movies

Futuresource: Hi-def disc market doing well

According to a recent report by Futuresource, a consulting company that did a survey on how many of us copy DVDs a while ago, the high-definition disc markets in both the U.S. and Europe continue to perform very well, thanks to the fact that the world shifted to one format--Blu-ray--at the beginning of the year.

Currently, taking only big titles into account, the share of total sales being taken by Blu-ray has already hit 5 percent to 6 percent. By the end of the year, this share is estimated to be more than 10 percent. With many hot title … Read more

The 404 164: Where we tell the 404, the whole 404, and nothing but the 404

On the show today: Dan the Mantern has his first day as the official 404 stenographer, a dude gets a girlfriend and sells off his entire videogame collection, Jeff finally agrees to give Justin his old PS2, Wilson introduces the worst story ever to infect the show, and a quick discussion of college mating rituals. Disney also has a bad week: Cinderella and Tinkerbell get cuffed in front of a hoard of screaming fans and the Disney fatcats "dive in" to little girls' underwear.

I'd like to give a warm welcome to the newest CNET TV Intern, … Read more

The 404 159: Where Justin burns down the 404 studio

On today's show: In Jeff's absence, Justin takes over the studio and all hell breaks loose. Natali Del Conte rushes in to save the day! Wilson sits back and laughs, and we discuss a few stories about free Olympic condoms, annoying neighbors, The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2, and lost light sabers.

When Jeff's away, the SPig will play! That's right, Jeff's on vacation in Atlantic City, New Jersey, gambling his salary away, so I decide to take up the reins and jump into the hot seat! And trust me, you don't want … Read more

If the film industry dies from piracy, I'll laugh -- hard

Ars Technica has an interesting story up today detailing the Association Against Audiovisual Piracy's analysis of P2P traffic of illegal movie downloads in France between November 2007 and June 2008, which found that more people than ever are illegally downloading some of the top domestic and foreign films.

The organization found that 90 percent of all P2P downloads came from the most popular films in theaters and that a "daily average of 450,000 downloads (in December, it was 536,000 per day), and a monthly average of over 14 million downloads" was witnessed.

Allegedly stunned by the gall of all those awful pirates, the organization felt it was necessary to send one of its hacks out to make a statement detailing how appalled it was at the information it obtained. But no one saw this one coming.

"We are facing a major phenomenon that can endanger the film industry and audiovisual industries. We did not expect such figures," ALPA director Frederic Delacroix said in a statement to the AFP.

Wow. Hold your horses for a minute here. This piracy problem can "endanger the film industry?" This should probably be filed under the "dumbest things I've heard all month heading."

If piracy kills the film industry and suddenly theaters from across the globe are closing up shop, I'll be the first to laugh, and I'll bet I won't even be laughing the loudest.… Read more

Rip and burn Blu-ray and DVD discs with free StarBurn software, today only

If you're looking for a Nero-like utility that can rip, burn, and author just about any kind of optical media, look no further: StarBurn v.10 supports everything from CD-R to DVD+RW to Blu-ray, and it's free--today only--from Giveaway of the Day.

Interestingly, there's a freeware version of StarBurn that's available every day, but the Giveaway-of-the-Day version includes features found only in the $495 Network Edition--namely, DVD and Blu-ray decrypters and network burning capabilities. While StarBurn doesn't actually copy protected BDs and DVDs, it can create image files (ISOs) from them, which you can … Read more

The Digital Home 26: Is Dark Knight better than Godfather?

This week's episode of the Digital Home podcast tackles whether The Godfather is better than Dark Knight and if innovation really is dead in gaming. After that, Don chats with Ubicom's VP of Marketing and wraps up the show with a big announcement! Listen now: Download today's podcast EPISODE 26 … Read more

Italian media company sues YouTube

Italian media company Mediaset announced on Wednesday that it has filed a lawsuit against YouTube and owner Google, alleging that the video-sharing site distributed and exploited its commercial property.

Mediaset alleges that it found at least 4,643 copies of its programming on YouTube on June 10, when it conducted a sample survey. That programming represents approximately 325 hours of material, Mediaset claims.

The media company, as a result, alleges that its three Italian television networks have lost nearly 315,700 viewer days, which, in turn, represents lost advertising opportunities for its television programs, Mediaset alleges.

Mediaset is seeking damages … Read more

The 404 151: Where our names aren't f***ing Warren

Preshow report: Jeff challenges my manhood, so I do what any Manchild would do and drop trou to prove my point (literally). Shortly after, I blacked out for a bit and it's unclear what happened next. Did Ustream see my Super Soaker and kill the stream? Did Wilson secretly stop the broadcast out of respect for our underage viewers? No one is 100 percent sure at this point-all we know is that the camera cut out for awhile. Thankfully, we resolved the technical issues and started the show on time plus 15 minutes.

Since I'm the only one … Read more

When the 'wisdom of crowds' turns on itself: IMDB edition

The concept of the "wisdom of crowds" is a fundamental building block of a lot of the Web 2.0 services that we see today. While not all of them are built on this core concept, major sites like Digg, Wikipedia, and Mahalo rely heavily on crowds being wise. There have been several instances of this system breaking down in the past, one notable occurrence being the infamous Digg HD-DVD revolt. On occasions like this, a mob mentality tends to take over a very vocal and active segment of a community, greatly skewing the product of their collective &… Read more

Did Netflix really have to kill off Red Envelope?

With suitable tragi-comedy nuance, Netflix announced this week that it made more money in the 2nd quarter (yes, profit went up 4%) and that it was closing Red Envelope, its film financing and acquisition company.

It so happened that over the last couple of weeks, I happened to have three Red Envelope movies fly from my Netflix queue, via a deeply philosophical USPS mailman, to my door.

Did Netflix really have to take this depressing decision? All these three movies were surprisingly good.

I have no recollection whether the Netflix's insidious secret service, with the deviously credible Stan Lanning … Read more