your iPad, or go to a bookstore if you like to keep things old-school.  Believing is Seeing: Observations on the Mysteries of Photography by Errol Morris Contrary to this book's title, most people believe that 'seeing is believing,' but when it comes to photography, how can we be so sure? Morris, an Academy Award-winning… Read More

When a traditional optical disc is created, information is copied onto the disc by creating light spots within the dye that coats a standard disc. When a user “burns” a new DVD using a DVD-burner drive in a computer, the optical nature of the dye is being altered to match the data. The data is read by looking at the contrasting areas of the disc, but has the flaw of degrading over extremely long periods of time due to fading in… Read More

Back in March, DVD streaming service Zediva raised a few eyebrows when it claimed to be able to offer streaming versions of just-released DVD movies using a novel approach: customers didn't just rent the DVD remotely, they also rented a DVD player remotely, and received the output over the Internet. Zediva argued that their business model was no different than a traditional video rental store, but—unsurprisingly—the MPAA… Read More