Dell is bringing the big screen to the PC screen, making it easy for users to build a personal digital library of their favorite Hollywood blockbusters.
Dell and Sonic Solutions have teamed to make downloading and recording DVD movies easy with the first PC-based Qflix™ drives. Using an intuitive application, Roxio® Venue, movie collectors can search and select from [...]

It’s hard to imagine now, but when DVD first launched, its success was far from guaranteed. Back in 1996, there were even anti-DVD fanboys, and recently we ran into a rant–sarcastically retitled as “Why DVD would fail”–that struck us as eerily familiar to the current arguments against Blu-ray. Considering that DVD was such a huge [...]

In the DVD industry, flat growth is exciting because it means you’re not dead yet. But alongside the growth of on-demand movies and the increasing irrelevance of buying a shrink-wrapped box, there’s something of value that’s getting left behind: DVD extras and special features. And that’s a shame, but it’s also an opportunity.
(NewTeeVee)

The movie-rental service Netflix Inc. is closing a small unit that finances independent movies, partly to avoid competing with Hollywood studios with which it partners for DVD and Internet distribution.
The financial impact on the company will be small, and only four out of about 400 employees are losing their jobs.
(Associated Press)

Six major Hollywood studios have agreed to place antismoking public-service announcements on all DVDs of new, youth-oriented films featuring tobacco use.
The agreement — signed onto by Sony Corp.’s Sony Pictures; General Electric Co.’s Universal Studios; Time Warner Inc.’s Warner Bros.; Viacom Inc.’s Paramount Pictures; Walt Disney Co.; and News Corp.’s Twentieth Century Fox — runs [...]

You may be itching to buy a Blu-ray DVD player now that the format has won the high-definition disc standard war, but you may want to hold off a bit before scratching that itch. By waiting a few months, you could save yourself some irritation - and a few bucks to boot.
(Sydney Morning Herald)

Blu-ray may have won the format war, but hasn’t won over many consumers.
Now was supposed to be the boom time for the young video technology, pitched as a high-definition replacement for the DVD. In January, consumer electronics company Toshiba dropped support of rival format HD DVD, ending a competition over which technology would take root [...]

Pornography is too graphic for the Blu-ray disc player because it may be too graphic even for the porn industry. Over the years it seems that x-rated material has seen distribution over just about every possible medium but it may just be that the Blu-ray disc player is just too real for the industry.
The problem [...]

 
Disney has revealed details on the kind of features it plans to incorporate in the next generation of Blu-ray Discs.  A new technology known as “BD Live” will open up Internet connectivity options and other advanced features, of which Disney is apparently poised to take advantage.
To date, confirmed BD Live capabilities have been picture-in-picture video [...]

 
I wrote Wednesday about Warner Brothers’ plan to let people rent movies online (and over cable pay-per-view) systems the same day that they are released on DVDs.
Thursday, Apple announced instant online purchases: It has gotten all the big studios to let people buy electronic copies of movies on the day of DVD release as [...]