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Looking for stories that used to be listed above? Use the button bar or these links to access the following sections: Reviews (DVD, laserdisc and hardware reviews), FAQ & Archives (old feature stories and interviews, and Jim Taylor's Official DVD FAQ) and Upcoming DVD Art (at look at upcoming cover artwork). Finally, My Two Cents - Archives contains all past daily editorial posts dating back to 12/97. |
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| GIVEAWAYS |
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| DVD & HD FORMAT STATS |
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 TOTAL U.S. DVD PLAYER SALES (last data reported 8/24/07 - CEA): 133,443,356 |
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| Editor's Note: The Consumer Electronics Association has discontinued its reporting of DVD player sales data, and they have not begun reporting on Blu-ray player sales. However, our original CEA DVD Player Sales chart will remain available here for future reference. | |||||||
| TOTAL DVD TITLES (3/16/12 - DVD Release Report): 135,991/244* |
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| *Net total of R1 DVD-Video discs released/announced. Discontinued & adult not included. |
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| TOP 10 SELLING DISCS (3/11/12 - Nielsen/VideoScan): |
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| TOP 10 RENTAL DISCS (3/11/12 - Home Media Research): |
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| TOTAL BLU-RAY DISC TITLES (3/16/12 - DVD Release Report): 5,743/29* |
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| *Net total of Region A discs released/announced. Discontinued & adult not included. |
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| TOTAL HD-DVD TITLES (FINAL FORMAT TALLY as of 7/4/08 - DVD Release Report): 429/0* |
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| *Net total of R1 discs released/announced. Discontinued & adult not included. |
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| SOFTWARE MARKET SHARE - BD VS DVD (YTD through 3/10/12 - Nielsen/VideoScan): |
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| NUMBER OF AFI TOP 100 FILMS ON DVD - 2007 LIST (4/20/10): 100/0 (0) |
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| Released/Announced or In Development - ( ) Not yet available on DVD. |
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| MY TWO CENTS - 5/25/12 - by Digital Bits editor Bill Hunt |
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Well... today is a notable day in movie history for Star Wars fans. It was 35 years ago today that the original Star Wars first arrived in movie theatres. Our old friend Michael Coate put together a good retrospective piece on the film at From Script to DVD.com a while back and has compiled new one at Cinema Treasures as well. Do give them a look.
In announcement news today, the big one is that Anchor Bay has officially set The Walking Dead: The Complete Second Season for release on Blu-ray and DVD on 8/28 (SRP $69.99 and $59.98). There will also be a very limited edition packed in a "zombie head case" created by McFarlane Toys (SRP $99.99). All 13 episodes of the second season and will be included in the set along with behind-the-scenes footage, featurettes and audio commentaries (TBA). Here's a look at the cover art for the two regular versions...   
As you can see we've also included art for Lionsgate's The Hunger Games Blu-ray again, as it's now available for pre-order on Amazon.com. In other news, MPI has set A Bag of Hammers for Blu-ray and DVD release on 6/16. Autonomy Pictures will release the horror film The Bunny Game on Blu-ray and DVD on 7/17. Film Chest (via their American Pop Classics label) will release the Roy Rogers classic Springtime in the Sierras on DVD on 6/26. Finally today, we wanted to offer a big tip of the cap to the folks up at SpaceX in L.A., who early this morning successfully became the first private company to dock a spacecraft with the International Space Station. Their Dragon capsule is pressurized but unmanned and is delivering some non-critical supplies during this first test flight. But the Dragon was designed from the start to carry up to seven astronauts and within three years SpaceX hopes to start flying humans into orbit and up to the station - pretty damn cool. And they aren't the only ones: 6 or 7 other companies are working hard to follow suit. This marks the start of a very exciting new era in spaceflight and the future looks bright. Congrats to Elon Musk and everyone at SpaceX and NASA for their impressive achievements today! You can read more here and here, watch the actual docking here and follow the mission in real time here. All right... this begins the long Memorial Day weekend here in the States, so we'll be back with more on Tuesday. See you then and enjoy the weekend everyone! 5/24/12 All right, we've got a couple of quick things for you today... In announcement news, Warner Home Video has revealed a pair of new animated Blu-ray releases for 6/19 (SRP $14.98 each) including Scooby-Doo: Aloha Scooby-Doo! and Tom and Jerry: The Fast and the Furry. On 7/24, look for Michael Wood's Story of England on DVD (for the BBC - SRP $34.98). Following on DVD on 8/14 (also for the BBC - SRP $29.98 each) are Dalziel & Pascoe: Season 6 and Judge John Deed: Season Six. Then on 9/18, Warner will deliver The Devil's Advocate: The Unrated Director's Cut and Queen of the Damned on Blu-ray (SRP $19.98 each) along with End of the Road on DVD only (SRP $19.97). Here's a look at the cover art for Warner's The Devil's Advocate Blu-ray, Kino's They Made Me a Fugitive Blu-ray (street date 7/24) and the BBC's Michael Wood's Story of England DVD...   
In other items of interest today, BBC News has just posted a good story on their website on the extensive effort of the British Film Institute to restore and save nine of director Alfred Hitchcock's early silent films made between 1925 and 1929. Of these, The Pleasure Garden (1925), The Lodger (1927) and Blackmail (1929) will be shown this this summer as part of London 2012 Festival Olympic celebration. It's an fascinating piece and includes a 4-minute video segment as well so do give it a look. Also, there's been a lot of talk in recent weeks about 48fps cinema, given that some footage from Peter Jackson's forthcoming The Hobbit was recently previewed at the Cinema Con theatre industry convention. It seems likely that frame rates of 48fps or higher will likely be the future of theatrical cinema exhibition, but it's probably going to take a little getting used to for many because it really doesn't look like the good old 24fps footage we're all used to - shot photochemically on physical film. I do think that some of the controversy is probably overblown - though I readily admit I haven't seen 48fps for myself yet. Change is never easy, right? For my money, as long as films that were actually shot 24fps on physical film still look that way on home video formats like Blu-ray - and they're not altered to make them look like modern footage shot on HD - I have no problem with new films of the future having their own unique stylistic appearance. You know... respect what's been done in the past and continue to innovate going forward. The whole idea of going to a theatre has always been about creating a different, better movie viewing experience than you can get at home. Now that home theatre technology has caught up, it's high time that the theatre experience took another leap forward again. I'm certainly curious to have my first experiences with 48fps to see what it's all about. Anyway, I bring all this up because there's an interesting video that was posted on YouTube late last year in which filmmaker (and visual effects pioneer) Douglas Trumbull explains and demonstrates his Showscan Digital process, in which the classic look of film at 24fps can be preserved who providing all the technical benefits of shooting at higher frame rates. It's pretty fascinating viewing so do give it a look. Trumbull, man... that's cat's pretty impressive. Stay tuned! 5/23/12 Morning, folks! We're really pleased today to offer you a brand new Classic Coming Attractions column from our own Barrie Maxwell. Barrie's current treatment program to deal with a brain tumor is going well, and Barrie was eager to get back to business reviewing discs for you guys. In this column Barrie looks at 10 classic titles in all, including the TCM Vault Collection's Columbia Pictures Film Noir Classics III, Warner Archive's Westward the Women and Warner's The Prince and the Showgirl on DVD, as well as Twilight Time's Swamp Water, The Big Heat and Journey to the Centre of the Earth, Flicker Alley's A Trip to the Moon, Paramount's To Catch a Thief and Chinatown, and Criterion's David Lean Directs Noel Coward. Enjoy! All right, the BIG release news today is that Lionsgate has officially set The Hunger Games for Blu-ray and DVD release on 8/18 at 12:01 AM (yes, that's a Saturday)... pretty much as we reported (after correction) the other day. SRP will be $39.99 and $30.98 respectively. Extras on both versions will include the 8-part The World is Watching: Making of The Hunger Games documentary covering the film from development to release, 4 featurettes (Game Maker: Suzanne Collins and The Hunger Games Phenomenon, Letters from the Rose Garden, Controlling the Games and A Conversation with Gary Ross and Elvis Mitchell), the Propaganda Film ( in its entirety) and a Marketing Archive with trailers, TV spots and the like. To this the Blu-ray will also exclusively add an additional featurette - Preparing for The Games: A Director's Process. Both versions will also include a digital copy. Expect big Midnight release day events around the county and retailer exclusives TBA. Here's a look at the cover artwork for both editions...  
As you can see, we also includes Blu-ray cover art for Sony's Breaking Bad: The Complete Fourth Season (due on 6/5). We'll update the Hunger Games art with Amazon links as soon as pre-orders open on Friday. Okay, so we have one more quick update for you today from 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment regarding the Bond 50 box set extras. The contents of the set are still being worked on and aren't totally locked yet so it's too early to provide a complete exhaustive list of extras on each disc. However, I'm told by the studio that you can expect that "most everything from the previous Bond Ultimate Edition DVDs and Blu-ray releases will be included." We could caution you that this doesn't mean EVERYTHING will carry over for sure - you may lose some text or image gallery material. You may also recall that the current Die Another Day Blu-ray was missing content from the original 2002 2-disc Special Edition DVD. So there are likely to be a few exceptions. But in general, the goal is to carry everything over. Adjust your plans accordingly. Stay tuned... Bill Hunt, Editor The Digital Bits billhunt@thedigitalbits.com |
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