After bleeding money for two years, <A HREF="http://www.hollywoodvideo.com/">Hollywood Entertainment Corporation</A> has announced that it is pulling the plug on <A HREF="http://www.reel.com/">Reel.com</A>, its high-profile online video sales operation, whose losses have been in the range of $4 million to $5 million monthly. The announcement came June 13, in which Hollywood Entertainment stated that it has laid off all 150 employees of Reel.com and arranged a deal with <A HREF="http://www.buy.com/">Buy.com</A> to fulfill orders. The Reel.com site is still active, with a pop-up advisory telling customers the bad news.
Jeffrey Katzenberg, former chairman of Walt Disney Studios and co-founder of DreamWorks Animation, has a grand scheme to reinvent TV for mobile viewers.
No one who's ventured into a computer store recently could have failed to note the amount of space devoted to video capture and editing technology. Most of it is being marketed to amateur videomakers and would-be cinematographers, but there's an obvious implication that the next step is bit-for-bit copying of commercial DVDs.
It used to be that truly high-quality video, the pristine jaw-dropping images previously available only to the "Golden Eyes" of Hollywood post production and broadcast facilities (and anyone else with a spare $60,000 to spend), was simply beyond the bounds of the typical home theater. But Silicon Optix intends on changing all that with the introduction of their new Realta with HQV single-chip video processor.
Hollywood special-effects pioneer Ray Harryhausen died May 7 in London. He was 92. While not a household name, Harryhausen is know for his work on such classic films as Mighty Joe Young (1949) and Clash of the Titans (1981). In his memory we present Chris Chiarella's 2008 interview with Harryhausen.
Public Knowledge and a half-dozen other consumer groups are leading the charge against selectable output control, Hollywood's attempt to deny signals to the component video inputs on early (in fact, all) high-definition TVs.
For the second time, the Motion Picture Association of America (<A HREF="http://www.mpaa.org">MPAA</A>) has sued chipmakers for selling chips to makers of DVD players capable of violating industry-wide copy-protection rules.
Jeez. There's so much going on in Washington these days. Elections, bailouts, natural disasters. Let's add Copyright Police to the list. A new lobbying group, called Arts + Labs, just descended on DC. Their mission, on the surface, appears to be...
It's no news that Hollywood has gone digital in a big way in the production, post-production, and, to a lesser extent, theatrical presentation of films. In fact, the day may yet come when the term "film" itself will be nothing more than a generic, but not entirely accurate, description like Scotch tape.
Netflix, previously the bane of content owners, is now wearing a halo of approval. What changed? Netflix is now willing to part with more of its burgeoning revenue for content acquisition.
One notable example is Time Warner, whose CEO Jeff Bewkes once referred to Netflix as the Albanian army. As in: "Is the Albanian army going to take over the world?" Then Netflix paid Time Warner $200,000 per episode for 100 episodes of Nip/Tuck. Now Bewkes refers to Netflix with "fondness."
Here's something that won't be at CES this week, but could well appear at the show in years to come. Researchers at the University of Cambridge in England are working on a new video-projection technology based on holographic techniques. Now, don't get too excited; the images are 2-dimensional, not 3-D. But the technology is plenty interesting nonetheless.
Consumer desire for home automation is rising, with 48 percent of those surveyed by the NPD Group “extremely” or “somewhat interested” in buying home automation products. The use of smartphones and tablets to control systems is driving the interest. And it’s not just the wealthy who are interested. A whopping 37 percent of automation-happy homeowners have incomes of less than $75,000.
Lennar, one of the nation’s largest home builders, has announced that voice-controlled home automation is now one of several standard tech features included in its “Wi-Fi Certified” new homes.
H<B>ome Entertainment 2001</B> (formerly The HI-FI Show) is heading back to the heart of New York for the first time in five years. Described as "a unique hands-on event where attendees will see and hear the newest and the best in home audio and home theater," HE 2001 will take place May 11–13 at the Hilton New York.