Warner To Bring Out Digital Downloads Day-and-date With DVD

Burbank (CA) - Warner Bros has decided to follow in the foot steps of some other movie studios, bringing on-demand video and digitial downloads of future releases the same day they come out on DVD.

Previously, Warner launched its DVD and high-def disc releases at first, and then waited a few weeks before making them available to places like iTunes.

Now, however, it will release movies on all major formats, physical or digital, at the same time.

"Taking a customer and moving that person over from rental-physical over moving them to VOD (video on demand) day-and-date is like a 60 to 70 percent margin instead of a 20 to 30," said Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes in a New York Times article.

In addition to affecting iTunes and the digital Apple TV store, the move by Warner will make the movies available earlier on digital cable video-on-demand services.

Other studios also have a similar day-and-date set-up, but for many others there is still a leniency to put up digital content before it is released on a physical medium.

Twentieth Century Fox has gone even further into the digital realm, though, offering free digital downloads to consumers who buy certain movies on DVD or Blu-ray Disc.