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   Tuesday, September 14, 2004

HANDLE WITH CARE

An irritating morning for film buffs, or at least this film buff -- the business pages report that Sony will indeed be buying MGM, the last independent major film studio, and its massive catalogue of over 8000 movies.

Time Warner was close to signing an all-cash deal with the studio but Sony and its partners ponied up more money at the end than Warner was comfortable matching.

What does this mean? Two things, both somewhat grim for DVD buyers.

First, there's the discs themselves. Every month, Warner Brothers releases beautifully-restored editions of its classic films (the recent 'Film Noir', 'Cary Grant' and 'Alfred Hitchcock' box sets were superb) and their prices are always reasonable. Sony, by contrast, owns Columbia Pictures, whose discs are intermittently released, of average quality, and priced in the $30-$40 range apiece. Now they own the James Bond, Pink Panther and Rocky movies, among thousands of others. A real lost opportunity.

Second, there's the bigger issue of 'high-definition' DVD. While one group of companies -- including Time Warner -- has introduced HD-DVD, another group -- led by Sony -- has rolled out a different 'Blu-Ray' standard. While both formats will play current DVDs (sigh with relief), the new formats will be incompatible with each other. Here's a whole rundown, if you're really curious, but basically it's VHS and Beta all over again. You think Sony would've learned their lesson but no, and now the MGM catalogue gives them more leverage.