Google's YouTube rentals saw the slightly unexpected addition of Disney movies on Wednesday. Both its live and animated movies, as well as Pixar's CG movies, are now available on the web- and Android-based store. Key rival DreamWorks is also making the leap.
DreamWorks late Sunday revealed that it had struck a deal with Netflix to provide its animated movies. The deal, unofficially estimated by a consensus of NY Times analysts to be worth $30 million, will bring movies like Monsters vs. Aliens or the Shrek series to the streaming service. It's not evident how long the deal will last other than multiple years, starting in 2013.
DreamWorks is said to be in talks with Netflix on an exclusive streaming content for its movies, Bloomberg maintains. An official deal could be announced as soon as this week, after both DreamWorks and Netflix make quarterly results announcements. Netflix already has similar deals in place with Paramount Pictures, Lions Gate, and Miramax.
Samsung made good on a promise made at this year's CES to bring out a 3D Video On Demand service in conjunction with DreamWorks Animation. The streaming service is now live in its initial Korean launch. It comes available on Samsung Smart TVs and other Internet-capable devices through Samsung's 3D app.
Samsung will bring its 3D-enabled TVs to the UK this March, company president Hu announced on Monday. The unveiling included a promise that every high-end Samsung TV will have 3D capability. March will see the release of 20 different 3D-capable products, with Blu-ray players and the required 3D glasses expected to be included among them.
Walt Disney is engaged in private negotiations with cable channel Starz, which is owned by Liberty Media Corp, say sources close to the talks who wish to remain anonymous. The conditions of the deal may mean Netflix is no longer able to offer Disney's movies online. According to the Bloomberg tip, Starz wants five years of access to Disney films on its cable channel and digital rights.
At its press conference on Wednesday afternoon in Las Vegas, Samsung showed off a new LED HDTV series, comprised of the LED9000, LED8000 and LED7000. The 9000 is the flagship and, at just 0.3 inches thick, or about the width of a pencil, is the slimmest LED TV made to date, Samsung says. Part of what the company is calling the widest 3D TV product range offering, all three are compatible with the Blu-ray 3D standard. This flagship TV is the headline-grabber and ships with a full touchscreen remote control that will let users watch TV on the remote itself while a Blu-ray movie is playing on the TV screen.
As part of a wider device launch, HP this morning upgraded its monitor lineup with a screen it claims is the most affordable display yet for video editors and other pros working in color-accurate situations. The DreamColor is designed with help from DreamWorks Animation SKG and uses a rare 24-inch LCD panel that produces 30-bit color, generating more than one billion colors; the color range is 64 times that of even better everyday LCDs and also results in blacks four times deeper than normal LCDs. An LED backlight both contributes to a better contrast ratio (1,000:1) and also ensures that colors are uniform across the entire screen.
Hewlett Packard, with some assistance from DreamWorks, is announcing a new technology dubbed "HP DreamColor" that the company says will be a "disruptive" force in the market place. MacNN spoke with Jim Zafarana is Vice President, Worldwide Marketing for Hewlett-Packard Company's Workstation Global Business Unit and Jeff Wood, Director Product Marketing at HP about the new technology, which will purportedly pave the way for displays with accurate, predictable color reproduction at a fraction of the cost of similarly capable monitors and finally offer a transition route to flat-panel displays for graphic design firms (like DreamWorks) that have thus far been stuck with CRT displays.
The last major movie studio bound to HD DVD, DreamWorks SKG, has been officially released from its obligation to produce movies in the now obsolete HD format, according to a statement by the company. The Hollywood business had previously said it was locked into a contract to produce high-resolution movies only in the format but now reveals that it will cancel the vast majority of its scheduled HD DVD releases effective immediately. This includes imminent releases such as the CG animated title Bee Movie, which was due March 11th.
Despite Toshiba's discontinuation of HD DVD, movie studio DreamWorks is still locked into a contract to ship HD movies in the format, company chief Jeffrey Katzenberg said late yesterday. The Hollywood executive noted his company had an "obligation" to fulfill and that the largely necessary switch to Blu-ray was Toshiba's responsbility: the electronics maker will have to give permission to DreamWorks to publish movies in the surviving format until the contract expires or Toshiba releases the studio from terms.
