News written by Rich Fiscus (August, 2009)

Redbox has filed an antitrust lawsuit against Warner Home Video over their recent decision to deny kiosk operators access to new releases until four weeks after they go on sale to the public. Redbox already has cases pending against Fox and Universal over the same issue.

In a statement, Redbox President Mitch Lowe said "Redbox will continue to offer our consumers access to all major new releases including Warner Home Video at our more than 15,000 locations nationwide."

Warner is reportedly requiring kiosk operators and DVD by mail services to agree to their profit sharing demands if they want to get movies at the same time as traditional rental outlets like Blockbuster.

This follows yesterday's decision by a federal judge allowing the suit against Universal to go forward, rejecting a motion to dismiss by Universal lawyers.

By contrast, Redbox recently came to an agreement over profit sharing with Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, ensuring that studio's movies will remain available in the biggest chain of rental kiosk's.

Following in the footsteps of Fox and Universal, Warner Entertainment has apparently decided to deny DVD rental kiosk operator Redbox access to new releases until a month after traditional brick and mortar stores get them.

Home Media Magazine is reporting that Warner Home Video has revised the terms of their wholesaler agreements to forbid sales to any kiosk operator. Instead those companies will be forced to cut deals directly with WHV.

This would allow them to require a 28 day waiting period as part of any agreement made directly with them.

While this move may prove advantageous to Redbox in their lawsuits against Universal and Fox, in which they are making antitrust claims, the effect on Warner Home Video revenue may be a much bigger problem for the studio.

Warner's plan can only succeed if consumers are choosing kiosks because of the movies they have rather than for reasons of convenience.

They are clearly presuming people who currently rent from Redbox when they leave a store or fast food restaurant would go out of their way to rent a movie somewhere else instead of choosing a different movie.

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When Google announced their plans to buy On2 Technologies there weren't a lot of people who knew immediately what they were buying. On2 is pretty well known among digital video enthusiasts, but not even a blip on the radar in the wider world.

If you don't already know who they are, On2 Technologies has been developing video software for more than a decade. Past products include the codec on which the open source OGG Theora is based.

On2 specializes in web and mobile phone video solutions, like the tools they make for Adobe Flash authoring.

Obviously Google already has a significant presence in the web video world just with their ownership of YouTube. With the introduction of their Chrome OS and Chrome Browser it's an obvious time for them to want more input into streaming video delivery.

Many tech analysts are suggesting this is a move primarily intended to reduce costs assocaited with YouTube. But their Chrome browser and netbook OS may explain it even better.

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Since the introduction of the CD it has become easy to own music practically forever. But as CD collections grow it can be difficult to keep track of what you have.

Fortunately the simultaneous development of the personal computer makes it easy to do just that. And several programs have been written to help you keep track of your discs.

New Afterdawn guide

Catalog your audio CDs with Music Collector

We decided to compare four different programs designed to catalog discs to see what kind of products were out there. After reading this article hopefully you'll have a better idea which program might fit your needs the best.

But remember, there's no substitute for trying them out yourself and every piece of software in this comparison either has a full featured demo version or is free.

CD Archiver

There are two obvious differences between CD Archiver and the other programs in this test. The first is price. It's the only free program of the bunch. That alone makes it worth considering for some people.

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