Warner Home Video

Warner Home Video is the home video distribution division of Warner Bros., itself part of Time Warner. It was founded in 1978 as WCI Home Video (for Warner Communications, Inc.). The company launched in the United States with twenty films on Betamax and VHS videocassettes in late 1979. The company later expanded its line to include additional titles throughout 1979 and 1980.

Catalog
The company releases titles from the film and television library of Warner Bros. Entertainment, as well as programs from other Time Warner companies. Currently, they also serve distributor for television and/or movie products released by DC Comics, Lifetime, through Paramount Pictures (only 600 films), HBO, CNN, Dualstar, New Line Cinema, Cartoon Network, Adult Swim, Turner Entertainment Co. (ex. MGM/UA's pre-May 1986 library, RKO Pictures, pre-1950 Warner Bros.), truTV (known as Court TV until 2008), TCM, Samuel Goldwyn Productions, the BBC in the U.S., TNT, American Girl, LeapFrog, King Features, Sesame Street, Lego, Viz Media, The Wiggles, National Geographic Society in the U.S., and product from the NBA, NFL, NHL, and WWE Studios.

On January 1, 2015, the company replaced Cinedigm in distribution of content from WWE Libraries in a deal with WWE, including content from former corporate sibling World Championship Wrestling.

History
Some early releases were time-compressed in order to save tape time and money and to compensate for long-playing cassettes being unavailable in the early days of home video. One example was 1978's Superman in which the film was released in a 127-minute format, compared to its 143-minute theatrical release. In addition, early film-to-video transfers of films from WCI were noted for being in poor quality, compared to modern day video releases. By the end of 1980, the quality of transfers had improved.

The company was noted in its early days for releases in big cardboard boxes, that opened like a book, colored in Black, with cast credits on the inside. Some early releases under the Warner Home Video name also used this design. In early 1981, the company switched to plastic clamshell cases, with a multicolor design, with a few releases using the cardboard boxes and the multicolor designs, and to cardboard sleeves in 1985 for packaging, eliminating plastic cases by 1986. In the late 1990s, the studio revived the use of plastic cases for a handful of releases from Warner Bros. Family Entertainment.

Warner Bros. began to branch out into the videodisc market, licensing titles to MCA DiscoVision and RCA's SelectaVision videodisc formats, allowing both companies to market and distribute the films under their labels. By 1985, Warner was releasing material under their own label in both formats. Titles from Warner Home Video were and continue to be distributed and manufactured by Roadshow Home Video in Australia and New Zealand because of its film counterpart's films released by Village Roadshow.

Rentals
Warner also experimented with the "rental-only" market for videos, a method also used by 20th Century Fox for their first release of Star Wars in 1982. Two known films released in this manner were Superman II and Excalibur. Other films released for rental use include Dirty Harry, The Enforcer, Prince of the City, and Sharky's Machine.

Notable firsts, Warner Archive Collection and distribution
In 1997, Warner Home Video was one of the first major American distributors for the new DVD format, by releasing Twister on DVD. Warner executive Warren Lieberfarb is often seen as "the father of DVD". Lieberfarb's successor, Warner Executive James F. Cardwell was recognized in paving the way for WHV’s strategic positioning in next generation technologies such as High Definition DVD, electronic sell-through and portable video. In 2003, Warner Home Video became the first home video releasing company to release movies only on DVD with no VHS equivalent.

On September 26, 2006, Warner Home Video became the first company to release a title in three formats on the same day and date with the home release of The Lake House on DVD, Blu-ray and HD DVD. With Paramount Home Entertainment switching from neutral in the high definition video camp to solely to HD DVD in September 2007, Warner Home Video was at the time the only major distributor to support both high definition formats, though this changed at the end of May 2008. From June 2008, Warner Home Video released new high definition content on Blu-ray only, becoming the last major Hollywood studio to drop HD DVD after Toshiba discontinued the HD DVD format.

In 2009, Warner Home Video introduced the Warner Archive Collection, which allows the public to order custom-made DVDs of rarely seen films and TV series from the Warner and Turner libraries. The films are also available as digital downloads. Warner Archive DVDs and downloads can be ordered online on Warner's website, on Amazon.com or Turner Classic Movies-affiliated DVD website Movies Unlimited (Although Movies Unlimited sells these archive titles, it usually takes 2–3 months before the DVD is available for order after Warners releases it on their website.)

In October 2012, Paramount Home Entertainment and Warner Home Video signed a distribution deal, allowing Warner Bros. to gain U.S. and Canadian DVD, Blu-ray, UltraViolet, Flixster, and DVD-manufacturing-on-demand distribution rights to over 600 Paramount Pictures titles as well as new Paramount Pictures titles. The deal came into effect as of January 1, 2013.

International
In the UK, Warner Home Video distributes most of the DVD releases of Icon Entertainment International, and also distributes Icon releases in Australia as well as Seville Pictures and Equinox Films releases in Canada. In the Netherlands and France, Warner Home Video is also a distributor for most new releases from Independent Films, through the RTL Group's M6 subsidiary.

Warner Home Video also served as the distributor for Pathé titles on video in the early 1990s.

Warner Home Video also released United Artists titles on video until the early 1990s.

Warner Home Video also released World Championship Wrestling events and compilations throughout the 1990s in various territories until 2001.

Since 2000, Warner Home Video serves as distributor of BBC Video releases in North America, a partnership that continues today.

Warner Home Video is first to release titles from a major studio for digital download-to-own in Italy (2006).

In Poland, Warner Home Video served as distributor of most Warner Bros. and Turner Entertainment movies on VHS and DVD in the years 1993-2007, before being closed. Since 2007, Warner Bros.' home video distribution in Poland is being handled by local distributor Galapagos Films, Inc.

In Russia, Warner Home Video served as distributor of most Varus Video (1994-1998) and Most-Video (1998-2002), later Premier Video Film (2002-2005) (with Paramount Pictures, Universal Pictures, Miramax Films (pre-1999) and 20th Century Fox (pre-1999)) movies on VHS and DVD, before being closed.

In Japan, Warner Home Video had assumed Japanese home entertainment distribution of the Miramax catalog in 2012 until expired on December 31, 2014.