Time Warner has began offering its video-on-demand customers access to brand new films on the same day they hit theaters. Starting today, Time Warner is selling pay-per-view access to the film Trespass starring Nicholas Cage and Nicole Kidman for $6.99 .The film is also available in theaters today as well. Time Warner will follow-up this strategy with Marginal Call on October 21.

Supplying 3D glasses for movie theaters has become too expensive for Sony Pictures Entertainment. According to Hollywood Reporter, Sony will stop picking up the tab for 3D glasses on May 1, 2012. Popular 3D movies can result in movie studios spending up to $10 million on glasses alone, so Sony wants theaters to look into new ways to earn revenue from 3D glasses.

A few weeks ago Miramax struck a deal to bring it’s films to Netflix Instant Streaming. Today the studio has announced a multiyear deal with Hulu to bring it’s collection to the ad-supported service as well. In the deal, both Hulu and Hulu Plus users will get access to Miramax films. Hulu Plus subscribers will more »

Following its acquisition by Dish Network, Blockbuster announced that it is lowering the prices for rentals starting today. It’s also having a special promotion in which customers can rent an unlimited amount of movies for only $2.99 until July 4.

Major movies studios such as 20th Century Fox, Warner Bros., Sony and Universal are ready to release a new video on-demand service at the end of April. The service is called Home Premiere and it offers movie rentals for films that have been in theaters for two months. Each movie will cost $30 to rent for 48 to 72 hours. This VOD service is meant to grab customers who would have missed new movies as soon as they were released in theaters.

If you go onto YouTube today you may notice something different and although you may be a regular visitor, you could still not notice for half an hour like me. If you don’t want me to spoil it for you (assuming you didn’t read the title of this post) run off to www.youtube.com and see if you can spot anything different, but for those who don’t like a challenge, who are lazy, or never go on YouTube here it is…

YouTube has finally gone widescreen.

Blu-ray has always been fighting against the tide, struggling against high prices, general reluctance to move on from DVDs, and now the “credit crunch” as well. In fact, many people were beginning to think that the victory against HD-DVD may have been in vain due to the apparent lack of consumers, and that the aim of 5 million units to be sold this year was laughable. However it would appear that both parties are in the process of being proved wrong with figures released by Sony showing some interesting truths.

Disney movies, independent films, anime and Bollywood flicks have something in common – starting soon, you’ll be able to download them directly to your TiVo. TiVo has struck deals with Disney, CinemaNow and Jaman.com to get new downloadable content to TiVo boxes everywhere.

The content will be rolled out over the next couple of weeks. Stuff from Jaman.com, like indy films, anime, and Bollywood flicks, will be available today. CinemaNow brings the Disney content and that won’t be available until next week. More information, including pricing, after the break.

Remember Joost? The peer-to-peer video client made from the guys that made Skype and Kazaa? Yeah, sometimes I forget it exists as well. But that’s okay, because the somewhat annoying desktop client is gone. Joost has finally gone to flash, just like Hulu and a number of other services.

Joost is touting its sort of social networking aspect to try and get people to use it. You can use JoostFeed to watch the videos your Joost friends recently watched, or you can “Shout” about videos to your friends to tell them to watch it. It might be a bit hard to actually use the feature unless your friends are those who haven’t already forgotten about Joost. More after the break.

Looking for the next video format war? It might be in the last place you want it: movie theaters. Sony announced Thursday that has teamed up with Twentieth Century Fox and Paramount Pictures to promote the new Sony-developed digital projection setup. This came only a day after five major studios including Twentieth Century Fox and Paramount Pictures as well as Walt Disney Motion Pictures, Universal Studios and Lionsgate Films were announced to be part of a deal with Digital Cinema Implementation Partners (“DCIP”) to expand digital screens. The DCIP deal would try to upgrade 20,000 screens across the U.S. and Canada, while the Sony deal has plans to use put its system into 9,000 screen across North America, Europe and Asia.

According the to most recent MPAA numbers from 2007, just under 5,000 screens across the U.S. use digital systems, with 6,455 screens worldwide. Both deals want to increase that number, but it might get a bit tough if there are multiple proprietary formats. The last thing we need is another format war. More after the break.