Home Media Magazine - October 7-13, 2007 - (Page 36) NEWS Warner Has Plans for Peanuts Gang Continued from page 13 www.homemediamagazine.com EAA Visionaries “These will be for the core collector,” Brown said. “Much of this content has never been out before on DVD.” Warner also will produce original “Peanuts” features for home video release under the studio’s Warner Premiere label, Brown said. “We have no announcement date yet,” he said, “but it’s already been initiated. This will be a high priority.” Lastly, Warner also will create original shortform content for digital distribution through wireless, electronic sellthrough and video-ondemand platforms. “We believe that since this product originated in comic strip form, there are many applications for digital media,” Brown said. “This was one of the key points in the deal. The rights holders felt there were some digital applications, particularly in short-form, that had yet to be exploited.” Jeanne Schulz, widow of the late cartoonist who created “Peanuts,” has high hopes for the new distribution deal with Warner. “As we continue our efforts to maintain the integrity of my husband Charles Schulz’s work, a partnership with Warner Home Video was the logical choice,” she said. “After meeting the Warner creative team, it’s clear that they have an understanding and respected dedication to classic animation, which we think will make them a great distribution home for ‘Peanuts.’” Doug Stern, president and CEO of United Media, praised the Warner video unit’s “enormous global reach, creative foresight, marketing expertise, as well as its ability to understand classic properties.” The Entertainment AIDS Alliance honored the 2007 Visionaries at the Four Seasons Hotel in Beverly Hills, Calif., Sept. 27. This year’s honorees were (L-R): Richard Foos of Shout! Factory, Vicki Greenleaf of Greenleaf & Associates, Ron Sanders of Warner Home Video, and the organization Aid for AIDS, accepted by Brenda Goodman. Inset: DEG: The Digital Entertainment Group’s Amy Jo Smith and Home Media Magazine’s Thomas K. Arnold. CLASSIFIED SHOWCASE BUSINESS SERVICES DI STR I B UTOR Connecting Home Top Priority At the Digital Life Conference By Anne Sherber Incorporate Today Don't star in a horror movie, protect your personal assets today! Incorporate or form an LLC in just minutes and at the fraction of the cost of using an attorney. We are fast, easy, and affordable. Call us today at 1-877-261-9621 or visit www.corporate.com to learn more. FREE CATALOG AMERICA’S LARGEST DISTRIBUTOR Vicente Fernandez, India Maria, Cantinflas, Etc. SPANISH DVDs ® ASIAN-800 in stock Hunter Video Distributors, Inc. KARATE DVDs CO M P U T E R S O F T WA R E 718-326-5400 STOR E F IX TU R E S U S E D TA P E S & D V D S Retail, Rental, and Game Trading Software for Video / Game Stores. CLASSIFIED ADVERTISING MAKES DOLLARS AND SENSE! TAKE 1 WORKS! • Rentrak • Free Demo • FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION CONTACT: Kurt Wohlman (714) 338-6749 kwohlman@questex.com www.homemediamagazine.com (800)454-4434 E-Mail: sales@selbysoft.com NEW YORK — Content providers may still have unresolved concerns about digital rights management. But at the fourth annual Digital Life consumer technology exposition, hardware manufacturers and consumers were marching full-speed ahead toward connectivity and interoperability. While announcing Gateway’s new all-in-one computer, the Gateway One, Bob Davidson, the company’s SVP of global retail sales, said, “It is designed to become the hub of the digital home.” That same interoperability was at the center of one of the show’s keynote addresses, delivered by Microsoft’s Joe Belfiore, corporate VP, entertainment and devices, eHome division. Belfiore demonstrated the new extenders for the Windows Media Center, which enabled all the pictures, movies, music, live and recorded television and online entertainment stored on one computer to be seamlessly available to all of the playback devices in the home. Consumers are averse to complexity, Belfiore noted. At the same time, he said, it is time for the computer to get to know the television. “These are two things that people spend a lot of time with that are, for the most part, disconnected,” he said. During a second keynote address, HewlettPackard’s Phil McKinney, VP and chief technology officer, personal systems group, discussed the future of digital entertainment. “Digital living room technology is still hard to use,” he said. HP’s challenge is to “plug into the digital ecosystem” and let consumers enjoy their media in simple and fun ways. Among the products that McKinney demonstrated was a home server, expandable to 4TB of memory, from which consumers will be able to manage their digital content. HP showCONVE RG E NCE cased its newly released Blackbird 002, a highperformance desktop and laptop PC created specifically for gaming. Quartics and CinemaNow announced a pact to provide on-demand access to online programming using Quartics’ PC2TV technology. The technology will let CinemaNow users access an online library of more than 10,000 movies, TV shows and music videos on their TV sets. Quartics’ PC2TV technology enables wireless streaming of high-def 1080 x 720p content from a PC to a TV without buffering. “CinemaNow users have come to expect instant access to their favorite programs ondemand,” said Safi Qureshey, CEO of Quartics. “With our PC2TV solution, it is virtually a click away for users to view personalized content on their big-screen TV.” BRIEFS I TRIPLE-LAYER 51GB HD DVD READY? Several news outlets are reporting the DVD Forum has approved, or is close to approving, Toshiba’s 51GB, triple-layer, single-sided HD DVD, which was first announced at the CES show this year. Storing 17GB on each of the three layers, the new HD DVD would surpass Blu-ray Disc’s 50GB. The DVD Forum did not wish to comment. However, Andy Parsons, chairman of the Blu-ray Disc Association’s U.S. Promotions Group, was quick to slam the dig at the Blu-ray 50GB with the extra 1GB, and questioned how the 51GB HD DVD would affect production costs for HD DVD backers, and whether the new discs would play on existing HD DVD players. “It will be very interesting to see how they address production issues,” he said. “And wait a minute, wasn’t the 30GB big enough for them? They were so adamant about it.” –Chris Tribbey 36 Home Media Magazine October 7–13, 2007 http://www.homemediamagazine.com http://www.corporate.com http://www.jdprinc.com http://www.rapidrental.com http://www.homemediamagazine.com
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