Burning movies onto DVDs

Remember when that wild and crazy Robert Iger suggested last year that it might make sense to release a film at the moviehouse and on DVD simultaneously? Well, with theater attendance up almost 4 percent from a year ago, you're not hearing such talk coming out of Disney or anywhere else (even though it's an idea whose time will eventually come). What you have been hearing are more variations on the movie downloading theme - the latest coming today from Time Warner CEO Richard Parsons who said that starting next year Warner Bros. plans to make some movies available over the Internet that can be burned onto DVDs. The availability could happen a few weeks or even on the same day that the DVD is released. Time Warner is also testing a service to sell movies digitally at kiosks at Wal-Mart. These are yet further examples of the old media giants throwing new media ideas at the wall. Whatever sticks, stays. Speaking of Wal-Mart: The retail giant announced this really weird service that will allow customers to download movies but only if they buy a physical DVD. Huh?