Boom. In what could be the shot heard round the world for the cable industry, Netflix has fired the first volley: the company will create it’s own content. The company has secured a 90s British miniserieis (hey it worked for The Office). The series will feature Kevin Spacey and David Fincher (of The Social Network more »

If you haven’t heard of Redbox, it’s essentially Blockbuster’s worst nightmare. It is a little kiosk that you might see around town, in grocery stores, outside pharmacies, etc., that offer $1 a night movie rentals. Plus they have a decent selection, making them a key player in media distribution, but also a threat to DVD more »

We’ve heard it all before, that the DVD is dying, and that the Blu-Ray might not even matter for movies, that the industry is going towards digital download. While that may be true, there is a chance that we might be seeing another physical way of distributing movies before we move to all download and more »

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.

Trying to lure in customers to replace their DVDs or HD DVDs with Blu-rays, Paramount is offering ten bucks per title to do just that. Although Paramount and Dreamwork titles are involved in the offer, it isn’t good for just any Paramount movie.

According to HighDefDigest, the promotion will start with the release of Transformers on Blu-ray coming in just a few days on September 2nd. Hopefully you won’t mind messing up those boxes a bit though, since you need to include the proof-of-purchase tabs from both the DVD and the Blu-ray disk, along with the promotional certificate from inside eligible Blu-ray movies. You also have to buy your Blu-rays before December 31, 2009 and have your rebate envelope postmarked before January 31, 2010.

Dreamworks, who had been standing strong with their contract to Toshiba and their commitment to HD DVD have announced their exit plan. Their HD DVD movie shipments will end next week, but the exact release of upcoming titles on Blu-ray has not yet been announced. A few titles that were set for release such as more »

Its now official, all six major studios are now supporting Blu-ray. In a statement, Paramount said they “are pleased that the industry is moving to a single high-definition format, as we believe it is in the best interest of the consumer.” Paramount has not given any details on any release schedule, as of now they more »

In a move that truly does not come as much of a surprise, Universal has followed in the path of Toshiba and announced they plan to drop HD DVD and pick up Blu-ray as their next generation format of choice. “The path for widespread adoption of the next-generation platform has finally become clear,” stated Craig more »

This may be the definite death of the HD DVD format. Financial Times is reporting that Paramount may switch over to Blu-ray thanks to a clause in their contract with HD DVD that states that they will be able to make this move if and when Warner Bros. goes exclusively with Blu-ray, which is now more »