Home Media Magazine - June 29 - July 5, 2008 - (Page 42)

NEWS By Erik Gruenwedel VOD LAS VEGAS — Seeking a foothold in the digital distribution channel, the Entertainment Merchants Association’s (EMA) Home Media Expo June 26 held its first Digital Media Day, where industry executives addressed issues ranging from consumer adoption to terminology. The trade organization in the past year established a digital media council that Bo Andersen, CEO of EMA, said reflected an economic reality for home entertainment that would include “significant involvement from digital companies and digital enterprises.” Curt Marvis, former CEO of CinemaNow before becoming president of Lionsgate’s digital media division, said when launching CinemaNow in 1999, digital media was considered a revolution that was going to eliminate packaged media. “That perspective has shifted pretty dramatically since then,” Marvis said. “At Lionsgate, we don’t view digital distribution as a new thing that is going to cause the existing business of home entertainment to disappear. We view it not as a revolution, but an evolution.” He said digital media generated www.homemediamagazine.com Show Tackles Challenges, Opportunities of Digital about $250 million in revenue in 2007 compared to DVD, which generated about $25 billion. “Everyone recognizes that digital media is an unstoppable business,” Marvis said. “But at the same time it is a business people have to be patient with and have to understand that it is not defined yet.” He said Apple just announced it was renting and selling about 50,000 movies and TV programs a day, or 1.5 million transactions per month on iTunes. By comparison, Marvis said feature films that grossed less than $50 million at the box office sold more DVDs than that in the first weekend. “It gives you a perspective of the infancy of the digital distribution business, and it also shows you the incredible growth that is going to take place in the coming years,” he said. Citing proprietary and third-party data, Chris Roberts, SVP of home entertainment and digital media with Rentrak Corp., said consumers in 2006 spent about $184 million on Internet-delivered movies. Tom Adams with Adams Media Research and Screen Digest said the tally was $117 million in 2007. Roberts said that in the first quarter of 2007, 2% of Web-based homes purchased video content, primarily TV programming. “We’re starting to see growth,” Roberts said. In December 2007, 141 million people watched 3.4 hours of online video, which Roberts said meant consumers appreciated the instant access to content. In March 2008, Internet users watched 11.5 billion online videos, up 64% from the prior year period. “By 2012, ad-supported video content will be the dominant form of online video,” he said. David Klein, EVP with Centris, said video-on-demand (VOD) in March reached 28 million households compared to DVD, which topped 98 million households. He said VOD, which has been around for 20 years, hasn’t had the same affect that DVD had on the VCR. VOD represents a different experience to consumers, he said. Klein said 46% of consumers view VOD as a way to catch up on their favorite TV shows. Another 44% view VOD as a means to watch new shows. “This shows us that on-demand is a really great substitute for linear TV,” Klein said. He said broadband penetration reached 57 million homes in March. Finally, Mitch Mallon with Image Entertainment’s Egami Media said the terminology used in digital distribution was so fragmented throughout the industry that “electronic sellthrough” had five different acronyms. “It’s too much,” he said. He said the EMA’s digital council had gotten together to try to define common terms and would make an announcement soon. Also during Digital Media Day, the EMA bestowed its 2008 Digital Awards to recognize achievement in digital retailing, content and innovation. The winners are: Digital Retailer of the Year: iTunes; Content of the Year: Cloverfield; Innovation of the Year: YouTube. Home Theater Forum members hung with the superheroes at the show’s closing party. (L-R): Gregg Loewen, Gord Lacey (TVShowsOnDVD.com) and Tyler Pruitt (FormatWarCenPhoto by: Joe Coomber tral.com). HOME THEATER FORUM BRIEFED ON DIGITAL COPY, RESTORATION AND BLU-RAY DISC TECHNOLOGY By Chris Tribbey BRIEFS I VETERAN BO LOYD OUT AT MOVIE GALLERY Bo Loyd has resigned as EVP and chief merchandising officer at Movie Gallery. Sherif Mityas, the COO and president of retail operations, will assume Loyd’s responsibilities, the company announced. Longtime Gallery CEO Joe Malugen also recently stepped Loyd down in a management restructuring following the chain’s emergence from — Stephanie Prange bankruptcy. disclose details about the status of its offer, said company CEO Jim Keyes. Analyst Edward Woo, with Wedbush Morgan Stanley, said, “To be honest, I think Blockbuster is still the frontrunner, but I don’t think they will win the race. Then who, I couldn’t tell you, but I would guess maybe [Carl] Icahn himself does a private take-out, or by some other financial buyer.” He doesn’t think “any strategic buyer” such as Best Buy, Wal-Mart or Target, is — Erik Gruenwedel interested. I BLOCKBUSTER IN DEAL WITH PAYPAL Blockbuster.com is now accepting PayPal for purchases on the Web site. The site also is offering PayPal customers $10 cash back for signing up for a new online rental subscription. To take advantage of the offer, available through Aug. 31 on either Blockbuster by Mail or Blockbuster Total Access, PayPal customers can visit www. blockbuster.com/paypal. — Stephanie Prange L I WARNER PROMOTES SETS The Sopranos: The Complete Series, housing every episode of the acclaimed HBO mob drama, highlights Warner Home Video’s fourth-quarter release slate. The 33-disc boxed set contains more than three-and-a-half hours of never-beforeseen bonus material. Other notable releases include complete series of “The Wire,” “Get Smart” and “Deadwood”; Band of Brothers in Blu-ray; and films JFK: Ultimate Collector’s Edition, 300: Limited Collector’s Edition and Casablanca: Ultimate — Erik Gruenwedel Collector’s Edition. I SONY TO GET CONNECTED Sony Corp. CEO Howard Stringer last week announced plans to bring electronic delivery to Sony’s Bravia TVs and the PS3, The Associated Press reported. Speaking in Tokyo, Stringer said Sony will begin a U.S. service that uses the Internet to deliver feature films and TV shows directly to Bravias this fall. Stringer told the AP the first film on the service will be Hancock, starring Will Smith, and it will be available before it is released on DVD. A similar download service also will be available for the PlayStation 3 in the United States this summer, Kazuo Hirai, head of Sony’s video game unit, told the AP. — Kyra Kudick I WATTLES: CIRCUIT CITY SUITOR TO SURFACE SHORTLY Circuit City Stores Inc. has attracted multiple offers, and a possible suitor could emerge in less than four weeks, dissident shareholder Mark Wattles told Reuters. Blockbuster Inc. remains the only publicly disclosed acquisition party following a $1.3 billion bid last month. The company remains in due diligence and can‘t AS VEGAS — Clayton Biele, senior manager of technology strategy for 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment, showed off the studio’s digital copy features at the show, as well as new DVD packaging that puts the technology front and center to the consumer. “The message you want to send to the consumer is one purchase gets it all,” Biele said to the fan enthusiast group Home Theater Forum. “It helps combat piracy. This is something we’re very adamant about.” Compatible with both Apple and Windows platforms, Fox’s digital copy initiative launched late last year and has popped up on six new DVD releases so far. More than 20 catalog titles from Fox will get the feature in the fall. Biele showed how quickly the digital files copied to computers in both Apple and Windows formats (just more than three minutes). Currently the digital copies are available only for a year from release date, but Fox is upping that to two, Biele said. “From the onset of digital copy, we didn’t know what the longevity would be,” he said. Biele also said that digital copy will likely end up on Fox’s Blu-ray Discs when there are more Blu-ray drives on computers. While the digital copy stays forever on the DVD, in case the consumer loses his or her hard drive, the digital copy will remain wrapped with DRM to prohibit unauthorized sharing or posting to the Internet. Also speaking to the Forum was Grover Crisp, SVP of asset management, film restoration and digital mastering for Sony Pictures Home Entertainment. He discussed the elaborate work done on such classics as The Bridge on the River Kwai. Restorers fixed such imperfections as jumps. He also discussed the issue of hitting a happy medium with film grain, which shows up more clearly on high-definition Blu-ray. It has to be detailed enough to make purists happy, but yet not so much that it is a distraction. Bhanu M. Srikanth, a Blu-ray Disc guru with Panasonic Hollywood Labs, also spoke. Panasonic is leading Blu-ray technology, she said, with such innovations as the first BD-Java enabled title, the first title to use the MPEG-4/AVC video codec, the first title with enhanced BD+ copy protection and the first BD Live title. “Every title we have done has had some unique feature,” she said of Panasonic’s authoring for Lionsgate, Walt Disney Studios and 20th Century Fox. She said she is especially proud of Panasonic’s MPEG-4/AVC video codec, which offers a picture “as close to the master as possible,” she said. HOME MEDIA MAGAZINE (ISSN 1934-9882) is published weekly 51 times per year (weekly except for one week at the end of December) by Questex Media Group, Inc., 306 West Michigan Street, Suite 200, Duluth, MN 55802. Subscription rates: $49.99 for one year in the United States and Possessions; $79.99 for one year in Canada and Mexico; all other countries $99.99 for one year (by surface mail). Add $75 annually for air-expedited servi http://www.homemediamagazine.com http://TVShowsOnDVD.com http://FormatWarCentral.com http://FormatWarCentral.com http://Blockbuster.com http://www.blockbuster.com/paypal http://www.blockbuster.com/paypal

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Home Media Magazine - June 29 - July 5, 2008

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