Variety reports on Apple's announcement of a new iPod roster on Wednesday, but noted: "Event focused on the company's holiday hardware lineup, including an array of upgraded iPods and a new partnership with Starbucks.In the background, however, was a development with which Jobs is likely concerned: Two years after Apple started selling TV shows via iTunes and a year after it added movies, Hollywood is still not fully aboard with his vision and has chafed, in some cases, against Apple's firm grip on the high-end content download-on-demand biz."

Irate filmmakers are taking up arms, or Super 8 cameras, in a crusade to save Kodachrome. On May 9, just one day after Global Super 8 Day, Kodak announced it plans to discontinue Kodachrome Super 8 film, replacing it with a new Ektachrome Super 8. The reason for the move, according to a New York Times article by Spencer Morgan, is that a “steadily declining market has made processing unprofitable.” Kodak is the only company that still produces the film and some filmmakers devoted to the medium are bombarding the company with hate-mail.

indieWIRE has started a new monthly series with Apple Store - Soho that presents indie film professionals discussing various aspects of the filmmaking process. This Friday May 27th, Jonathan Caouette, director of "Tarnation", will discuss how he made his award winning documentary.

Kodak's Super 8 Film, though still alive and kicking, has went through many changes in the past 40 years. What begin as a popular way for families to capture birthday parties and vacations has evolved into a format for students and filmmakers to, as Kodak states in a prepared release, "provides an easy, inexpensive way for students and enthusiasts to work at film resolutions and color depths as yet unmatched by the latest digital technologies."

An Indian cellular phone company plans to air a new Bollywood movie on mobile handsets for free and in full Thursday in a bid to promote its video-streaming service. "Rok Sako To Rok Lo," or "Stop, If You Can," will be available to Bharti Tele-Ventures customers in 11 Indian cities, provided their phones have the supporting technology, said Atul Bindal, a director at India's second-largest cellular service provider, A.P. reports.

Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11" has become a big "search topic" on web search engines, notes Sam Harrelson from ReveNews.com. He asks, "Is search morphing into a ratings matrix that could rival traditional avenues like Nielsen Media?" Continuing he writes, "It seems that the answer is yes. These films, with their smaller production and marketing budgets, are able to capitalize on search's ability to drive valuable targeted traffic based on a pull, rather than push.

"Independent filmmakers, specialty magazine publishers, artists, educators - all those with a video to sell, no matter how narrow the niche - are turning out DVD's and distributing them through the mail. It's a trend that began in the era of videotape but has accelerated with DVD's because they are inexpensive to duplicate and ship." [NY Times]

DVD rental service Netflix is planning to deliver movies via the Internet starting next year. In a Reuters report (via News.com), the company confirmed its plans, with CEO Reed Hastings saying, "Our strategy is to get huge in DVDs and then expand into downloads," he added, "When we get to 5 million or 10 million subscribers, eventually what we spend on postage becomes a prize for the movie studios."

"What he (John Lowry) is doing will make a DVD look nearly as sharp and detailed as a 35-millimeter film print. It will produce images with six times the resolution of today's high-definition television sets. In video quality, it could turn home theater into a true rival of the neighborhood cineplex," Fred Kaplan takes a lookat the possible future for DVDs.

"Wal-Mart is selling the world's first DVD player that can seamlessly skip over violence, swearing, nudity and other potentially offensive movie content. The $79 unit features technology by ClearPlay and is manufactured by Thomson Inc. under its RCA brand," Chris Marlowe reports.

The 3ivx D4 video compression codex for MPEG-4 is being billed as producing the same quality with half the filesize and up to five times faster compression rate, plus the files can be decoded by existing QuickTime 6 players. Windows, Mac and UNIX, Amiga and BeOS encoder/decoders are available [via Cinema Minima]