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Hollywood Reporter Best Buy, MX duetting on DVDs Best Buy and MX Entertainment were set to announce today that they will work together to promote innovative music DVDs in a strategic alliance that will kick off with a new Eric Clapton release. For its part, the consumer electronics giant will offer music DVD publishers incentives to use MX DVD technology in their music DVD products. Best Buy also will market and promote MX enhanced music DVD products with in-store marketing as well as print and online advertising. MX Entertainment will be producing exclusive music DVD titles for Best Buy using the company's MX DVD Multi-Channel Video and other MX technologies. Among other things, these features let viewers be their own director by choosing between multiple and simultaneous video tracks in any way they wish, or they can opt to let the show unfold in the traditional manner. MX DVD technology is compatible with all existing DVD players on the market today. Although it was not MX's first project, many consumers first encountered MX DVD with the "Select-A-Stone" special feature on last year's Rolling Stones' "Four Flicks." Best Buy was the exclusive retailer of that release in the United States and Canada for an initial three-month period. "Best Buy was an early retail supporter of DVD Video, and we plan on staying on the forefront of new media formats like MX DVD," said Gary Arnold, senior vp entertainment for Best Buy, adding that MX's innovations give viewers "more content and more choices, raising the bar of quality for music DVDs." The first title to get this promotional push will be "Eric Clapton Crossroads Guitar Festival," a Warner Strategic Marketing, Reprise and Duck two-disc DVD set commemorating the three-day concert event held in June. Clapton, Robert Cray, Jimmie Vaughan, Buddy Guy, B.B. King, James Taylor, Vince Gill, JJ Cale, Carlos Santana and John Mayer are among the artists who performed at the benefit for the Crossroads Centre in Antigua. Royalties from the sales of the $30 package also will go to the charity, which provides treatment and education to chemically dependent people. "You get the opportunity to choose a second channel," MX president Zane Vella said. "You can go from the director's cut to a split-screen view -- Eric and a guest or a more creative composition of the classic butterfly guitar visual effect like in 'Woodstock.' It's all about giving the owner of that DVD more value on the second and third viewing." Vella and CEO Jeff Braun, who co-founded MX Entertainment in 2001, said the Best Buy deal also will answer skeptics who wonder if their technology is worth using. "Creatives and artists get to create a better product with more control and options for the viewer, and the marketing folks get a product that's supported by Best Buy with in-store, print and online advertising," Vella said. "What's great about it for MX is that this really helps answer the ROI question -- both sides are confident that the MX will drive DVD sales." Best Buy also can use this product line to demonstrate the benefits of having a home theater, Braun added. |
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