Confession time. The column you're now reading isn't the one I was going to write. I had originally intended to wax lyrical about the tortuous release history of the portmanteau horror film Trick 'r Treat, which Warner Home Video has begrudgingly released straight-to-DVD on both sides of the Atlantic some two years after it was once scheduled to hit cinemas. I'd hoped to help this delightful flick find as wide an audience as possible - it really deserves it - and to give my snide, cynical, BD-Live-hating side a rest. But don't panic - while the subject of this column has changed, my upbeat mood hasn't.
You may not have quite realised it yet, but humanity finds itself on the brink of a new form of cinematic entertainment. Quite simply, the act of going to the flicks and sitting down to watch a movie will never be the same again after December 17, when James Cameron's sci-fi adventure Avatar opens at UK cinemas.
Some ten years in the making, the self-confessed 'King of the World's latest $200million blockbuster will change the way that we perceive and enjoy read more »
Several issues ago (HCC #170) my fellow columnist Richard Stevenson began his crusade for the Order of Home Cinema Existentialism. For those of you who missed his rant, the basic gist went as follows - Blu-ray is being sold incorrectly, with all of the focus on the interactive special features and nobody talking about the hi-def AV quality. He even went as far as to suggest banning Blu-ray special features altogether, and highlighted how 'less-than-chuffed' I was with his idea.
Despite what regular readers of this column may think, I'm really not a miserable old git. Well, not all of the time. I'm just someone who is really passionate about movies - be it watching them on the bigscreen or replicating that experience at home in the best way possible. And it's the latter that causes the problems, because every month it feels like I come face-to-face with people who are determined to make things harder for consumers to get a truly cinematic experience in their living room.
It's not surprising that the hot topic in HCC #171 is Philips' 21:9 TV. As the world's first domestic television designed to perfectly match the 2.39:1 cinema aspect ratio, it's probably the most exciting hardware launch since Blu-ray. Yet I'll admit that ever since I saw a prototype a couple of years ago (from JVC as a matter of fact) I've been sceptical about the whole idea.
Internet piracy has once again been the hot topic in AV circles following the leaking of a workprint of X-Men Origins: Wolverine at the start of April, and the conviction of four men accused of running the Pirate Bay file-sharing site a couple of weeks later. None of this impacted on me to any degree whatsoever, but that's never stopped me opening my mouth and giving my opinion on something...
I'll leave the discussion of the Pirate Bay situation to people more passionate on the subject - check out HCC deputy editor Rik Henderson's view of the world of BitTorrents and file-sharing in his Point of View column here. Instead, I'm more interested read more »
The Dark Knight was the big winner at the Home Video Awards organized by the US Entertainment Merchants Association trade organization. The blockbuster won Blu-ray of the Year, DVD Extras of the Year, Marketing Campaign of the Year and Sell-Through Title of the Year From a Major Studio.
Other winners included Disney’s Walle-E, which won read more »
Despite having spent around three decades watching flickering images on TV and in cinemas, my eyesight has remained pretty much untroubled. No visit to the optician has ever resulted in a prescription for glasses, let alone the dreaded 'square eyes' my mother warned me about. But now it seems that Hollywood and AV manufacturers have decided that I will need to wear glasses to watch movies after all, thanks to the industry's sudden belief that the future of film will be 3D.
read more »
Three of the world’s most famous movie studios are in talks to merge elements of their DVD operations.
Executives from 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment, Paramount Home Entertainment and Sony Pictures Home Entertainment are reportedly discussing the possibility of combining DVD production and distribution, including moving all disc replication to Sony DADC. read more »
Is Toshiba about to backtrack and back Blu-ray? The smart money says 'Yes', after Toshiba chairman Atsutoshi Nishida hinted to reporters at a company shareholder meeting in Tokyo yesterday that the Corporation was reconsidering its position on the format. The company walked away from the hi-def disc market early 2008 after its HD DVD system lost the backing of Hollywood major Warner, vowing instead to concentrate on read more »
According to UK market research outfit Futuresource Consulting, Blu-ray software sales could account for half of all packed video media by 2012, but sales at present are not meeting expectations.
Speaking at the US Entertainment Supply Chain Association Conference, the company said that it was revising its sales expectations for Blu-ray titles downwards this year because of ongoing low attachment rates from read more »
A little while ago, when HCC's reviews team were trying to nail down our Awards 2009 winners, I took refuge under my desk and waited for it all to blow over. Of course, this spot of feckless work-dodging didn't go down well, and I was brow-beaten into coming up with my own DVD and Blu-ray Awards to fill this column. So I did. And this is the result...
If you still enjoy browsing stores for movies on disc, you're not alone. DVD remains by far the most popular home entertainment format, according to a new survey of 11,000 US consumers by The NPD group. 63 per cent of the average $25 per month outlay on home entertainment was lavished on the format.
Only 9 per cent went on VOD services and just 7 per cent on Blu-ray. Downloads accounted for a paltry 3 per cent of the monthly spend. It seems that video streaming read more »
Things are currently in a bit of a holding pattern at the DVD Addict homestead. With my fiancée and I hoping to make the move to a bigger flat in the not-too-distant future, I've been cutting back a little in the Blu-ray and DVD buying. And while I'm not yet boxing everything up for the move at the moment, I have been sizing up my disc collection. Every disc on every shelf throughout my current abode has been given serious consideration as to whether or not I really need to own it, or whether I can save some space (and add a tiny bit of cash to the moving fund) by selling it on.
Now is a good time to be a comic book fan. Everything from Appleseed to X-Men has been made into a movie, and almost every day news breaks about another comic being optioned for the screen. 2009 alone should see the release of around a dozen comic book-inspired flicks, having kicked off with Watchmen in March.
Copyright 2006 - 2009 Future Publishing Limited
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