Our good friend Susanne Ault, of trade magazine
Video Business, has put together
a new story posted yesterday at
VB's website, titled "CBS DVD to increase its release slate: Label plans to roll out 105 to 110 titles". In it, Susanne discusses how CBS DVD "
now retains creative oversight over series from former sibling Paramount Television, including Beverly Hills 90210 and Twin Peaks, and Showtime, home of Dexter and The L Word...(and d
)espite Viacom and CBS now being separate companies, Viacom's Paramount Home Entertainment and CBS DVD work together, with Paramount handling sales and distribution and the two companies sharing marketing duties." This, by the way, is essentially why we here at TVShowsOnDVD tend to refer to releases as being from "CBS/Paramount", due to the shared nature of the production and distribution.
Susanne's article goes over how CBS DVD intends to release 13-18% more TV-DVD titles in 2008 - roughly 105-110 planned releases - as compared to their 2007 slate. In it, she covers three major pieces of news for fans. Two of them concern HD DVD-format releases, though, and the timing of her posting for this story shows it was obviously put together before
Warner's announcement yesterday that they are stopping their support of the HD DVD format. With that in mind, we should realize that Paramount's plans as discussed in Susanne's article are also possibly subject to change, as the switchover by Warner yesterday surely proves that future plans in this industry are never necessary set in stone! In fact, the move by WB caught the industry folks by enough of a surprise, that a planned major HD DVD presentation for tomorrow at the CES show was
suddenly cancelled, so that Toshiba could discuss "
the potential impact of (Warner's)
announcement with the other HD DVD partner companies and evaluat(e)
next steps."
So, let's look at was CBS DVD had to say, but let's keep in mind that we shouldn't take it too much to heart until an official announcement gets made.
Of the two HD DVD-related pieces in Susanne's story, one concerns
Star Trek (which we have posted the details about separately), and the other discusses a potential HD DVD release of
C.S.I.. The specific passage says:
Nothing has been confirmed, but (CBS DVD Executive VP and General Manager Ken) Ross speculates that CBS' CSI is a great upcoming candidate for HD DVD release, as "it lends itself to high-def with its magnificent effects."
As it is mentioned as a "candidate",
C.S.I. is probably *not* included in the "105-110" title count quoted above. Still, it's good to know that this is being eyed. Waaaay back in February 2005
we passed along info that suggested a re-release of the first season of the show was being considered, that would include all-new bonus features not found in the original DVD package. We also thought it was a great opportunity for a widescreen release of the first season, which was put out in fullscreen on the DVD release in 2003 (much to the displeasure of fans). We considered at the time that the coming next-gen high definition formats would be a better place for the studio to do such a release in, but this is the first time studio officials have gone on public record saying it was on their radar.
We'll keep an eye on this, and let you know if it looks like
C.S.I.: Crime Scene Investigations is indeed moving forward for high definition. Stay tuned!
