Infinity and Beyond

For those of us in the US who have to wait one more day here is the opening title sequence for the new James Bond flick ‘Quantom of Solace’. Really, these opening sequences often stand alone and above some of the more recent bonds (Casino Royale not included). These remain one of my favorite aspects of the Bond franchise. Enjoy.

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RealNetworks has suspended selling the RealDVD software after Judge Marilyn Hall Patel of U.S. District Court in San Francisco temporarily barred the company from selling it. RealDVD is a program that allows users to copy DVDs onto the hard drives of their computers. The software has only been on sale for about a week and on the same day the product launched the legal fight began. In all, six major studios are suing the Seattle based company. This is not the first time RealNetworks has made waves in the industry, their Chief Executive Rob Glaser has danced with Steve Jobs and Microsoft, so taking on all of Hollywood would seem like the natural next move.

The Tuesday the product launched and the lawsuit was filed Glaser wrote “great products should not be bullied out of the market by people trying to misuse the law to suppress legitimate innovation.” So, what exactly does the law say? Well, for starters just pop in any DVD you have lying about and you’ll find out a pretty good interpretation:

DVD FBI Warning

“The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in federal prison and a find o $250,000.”

This isn’t a case where you have to capitalize on the copied product by selling a copy. The warning is clear, ANY unauthorized reproduction is illegal. Having “users [be] on the honor system” to not rent a movie from Blockbuster or Netflix, burn the DVD, and return it isn’t enough for Hollywood. While Glaser might consider there to be an alternative interpretation of that warning from the FBI, ‘The Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998‘ tends to put any doubts to rest. While this product will certainly grab the attention of the film industry it could potentially set a precedent going forward as a way to clarify the law. Depending on the outcome it could either lead to RealNetworks stepping out of their recent slump within the industry or it could see them with a takeover offer to make this problem go away.

I for one hope the precedent is perfectly clear. The more ambiguous the law is in regards to digital copyright issues the harder it is to create solid foundations for future capitalist success. I fully support the film studios in this totally legitimate claim against RealNetworks. I’m tired of being the only person I know not willing to use BitTorrent, or something else to illegally download movies, music and computer software. While my friends and peers continue to take advantage of the film/music industry with no penalties I still harbor some sense of moral indignation for such actions. I don’t steal my music or my movies. In fact it pisses me off when people do. I’m obviously a huge supporter of future technologies and ways to provide content to consumers in easily accessible ways. There is no denying that big changes are coming to the music and film industry over the next 5-10 years. However, copying rented movies to personal hard drives is, to me, a clear violation of the laws as they stand now. As with most copyright laws I’ll be watching how this one plays out, they tend to be game-changers depending on the outcomes.

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After a bitter loss to Sony’s Blu-ray HD system Toshiba is looking to make their next move. Predicting that optical disc have their days numbered anyway they are skipping ahead to sell players employing the SD cards that you might find in your digital camera. While I don’t think anyone disputes the fact that digital SD cards are the future of receiving content, I’m not sure if the public is ready for this step. The wireless potential is huge as well, as seen in the Eyefi SD card. Good of Toshiba to be thinking super long term, but right now with the economy in the toilet people are having a hard enough time converting to Blu-ray players let alone an entirely incompatible new system.

The potentially not so distant future will see companies like Mod Systems, who provide digital kiosks, taking off and leading in content distribution. In the same way that Blockbuster wanted to reduce store sizes and move to a digital kiosk based platform, Mod Systems would provide retailers with a kiosks that can quickly download content onto an SD card. Toshiba recently invested $24-million into the company to ensure it’s future.

Blockbuster CFO Tom Casey recently warned of this shift saying “”What you need to understand is we really have a market that we address that’s nearly $36 billion in size. Video-on-demand is actually pretty small.” In an apparent shift of strategy Blockbuster is going to increase fees in order to pay for store upgrades. This will include remodeling some of the stores to include gaming stations and cafes. Now I don’t know who would want to go to Blockbuster for a cafe experience aside from 12 year olds unchecked by their parents, but this doesn’t seem like their wisest decision. I full supported their move to go forward with kiosks and digital downloads but increasing their already alarming high rental prices in order to make their stores more of a destination seems strange.

Blu-ray does costs more for them to stock so I could see a higher rental fee for Blu-ray discs. If the future, as Toshiba likes to think, is in digital downloads to an SD card then this is the wrong move.

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The Godfather - The Coppola Restoration Giftset DVD

Awesome.  Today Paramount released The Godfather trilogy - The Coppola Restoration on DVD and Blu-ray today.  You can pick up the giftset DVD package from Amazon.  The giftsset edition includes all three Godfather films.  In total there’s 549 minutes of video…that’s 9.15 hours.  This edition has a lot of cleaned-up parts by Coppola and got stellar reviews at Amazon.

There’s also quite an interesting write-up–“The battle over ‘The Godfather’”–which has lots of interesting details and trivia.  Definitely worth the read, and I plan on getting this boxed edition.  I listened to part of the director’s commentary on the standard The Godfather DVD and that alone was pretty interesting–it sounds like for this edition they pulled in a ton of different interviews with cast, crew, etc. etc.

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A movie about Mark Z. and the founding of facebook sounds like the perfect recipe for an A&E miniseries. Now that we find out it’s being written by Aaron Sorkin (The West Wing) it might have some potential. Even of Sorkin himself admits to being new to the social networking website. “I figured a good first step in my preparation would be finding out what facebook is.”

No word on a planned release date for this Columbia Pictures film.

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Today the Walt Disney Co. announced it’s future line-up of animation classics that will be released on the Blu-Ray platform. Now that the format war is over Hollywood is looking to bring the cautious public into the HD world. With price tags of $300-$700 for the players alone the recession-like American populous is being forced to spend their money on an increase in gas and food prices instead of luxury items like HD TV’s and Sony’s Playstation 3. The Disney Co., hoping to repeat the initial thrust that brought home video into the mainstream back in the 80s, has planned an unbeatable lineup of classic animated features to be released in the HD platform.

First up is my personal favorite, Sleeping Beauty (set for an Oct. 7 release). While Sleeping Beauty isn’t part of today’s announcement it is the next classic to come to Blu-Ray and absolutely worthy of mentioning. This classic is almost worth buying the player and an HD TV for all by itself. If you are a fan of the old traditional classics it just gets better from here. The five films that will be making their way out of the Disney Vault over the next two years are ‘Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs’, ‘Pinocchio’, ‘Fantasia’, ‘Fantasia 2000′, and ‘Beauty and the Beast’! 

I know this is the logo for the store in Downtown Disney but what are ya gonna do?

The studio says that each disc ‘will include a BD Live component, allowing children to connect directly onto the internet to play the included interactive games with friends in other locations.’ While the BD Live component will be a new venture, president of BVHE, Bob Chapek, told the Times “BD Live is not a niche product… We see mass adoption of the technology.”  We’ll see how well this technology is adopted, as interactive components were one of HD DVD’s strong suits and not Blu Ray. As long as this new technology doesn’t take away from other bonus features that hard-core geeks like myself crave. It’s always hard enough buying cartoons at the store, but having to suffer through something like a Raven Symoné version of ‘Part of Your World’ while I try to find some vintage Ink and Paint Club material can be rough.

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Music DVDs seem to be all the rage these days, and every band must have at least one. Everyone loves the “behind the scenes” videos and clips of band members doing things that, were they not your favorite band, would otherwise be not funny and entirely stupid.

LiveDaily is reporting that Morrissey is bucking this trend and asking fans to boycott the “Morrissey Live at the Hollywood Bowl” DVD because it is in breach of contract. What I enjoy more however:

The singer also said the DVD is the work of cash-hounds, and the sleeve art is appalling.

I hate appalling sleeve art.

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Possibly and Internet first–fans turned to the Web in order to purchase Dark Knight tickets off of sites such as eBay and Craigslist.  Usually fans turn to the web in order to buy hard-to-get tickets for music concerts and other events, but with fans lining up more frequently for big-name movies, scalpers may have to add movies to their list of items for sale online.

I did a quick check on the Seattle’s Craigslist pages, and it seems like most fans in Seattle were either able to get their hands on tickets through traditional sales channels, or were uninterested in giving them up.  I’ll be pretty upset if I start having to pay $20 to buy tickets from people who go and buy massive quantities…

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Taken from Variety:

“First up from the film division of the Marvel comicbook giant is an “Iron Man” sequel aimed to bow on April 30, 2010, planting the flag again on the start of the summer movie sesh.

Also for that year, Marvel plans to bow “Thor” on June 4, based on the Norse god who wields a giant hammer. Matthew Vaughn is set to helm.

In 2011, company will unspool “The First Avenger: Captain America” on May 6; and “The Avengers,” which will team up the Iron Man, Incredible Hulk, Captain America and Thor characters, in July. Zak Penn is writing the latter.

Paramount will distrib all the pics, as part of its pact with Marvel.”

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Fox, Warner Bros., Paramount, Sony, and Universal are all going to join up to where Disney has been for months. All the major studios will be “making all their new releases available through the iTunes Store… from the moment their DVD and Blu-ray counterparts hit store shelves.”

I had mentioned earlier that Fox and Paramount were already experimenting with iTunes sales and all the studios had jumped on-board back in January with the movie rental scheme Apple has put forth. This will be a big step forward to help invigorate the sagging DVD market.

New release downloads will cost $14.99 and catalog downloads will run for $9.99.

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