Universal Studios Home Entertainment
Encyclopedia
Universal Studios Home Entertainment (formerly Universal Studios Home Video, MCA/Universal Home Video and MCA Home Video) is the home video division of Universal Pictures
. The company is owned by NBCUniversal, the entertainment division of Comcast
and General Electric
.
The company was founded in 1978 as MCA DiscoVision with the Beta
and VHS
label MCA
Videocassette, Inc. in 1980, with the release of films on Beta and VHS, including Jaws
, Jaws 2
, and 1941
. In late 1983, both the Laserdisc
sister label MCA Videodisc and the VHS/Beta label MCA Videocassette were consolidated into a single entity, MCA Home Video, alternating with the MCA Videocassette name until December 1983. In 1990, with the 75th anniversary of Universal Studios, it became MCA/Universal Home Video except Warner Home Video and New Line Home Video, alternating with the MCA Home Video name from 1990 until 1997 while released by New Line Home Video in 1991 until 1994. Universal released by Warner Home Video in 1981 until 1996. The company later went by various company names, including Universal Studios Home Video (1998–2005), and Universal Studios Home Entertainment (2005–present). On DVD
and Blu-ray releasings, Universal Pictures is co-releases by New Line Cinema on thoses DVDs and Blu-rays.
In 1980, they released two '50s 3-D motion pictures
, Creature From the Black Lagoon
and It Came From Outer Space
, in anaglyphic format on Beta and VHS.
This company was the video distributor for DreamWorks
titles until DreamWorks was sold to Paramount Pictures
' parent company, Viacom
, in 2006, at which point Paramount took over distribution. After Viacom sold DreamWorks in 2008, Universal Studios Home Entertainment was planned to resume distributing DreamWorks' movies, but this deal fell through.
In addition to DVDs, Universal was a major supporter of the HD DVD
format until March 2008, when Toshiba
discontinued manufacturing of HD DVD players. Since July 22, 2008, Universal released Blu-ray disc
s; it was the last major Hollywood movie studio to do so. The label's first Blu-ray releases were The Mummy
, The Mummy Returns
, and The Scorpion King
.
Universal is the US video distributor for Summit Entertainment
releases and Lionsgate
releases.
, Universal distributes most DVD
s of films released theatrically by Independent Films, although this is now limited to catalog releases, as more recent films are now released though Warner Home Video
.
It also distributes Alliance Atlantis
DVD titles in Canada, most of the Republic Pictures
theatrical library in the UK, and most of the Carolco Pictures
library in Australia, Latin America, and several European countries (along with other StudioCanal
properties). In the 1980s until the late 1990s, they also distributed tapes released by Cineplex Odeon in Canada.
Universal previously distributed its films on video internationally through CIC Video
(a division of Cinema International Corporation
, later United International Pictures
) alongside Paramount Pictures
. Following Universal's acquisition of PolyGram
in 1999, PolyGram Video (which had international operations) was folded into Universal.
The international operations are a joint venture with Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
, a carry-over from the PolyGram days.
Universal Pictures
-1920:* White Youth* The Flaming Disc* Am I Dreaming?* The Dragon's Net* The Adorable Savage* Putting It Over* The Line Runners-1921:* The Fire Eater* A Battle of Wits* Dream Girl* The Millionaire...
. The company is owned by NBCUniversal, the entertainment division of Comcast
Comcast
Comcast Corporation is the largest cable operator, home Internet service provider, and fourth largest home telephone service provider in the United States, providing cable television, broadband Internet, and telephone service to both residential and commercial customers in 39 states and the...
and General Electric
General Electric
General Electric Company , or GE, is an American multinational conglomerate corporation incorporated in Schenectady, New York and headquartered in Fairfield, Connecticut, United States...
.
The company was founded in 1978 as MCA DiscoVision with the Beta
Betamax
Betamax was a consumer-level analog videocassette magnetic tape recording format developed by Sony, released on May 10, 1975. The cassettes contain -wide videotape in a design similar to the earlier, professional wide, U-matic format...
and VHS
VHS
The Video Home System is a consumer-level analog recording videocassette standard developed by Victor Company of Japan ....
label MCA
Music Corporation of America
MCA, Inc. was an American talent agency. Initially starting in the music business, they would next become a dominant force in the film business, and later expanded into the television business...
Videocassette, Inc. in 1980, with the release of films on Beta and VHS, including Jaws
Jaws (film)
Jaws is a 1975 American horror-thriller film directed by Steven Spielberg and based on Peter Benchley's novel of the same name. In the story, the police chief of Amity Island, a fictional summer resort town, tries to protect beachgoers from a giant man-eating great white shark by closing the beach,...
, Jaws 2
Jaws 2
Jaws 2 is a 1978 thriller film and the first sequel to Steven Spielberg's Jaws , which is based on Peter Benchley's novel of the same name...
, and 1941
1941 (film)
1941 is a 1979 period comedy film directed by Steven Spielberg, written by Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale, and featuring an ensemble cast including John Belushi, Ned Beatty, John Candy, Toshiro Mifune, Christopher Lee and Dan Aykroyd...
. In late 1983, both the Laserdisc
Laserdisc
LaserDisc was a home video format and the first commercial optical disc storage medium. Initially licensed, sold, and marketed as MCA DiscoVision in North America in 1978, the technology was previously referred to interally as Optical Videodisc System, Reflective Optical Videodisc, Laser Optical...
sister label MCA Videodisc and the VHS/Beta label MCA Videocassette were consolidated into a single entity, MCA Home Video, alternating with the MCA Videocassette name until December 1983. In 1990, with the 75th anniversary of Universal Studios, it became MCA/Universal Home Video except Warner Home Video and New Line Home Video, alternating with the MCA Home Video name from 1990 until 1997 while released by New Line Home Video in 1991 until 1994. Universal released by Warner Home Video in 1981 until 1996. The company later went by various company names, including Universal Studios Home Video (1998–2005), and Universal Studios Home Entertainment (2005–present). On DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
and Blu-ray releasings, Universal Pictures is co-releases by New Line Cinema on thoses DVDs and Blu-rays.
In 1980, they released two '50s 3-D motion pictures
3-D film
A 3-D film or S3D film is a motion picture that enhances the illusion of depth perception...
, Creature From the Black Lagoon
Creature from the Black Lagoon
Creature from the Black Lagoon is a 1954 monster horror film directed by Jack Arnold, and starring Richard Carlson, Julia Adams, Richard Denning, Antonio Moreno, and Whit Bissell. The eponymous creature was played by Ben Chapman on land and Ricou Browning in underwater scenes...
and It Came From Outer Space
It Came from Outer Space
It Came from Outer Space is a 1953 science fiction 3-D film directed by Jack Arnold, and starring Richard Carlson, Barbara Rush, and Charles Drake. It was Universal's first film to be filmed in 3-D.- Plot :...
, in anaglyphic format on Beta and VHS.
This company was the video distributor for DreamWorks
DreamWorks
DreamWorks Pictures, also known as DreamWorks, LLC, DreamWorks SKG, DreamWorks II Distribution Co., LLC, DreamWorks Studios or DW Studios, LLC, is an American film studio which develops, produces, and distributes films, video games and television programming...
titles until DreamWorks was sold to Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film production and distribution company, located at 5555 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. Founded in 1912 and currently owned by media conglomerate Viacom, it is America's oldest existing film studio; it is also the last major film studio still...
' parent company, Viacom
Viacom
Viacom Inc. , short for "Video & Audio Communications", is an American media conglomerate with interests primarily in, but not limited to, cinema and cable television...
, in 2006, at which point Paramount took over distribution. After Viacom sold DreamWorks in 2008, Universal Studios Home Entertainment was planned to resume distributing DreamWorks' movies, but this deal fell through.
In addition to DVDs, Universal was a major supporter of the HD DVD
HD DVD
HD DVD is a discontinued high-density optical disc format for storing data and high-definition video.Supported principally by Toshiba, HD DVD was envisioned to be the successor to the standard DVD format...
format until March 2008, when Toshiba
Toshiba
is a multinational electronics and electrical equipment corporation headquartered in Tokyo, Japan. It is a diversified manufacturer and marketer of electrical products, spanning information & communications equipment and systems, Internet-based solutions and services, electronic components and...
discontinued manufacturing of HD DVD players. Since July 22, 2008, Universal released Blu-ray disc
Blu-ray Disc
Blu-ray Disc is an optical disc storage medium designed to supersede the DVD format. The plastic disc is 120 mm in diameter and 1.2 mm thick, the same size as DVDs and CDs. Blu-ray Discs contain 25 GB per layer, with dual layer discs being the norm for feature-length video discs...
s; it was the last major Hollywood movie studio to do so. The label's first Blu-ray releases were The Mummy
The Mummy (1999 film)
The Mummy is a 1999 American adventure film written and directed by Stephen Sommers and starring Brendan Fraser, Rachel Weisz, John Hannah and Kevin J. O'Connor, with Arnold Vosloo in the title role as the reanimated mummy. The film features substantial dialogue in ancient Egyptian language, spoken...
, The Mummy Returns
The Mummy Returns
The Mummy Returns is a 2001 American adventure film written and directed by Stephen Sommers, starring Brendan Fraser, Rachel Weisz, John Hannah, Arnold Vosloo, Oded Fehr, Patricia Velásquez and Freddie Boath. The film is a sequel to the 1999 film The Mummy...
, and The Scorpion King
The Scorpion King
The Scorpion King is a 2002 American action film directed by Chuck Russell, starring Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, Kelly Hu, Grant Heslov, and Michael Clarke Duncan...
.
Universal is the US video distributor for Summit Entertainment
Summit Entertainment
Summit Entertainment LLC is an independent film studio headquartered in Santa Monica, California with international offices in London.-History:...
releases and Lionsgate
Lionsgate Home Entertainment
Lionsgate Home Entertainment is the home video and DVD distribution arm of Lions Gate Entertainment and most former Artisan Entertainment releases. Its library of more than 8000 films owes some of its size to output deals with other studios...
releases.
Internationally
In the NetherlandsNetherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
, Universal distributes most DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
s of films released theatrically by Independent Films, although this is now limited to catalog releases, as more recent films are now released though Warner Home Video
Warner Home Video
Warner Home Video is the home video unit of Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., itself part of Time Warner. It was founded in 1978 as WCI Home Video . The company launched in the United States with twenty films on VHS and Betamax videocassettes in late 1979...
.
It also distributes Alliance Atlantis
Alliance Atlantis
Alliance Atlantis Communications Inc. was a Toronto-based media company that operated primarily as a specialty service operator in Canada. Alliance Atlantis also had offices in Halifax, Los Angeles, London, Dublin, Madrid, Barcelona, Shannon and Sydney.Alliance Atlantis was acquired by Canwest...
DVD titles in Canada, most of the Republic Pictures
Republic Pictures
Republic Pictures was an independent film production-distribution corporation with studio facilities, operating from 1934 through 1959, and was best known for specializing in westerns, movie serials and B films emphasizing mystery and action....
theatrical library in the UK, and most of the Carolco Pictures
Carolco Pictures
Carolco Pictures, Inc., Carolco International N.V., or Anabasis Investments was an American independent film production company that, within a decade, went from producing such blockbuster successes as Terminator 2: Judgment Day and the first three movies of the Rambo series to being bankrupted by...
library in Australia, Latin America, and several European countries (along with other StudioCanal
StudioCanal
StudioCanal is a French-based production and distribution company that owns the third-largest film library in the world...
properties). In the 1980s until the late 1990s, they also distributed tapes released by Cineplex Odeon in Canada.
Universal previously distributed its films on video internationally through CIC Video
CIC Video
CIC Video was a home video distributor, owned by Cinema International Corporation , and operated in some countries by local operators...
(a division of Cinema International Corporation
Cinema International Corporation
Cinema International Corporation was a film distribution company started by Paramount Pictures and Universal Studios in the early 1970s to distribute the 2 studios' films outside the United States – it even operated in Canada before it was...
, later United International Pictures
United International Pictures
United International Pictures is a joint venture of Paramount Pictures and Universal Studios , to distribute some of the two studios' films theatrically outside the United States , Canada, and the Anglophone...
) alongside Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film production and distribution company, located at 5555 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. Founded in 1912 and currently owned by media conglomerate Viacom, it is America's oldest existing film studio; it is also the last major film studio still...
. Following Universal's acquisition of PolyGram
PolyGram
PolyGram was the name of the major label recording company started by Philips from as a holding company for its music interests in 1945. In 1999 it was sold to Seagram and merged into Universal Music Group.-Hollandsche Decca Distributie , 1929-1950:...
in 1999, PolyGram Video (which had international operations) was folded into Universal.
The international operations are a joint venture with Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
Sony Pictures Home Entertainment is the home video distribution arm of Sony Pictures Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation. It was established in November 1979 as Columbia Pictures Home Entertainment, releasing 20 titles: The Anderson Tapes, Bell, Book and Candle, Born Free, Breakout,...
, a carry-over from the PolyGram days.