NZ catches up with rest of film world

By Keith Newman

Movie buffs who hate waiting months for the major movies to reach New Zealand will not have to hold out much longer.

Theatrical, digital video disc (DVD) and video release schedules are about to be changed to coincide with the United States.

Expected to be finalised within the next three months, the plan to bring forward release dates is being driven by an influx of early release DVD titles.

While theatrical release of movies here is often within a month of the US, and in some cases simultaneous, video and DVD releases are often six months down the track. That leaves a large window for parallel importers to bring in product.

Gangster movie Ronan, starring Robert De Niro, Rush Hour, Urban Legends, Saving Private Ryan, Rug Rats and Mighty Joe Young arrived in video and retail outlets on DVD up to four months ahead of the scheduled video release.

The Spanish Prisoner (with Steve Martin) and One True Thing (Meryl Streep) were among a number of DVD titles in video shops before their big theatre screening.

The queue jumping is courtesy of about nine companies bringing in US "zone one" DVDs not intended for New Zealand.

Studios have been slow to release zone four DVDs designed for Australia, New Zealand and South America, so about 90 per cent of players in use here are multizone or have been modified to play US zone one titles.

While local video rental outlets and resellers welcome the shift to global dates, local film distributors have not been officially advised.

They are worried that the guaranteed window between theatrical release, video hire, sell-through, pay TV and free-to-air broadcast of movies will be shortened or disappear.

Amid this uncertainty the hire and retail markets face the dilemma of whether to bow to distributor demands and take early release titles off the shelves or bow to consumer demand.

Stronger DVD title and player encryption is also about to be introduced to coincide with the new global release programme. This is sure to frustrate DVD users who own modified players.

Brian Rollason, managing director of the region's only authoring plant for DVD video, Sydney-based Digital Video Mastering, said movie houses were giving priority to concurrent timetables for A-grade movies, but it was up to each studio on how to move forward.

He is awaiting instructions on how to encrypt the new generation of DVD movies, as agreed by the Motion Picture Association of America this year.

Mr Rollason believes DVD discs could easily be made unplayable on a modified player.

"We're still waiting on the details of how this might happen. I'm in contact with studios around the world daily over these issues."

He was sympathetic, however, to the concerns of the distribution industry, which had not been officially advised of the changes.

"America only tells the regional areas when it wants to," he said.

Newly encrypted titles are likely to hit the market within three months, but it could be about 12 months before the new generation players and titles begin to dominate.

Synchronising dates and beefing up DVD zoning is designed to stop parallel importing of zone one movies and to curb illegal copying. While there have been few reports of DVD piracy to date, parallel importing is already creating havoc.

Movie, video and DVD distributor Columbia Tristar last week sent out letters to all video hire outlets, asking them to stop renting titles ahead of the official date - invoking the rental and public performance clauses of the Copyright Act.

But some video chains are reluctant to pull titles off their shelves unless the rest of the industry is prepared to comply.

Columbia Tristar general manager Andrew Cornwell said that doing away with the traditional window between countries might cause more problems than it solved.

It was likely to reduce the number of movies available in New Zealand and disadvantage smaller cities and towns.

Buying 35mm masters for theatre release of mainstream titles was expensive, Mr Cornwell said. New Zealand typically bought 15 copies new, and to keep the cost down another 15 were bought secondhand after screening in the US or Australia.

Mr Cornwell said simultaneous global release would have a significant impact on existing licence-holders, who depended on guaranteed times to sell and market films.

The present staggered regional approach reduces risk by allowing distributors to know what is successful at the US box office.

Christchurch East Labour MP Larry Sutherland, who imports about 140 DVD titles through his Civic Video franchise, believes it is inevitable that dates will be brought forward.

He has called on rental chains and distributors to put pressure on so that DVDs designed to play in this region are released in a more timely fashion, and importers do not have to bring them in from the US.

He said attempts to establish exclusive regional zones had not worked, with 90 per cent of all players in use in New Zealand modified to play across all zones. Any attempt to toughen zoning would also be hacked, he said.

However, Mr Sutherland said there were still plenty of smaller movie studios that did not bother with encryption or regional zones.

"If the studios were so concerned about parallel importing they could stop it tomorrow by telling the suppliers they can't sell outside the US."