Microsoft's Hulu Plus has gone live on the Xbox 360 platform, opening with a seven-day free trial. Anyone with a networked Xbox 360 can log in during the sampling period, which ends May 6. Bottom line: The Hulu Plus picture looks great, the audio has plenty of punch and there's a heap of films from the Criterion Collection. Hulu is known … [Read more...]
Archives for April 2011
‘Dumbo’ Blu-ray to drop Sept. 20
Another Walt Disney classic will be reborn in high definition, as a 70th anniversary edition of "Dumbo" comes out Sept. 20. It's another of those Blu-ray + DVD Combo Packs, which allows the kids to work over the old-school disc while the high-def pops up for lights-down family viewings. A Blu-ray-only disc also will be released, as well as … [Read more...]
Studios split on YouTube
Warner Bros., Sony and Universal are about to be confirmed as content providers for YouTube's year-old movie rental service, several media sources said. Fox, Paramount and Disney apparently won't be in the mix, at least for a while. Their resistance comes in reaction to Google and YouTube's sketchy policies on piracy and copyright … [Read more...]
Netflix takes a beating
The number of Netflix subscribers hit 23.6 million in the first quarter, but warnings of higher costs in Q2 led Wall Street to punish the streaming media company. Netflix stock ended Tuesday down 9 percent, partly on earnings and partly on a downgrade from an analyst. Netflix chieftain Reed Hastings appeared on CNBC's two morning shows early … [Read more...]
‘Restrepo’ director killed in Libya
The sad news came in late last night that photographer and filmmaker Tim Hetherington died while covering the civil war in Libya. Hetherington was one of the two directors of the astonishing documentary "Restrepo," filmed at a makeshift Army base in the hills of Afghanistan. The combat photographer and three colleagues were killed in … [Read more...]