Hollywood Studios Suing RealNetworks: MediaBytes with Shelly Palmer October 1, 2008

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Watch Shelly’s commentary on Hollywood Studios suing RealNetworks and how making the software illegal to sell could be worse for the movie industry.

The Digital Cinema Implementation Partners, which includes REGAL, CINEMARK and AMC, is expected to announce today that it has received funding from Hollywood studios to help finance the transition to digital projectors in movie theaters. The studios will make roughly $1 billion available to aid the transition to digital projectors, which cost approximately $70,000 each. The Studios will work exclusively with the Digital Cinema Implementation Partners to outfit their combined 15,000 theaters.

CIRCUIT CITY has hired turnaround firm FTI Consulting to help restructure the company. Shares of Circuit City, who recently replaced its CEO, were down to $.76 yesterday, after the company announced its sixth straight quarter with falling sales.

Social networking software company SLIDE has signed distribution deals with Time Warner’s Warner Bros., CBS and the E! Channel. Slider will distribute clips from its partners content through social networking applications. Slide, which will sell ads alongside videos, will measure clip popularity by how often users forward clips to friends.

Today’s consulting question comes from Mark R., a corporate strategist from San Francisco, who asks, “Is Adobe really working on Flash for the iPhone?” Shelly has the answer on today’s MediaBytes.