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Comcast denies possible purchase of NBC, claims it can only offer a window

by Richard Lawler posted Oct 1st 2009 at 4:27PM

Surprising absolutely no one who has ever waited for a repair or installation, an internet rumor Wednesday suggested Comcast is in talks to take advantage of an oddly scheduled window of availability to purchase NBC Universal. Whether it shows up on time is still up in the air, but with ownership of the media group divided 80/20 by GE and Vivendi the rumored deal would be worth $35 billion, with around $7 billion due Vivendi during this annual period when it can exercise a put option on the shares it owns. Time Warner and DirecTV owner Liberty Media have also been rumored as suitors, can anyone imagine NBC and Syfy under the same umbrella as Versus?

StudioCanal HD DVD releases encoded at 1080p 24p = easy imports of Blu-ray exclusives?

by Richard Lawler posted Jul 19th 2006 at 8:32AM

StudiocanalStudioCanal, not well known in the US but one of the largest distributors of movies in the world will be releasing films on HD DVD, and now we have confirmation from Microsoft's Amir M. that they will be encoded in VC-1 at 24p, theoretically removing any possible barrier for their being played on US HD DVD players. The main benefit of this of course being that StudioCanal holds the European release rights to many movies currently limited to Blu-ray only distributors like Fox here in the U.S. Unless region coding is adopted by HD DVD, it could be very simple for aficionados to obtain copies of their favorite movies simply by importing them, and perhaps put additional pressure on distributors here to go multiformat to avoid losing sales to importers.

We are not aware of any plans yet announced by StudioCanal to release movies on Blu-ray, and with their Vivendi Universal connection plus Blu-ray region coding that may not give US buyers access to Universal content anyway. Of course we have to wait until the titles are actually released and whether or not region coding for HD DVD is finalized, but this could provide a big boost to HD DVD supporters who don't want to be locked out of some of their favorite movies.

[Thanks for the tip Glenn!]

HD DVD international: StudioCanal announces 20 movies

by Richard Lawler posted Apr 27th 2006 at 10:21PM

StudiocanalQuick: Who has the third largest film library in the world?

Now if you didn't cheat and read the title then you may have been like me and never heard of StudioCanal until five minutes ago. If you have, the fact that this French distributor has just announced they are releasing 30 HD-DVD titles in the near future is no surprise because you're probably well aware they are the French arm of Vivendi Universal. French HDTV owners can look forward to titles like Million Dollar Baby, Traffic, or The Graduate as well as French flicks like La Haine and Brotherhood of the Wolf.

We've had some updates on Japan-only high definition releases but very little information about Europe. Maybe some of our European readers can tell us what kind of splash next generation DVDs are making over there, or not.

All of this is of little consequence to those of us in the U.S., the real question is when can we start importing foreign HD-DVDs and looking down on people who dislike subtitles?

[Via MovieWeb]




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