The FBI Anti-Piracy Warning that is found on all modern DVD and Blu-ray discs is getting an upgrade. The United States government earlier this week announced that it will require two copyright notices on DVD and Blu-ray discs, Ars Technica reported. The first notice will warn potential piracy thieves, while the second one is meant to educate viewers. All six major movie studios have agreed to include the notices, which we will begin seeing on new discs this week. The screens will “come up after the prev...

Samsung has developed a new universal remote control for its televisions and home theater accessories that ditches dozens of buttons in favor of Siri-like voice command support and a touch pad. As Apple reportedly readies an assault on the TV industry, established vendors such as Sony, LG and Samsung looked to cut the Cupertino-based firm off at the pass during this year’s Consumer Electronics Show. All the big names at this year’s show added voice controls and gesture support to their flagship HD...

Netflix on Wednesday announced its earnings for the fourth quarter of 2011. The company noted $876 million in revenue, up 47% from the same quarter last year, and earnings per share of $0.73. Analysts had pegged the company to report revenue in the ballpark of $857.4 million and EPS of $0.54, Barron’s relayed. Netflix also said it added 220,000 new subscribers, a far cry from the 800,000 it lost during the third quarter, and now serves 21.67 million streaming customers in the United States. The company...

Piracy is still a huge problem according to the music industry and Hollywood, and it’s hard to dispute the notion that downloading a paid digital product without actually paying for it is theft. Now, as TorrentFreak releases its list of the 10 most pirated movies of 2011, we can see a possible correlation between illegal downloads and movie revenue continue to take shape. Read on for more. (more…)

Walmart has agreed to pay $27.5 million in damages to more than 25 million Netflix customers who subscribed to the service between May 19th, 2005 and September 2nd, 2011, as part of a settlement in a class-action lawsuit. Litigation was levied against the nationwide retailer after Walmart ditched efforts to run a DVD-by-mail business that would compete directly with Netflix. Reportedly, Walmart agreed to bail on its plans provided that Netflix pointed its customers to Walmart to purchase DVDs. Walmart has not...

Shares of Netflix stock plummeted more than 27% in after-hours trading as the company revealed it lost more than 800,000 customers in the third quarter. Netflix now serves 23.8 million total customers and it reported third-quarter revenue of $822 million, beating estimates of $812 million. Earnings worked out to $1.16 per share, which also beat Wall Street’s consensus of $0.96. “While we dramatically improved our $7.99 unlimited streaming service by embracing new platforms, simplifying user-interf...

Netflix announced two new unlimited DVD plans on Tuesday, including a $7.99 option for one DVD at a time and an $11.99 option that allows users to rent two DVDs at a time. The company also said that it will discontinue its current $9.99 monthly option that provides access to unlimited DVD rentals and unlimited instant streaming each month. Instead, the movie rental service will charge users $7.99 a month for unlimited streaming and a minimum of $7.99 per month for unlimited DVDs (with one rented out at a time...

Netflix released its fiscal first quarter 2011 earnings on Monday and, thanks to record amounts spent on marketing, the firm reported an increase in net customer additions and a spike in revenues. The video subscription service added 3.3 million domestic net customers during the quarter, a 94% increase year-over-year — that service now serves 23.6 million subscribers globally. Netflix reported revenues of $719 million, up 46% year-over-year, and a net income of $60 million, an 88% jump from the same period ...

What was once rumored is now a reality. Netflix has announced that beginning today the company will offer a new, streaming-only service option for $7.99 per month. The plan, which does not include any by-mail DVD rentals, allows users to stream available titles to their televisions, mobile devices, and computer screens. “Creating the best user experience that we can around watching instantly is how we’re spending the vast majority of our time and resources,” reads the press release.The secon...

A couple days ago, Netflix’ CEO Reed Hastings reiterated the company’s intent to switch their business model from a mail-order service to a streaming-only service. The company has just taken their first step in an attempt to gauge feasibility of such a system. Netflix’ landing page now details a $7.99 monthly plan that will allow you to stream an unlimited number of movies to your PC, Mac or TV. The ‘baller’ in you might want to pony up an extra $1 to receive an unlimited number...

Mick Hocking, Sony Computer Entertainment’s (SCE) senior director, had quite a bit of good news for those Play Station 3 owning 3D enthusiasts. At a London event dedicated the 3D speak, Mick was quoted as saying quite a bit:Now, in June this year we did the 3D Firmware update. Every PlayStation 3 that’s connected online now has a new version of this Firmware. At the last count we’ve got 35.8 million PlayStation 3s out there – that means there’s an instant market of around 36 mil...

Netflix announced on Tuesday that the movie rental giant has signed an agreement with independent movie producer Relativity Media. Relativity Media is a newcomer to the movie production business, but the growing company has the backing of bigwigs like Lions Gate Entertainment, Sony Pictures, and Universal Studios. Under the agreement, Netflix would get the first rights to stream popular movies that are typically sent to premium cable channels like Starz, HBO, and Showtime following the movie’s DVD rele...

We know what you’re thinking… only being able to store 50GB of data on a Blu-ray disc is so lame. Well, fear not gulper of the gigabyte, because it looks like a new, higher capacity Blu disc is on the way. The new disc technology, dubbed BDXL, will have the ability to store up to 128GB of data for write-only discs and 100GB for re-writable discs. The Blu-ray Disc Association is touting the new discs “provide professional enterprises with a compact, stable and long term solution for archiving...

LG Korea unveiled two new mobile DTV devices that are headed for the U.S. in 2010. The first is an upgraded version of the LG Lotus equipped with a long antenna and an integrated digital TV tuner. For those that have forgotten this rather forgettable phone, the original LG Lotus is a boxy QWERTY clamshell that launched on Sprint in late 2008. And, if a boxy cell phone with an ungainly antenna doesn’t suit your fancy, then perhaps a shiny, black portable DVD player with a built-in 800 channel DTV tuner m...