Sales and rentals of DVDs could be on the up if the current trend among the world's biggest movie studios to try to shorten the time it takes for the latest films to come on DVD becomes the norm.
Disney is the latest studio wanting to let fans of home cinema get hold of the DVD edition of its latest blockbuster movie sooner.
It wants to cut the release window, the length of time between a films premiere and its appearance on DVD and Bly-ray, for its new, Tim Burton directed, 3D adventure, "Alice in Wonderland" from four months to three.
The news is what the DVD rental and home entertainment markets have been waiting to hear.
DVD rental services and retailers are happy that studios are getting behind the format, particularly in the face of threats to the market such as piracy, a challenge which can be met with earlier DVD releases.
Earlier DVDs: A Growing Trend
There has been a recent, growing trend among the big studios to cut release window times worldwide, but it's also a move which has been met with fury by cinema owners.
In November the Sony Pictures' film 'Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs' was pulled off screens after Sony announced it was releasing the film to Internet-connected TVs a month before the DVDs are released to online DVD rental sites.
Similarly, Paramount felt the wrath of theatres when it said it was going to release 'GI Joe: The Rise of the Cobra' onto DVD sooner than expected.
In addition to these events, the current list of DVD release dates for new films in the USA appears to show that a cut to three months is becoming more and more widespread there.
Despite this, cinemas on both sides of the Atlantic are threatening to draw the curtains on 'Alice' unless Disney backs down, and with the film predicted to be a 3D blockbuster, a boycott will hurt cinemas and the studio alike.
It is likely that cinemas will argue that the 3D experience cannot be replicated in the home, but with 2D films their argument weakens, as home cinema systems have become more widespread and more sophisticated in recent years.
DVD First Aid
Sales of DVDs make up a large proportion of the movie studios earnings but the last few years have seen a steady decline in the number of units sold.
Bob Iger, Chief Executive of Disney, has repeatedly called for cinema owners to be more flexible with release window agreements, specifically so that they can be shortened to give the lucrative DVD market a shot in the arm.
Cinema firms however have been fiercely protective of the big screen market and threatened to boycott any films that studios want to rush to DVD before the current arrangement of 122 days of screen time ends.
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Neil Hawkins is a staff writer for the news, reviews and price comparison Choose DVD rental. The site includes full reviews of sites such as LoveFilm DVD rental.
