Warner Home Video
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Formerly called
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WCI Home Video (1978–1980) |
|---|---|
| Home video division of Warner Bros. | |
| Industry | Home video |
| Founded | 1978 (as WCI Home Video) |
| Headquarters | Burbank, California, United States |
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Key people
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Ronald J. Sanders, president |
| Products | Physical and digital video releases |
| Owner | Time Warner |
| Parent | Warner Bros. |
| Website | www |
Warner Home Video is the home video distribution arm of Warner Bros., a subsidiary of Time Warner. Founded in 1978 as WCI Home Video (standing for Warner Communications, Inc.), the company primarily releases titles from the film and television library of Warner Bros. Entertainment, as well as programs from other Time Warner companies.
The company launched in the United States with twenty films on Betamax and VHS videocassettes in late 1979. The company later expanded its line to include additional titles throughout 1979 and 1980.
Some early releases were time-compressed in order to save tape time and money and to compensate for long-playing cassettes being unavailable in the early days of home video. One example was 1978's Superman in which the film was released in a 127-minute format, compared to its 143-minute theatrical release. In addition, early film-to-video transfers of films from WCI were noted for being in poor quality, compared to modern day video releases. By the end of 1980, the quality of transfers had improved.
The company was noted in its early days for releases in big cardboard boxes that opened like a book, colored in black, with cast credits on the inside. Some early releases under the Warner Home Video name also used this design. In early 1981, the company switched to plastic clamshell cases, with a multicolor design, with a few releases using the cardboard boxes and the multicolor designs, and to cardboard sleeves in 1985 for packaging, eliminating plastic cases by 1986. In the mid 1990s, the studio revived the use of plastic cases for a handful of releases from Warner Bros. Family Entertainment.
Warner Bros. began to branch out into the videodisc market, licensing titles to MCA DiscoVision and RCA's SelectaVision videodisc formats, allowing both companies to market and distribute the films under their labels. By 1985, Warner was releasing material under their own label in both formats. Titles from Warner Home Video were and continue to be distributed and manufactured by Roadshow Home Video in Australia and New Zealand because of its film counterpart's films released by Village Roadshow.
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Wikipedia