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Image Entertainment
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Image Entertainment is a major home video and television distribution company that has handled digital media distribution of television programs, public domain and copyrighted feature films, and music concerts.
The corporation was founded at the beginning of the LaserDisc era as an outlet to distribute product for that format and taking advantage of its key features, including sound and picture quality that surpassed VHS and Beta. Some of their first major releases were of music concerts. Adult movie titles were also a large part of their early output. That division was split off into a separate company called LaserDisc Entertainment after Image began distributing Disney/Buena Vista titles in the early 1990s- Disney wouldn't have agreed to the deal unless they dropped it.
As the company evolved, Image landed output deals with major studios (such as 20th Century Fox and Universal) for distributing their LaserDisc product.
Even as the LaserDisc format waned in popularity, Image established itself as a major home video distributor and a primary leader in LaserDisc product. Image also started their own monthly print magazine of upcoming LaserDisc titles.
When the LaserDisc format was slowly giving way to DVD, Image changed with the times and began to focus on DVD product. Since the advent of DVD, Image has managed to score two major acquisitions for home video: the entire CBS series of the original Twilight Zone, and the John Ritter/Markie Post series Hearts Afire, the rights to the latter series having been awarded by the John Ritter estate.
Image has also released LaserDisc/DVD editions of public domain films such as A Farewell to Arms and the 1937 version of A Star Is Born.
Today, Image continues to release a wide variety of programs (from television series to feature films to recent concerts) that are better suited for the emerging DVD format, including the O Entertainment Thumbs! franchise.
Image competes with Anchor Bay Entertainment in releasing many horror films in the public domain. This results in many editions of the same films.
On March 29, 2007, it was announced that Image Entertainment had entered into a definitive agreement to be sold to investor group BTP Acquisition Company, LLC for approximately $132 million.