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Techradar: YouTube has announced improvements to its free on-demand movie service, after signing deals with a number of major distributors.

YouTube has tapped up the likes of Sony Pictures, Lionsgate and MGM and will be showing classic content through the site.

Although YouTube has been offering free movies for some time, the titles available have ranged from the obscure to the bizarre.

The new deal will mean that more recognisable movies like The Buena Vista Social Club will be made available.

Free films

“This is one of many efforts to ensure that people can find all the different kinds of video they want to see, from bedroom vlogs and citizen journalism reports to full-length films and TV shows,” explained YouTube head of video partnerships, Donagh O’Malley.

“We hope film lovers enjoy the range of titles in this free library, whether catching up on a mainstream hit or delving into the vast archive of classic films from decades past.”

YouTube has also announced a deal with Blinkbox, which will offer more than 150 movies of its archive for playback on the site.

This is the latest in a long line of link-ups the site has been doing, but the first for movies.

So far YouTube has been heavily investing in its TV output, signing deals with Channel 4 and Five.

Hopefully getting BlinkBox on board will be the start of something special for www.youtube.com/movies.

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BusinessWeek: Mobile games publisher Glu Mobile said Wednesday it signed a distribution agreement with Sony Pictures Television International in a move to distribute existing and new mobile games on Sony’s behalf.

The deal covers releases in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Latin America, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

The first title to be distributed under the new agreement includes the mobile game of the forthcoming movie, Hancock, starring Will Smith. The game was produced by Sony Pictures and will launch in June.

Glu will also distribute the new versions of Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy, also produced by Sony. SPTI will continue to manage the development and production of SPTI’s slate of mobile games in line with signature Sony Pictures franchises.

Financial terms weren’t disclosed.

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AVZombie: Forget the battle between HD DVD and Blu-ray, the number one concern for most video buyers is storage. After ten years of collecting DVD, we’re all now apparently out of shelf space. And the number one pre-requisite for buyers is not whether a movie or TV series has been newly remastered, it’s whether it comes in new style slim-packs.

Marc Rashba of Sony Pictures Entertainment explained to USA Today: “We conducted research and talked to our retail partners, and the overwhelming response was to create dynamic packages that do not cannibalize shelf space.”

The first move has been to shift anthologies and TV seasons into slim-line cases. Season 5 of Alias is less than half the size of previous editions. Ditto the latest US release of the Rocky movies. Packaging is also getting smarter, with discs mounted on the inside front and back of Amaray cases, allowing more platters per pack to be stored.

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HD Beat: Sony Pictures will release at least two movies on dual layer 50GB Blu-ray disc this fall.

The company haven’t specified any additional features, titles, prices or advanced codec support as yet.

They also commented on the criticism of the quality of some Blu-ray releases, noting that newer movies and more recent releases have received better reviews, while also putting some blame on the decisions of filmmakers and the monitors used during the mastering process.

Movie houses are also waiting for more players to hit the ground to be able to test compatibility before they start including highly interactive features. At least so far, HD DVD has been able to take advantage of their lead time on the movie side with (currently) larger discs, more efficient compression and some interesting bonus features.

The real Blu-ray launch is coming this winter as several new players will be greeted by these much improved discs, we’ll see how the format war stacks up then.

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