A little over four months after it premiered as a Netflix exclusive, the Kevin Spacey-led David Fincher-produced policial series will get a physical release.

Amazon is now listing the complete first season on both DVD and Blu-ray.

You can snag the Blu-ray set on Amazon for $52.99 and the DVD set will run you $44.99. Both the DVD and Blu-ray sets will launch on June 11th, coming to you from Sony Pictures.

Back in 2011, Sony Pictures Television signed on to handle the distribution of the show once Netflix’s streaming window ended.

Just a couple of weeks after Netflix released all 13 episodes of season 1 to a hungry subscriber base, House of Cards became the most-watched thing on the entire streaming service. Shortly after that, the show topped IMDb’s list for the most popular show in the world. After about three weeks, we learned that around 3 million Netflix subscribers had streamed at least one episode of the show.

[via Engadget]

This is great news for Netflix subscribers, because there’s a lot of content from Universal that Netflix won’t be getting in its streaming catalog anytime soon. HBO just announced a 10-year exclusivity extension of its deal with Universal. This should at least keep Netflix’s DVD division in business, because it’s not likely that the company will simply want to do without that major content.

Of course, Netflix is also working on its own catalog of exclusive programming, which should help secure its place on the list of viable entertainment options for the long term. They already have the original show Lilyhammer, and next month will debut David Lynch’s House of Cards. Later this year (possibly in May), Netflix will also launch the return of the beloved television series Arrested Development, and has a show called Hemlock Grove coming sometime in the near future from Cabin Fever/Hostel Director Eli Roth.

Still, Netflix needs the non-original stuff too to keep subscribers from turning to competitors, and deals like today’s Warner Bros. announcement are critical. Subscribers can expect to gain access to shows like Revolution, Political Animals, 666 Park Avenue, and The Following to name a few.

Netflix Chief Content Officer, Ted Sarandos, said, “This unprecedented agreement brings to Netflix members earlier and more exclusively than ever before complete previous seasons of some of the most prominent and successful shows on network and cable television. Through deals like this, Netflix is making the production economics right for the continued creation of the kind of compelling serialized dramas and thrillers that our members love.”

Warner Bros. Television Group President Bruce added, “SVOD has become an important window for our serialized dramas, allowing viewers a chance to discover a series that before might have been intimidating to tune into mid-run. We continue to adapt our business models to include SVOD when it makes sense for the long-term value of each show and are thrilled to have Netflix as one of our distribution partners.”

Competition isn’t getting any lighter for Netflix. Redbox has only recently started accepting members into Redbox Instant, which in addition to unlimited views of streaming online content, offers users 4 DVD kiosk credits per month. The online catalog, however, is weak at best, at this point, but it will no doubt grow as future content deals are made. Right now, it does not offer streaming television shows, and this new Netflix Warner Bros. deal only makes Netflix that much better an option for TV lovers.

GigaOm’s Janko Roettgers stumbled across a help section about the service, which has now been removed from public view. According to Roettgers, the section revealed that subscriptions are priced at $6 a month for unlimited access to the subscription video catalog and $8 a month for that plus four Redbox credits, good for DVD rentals. Users will be able to reserve the rentals from the Instant site, Roettgers says.

The service also provides on-demand rentals and sales, starting at $0.99 with service available on the web, Android, iOS, Xbox 360, and some Samsung TVs and Blu-Ray players.

A possible release date was also revealed, according to the report, as beta testers are told that they won’t be able to access DVDs through the subscriptions until December 17.

Of course, being how none of this is public, any of it is subject to change, so we’ll have to keep everything here filed in the rumor department for the time being.

Redbox Instant is a joint venture between Redbox and Verizon. TiVo settled litigation with Verizon in September, and part of the agreement involved TiVo and Verizon “exploring, among other things, future distribution of Internet video services” developed through the joint venture – namely Redbox Instant.

In fact, they’ve become so popular that despite being completely free to watch online, they’re being sold as bootleg DVDs in China:

Emily McManus writes on the TED Blog:

In Shanghai, China, directly across the street from a pirated DVD shop called Movie Star is another pirated DVD shop called Better Than Movie Star … and that’s where TED’s founding video director, Jason Wishnow, discovered this pirated DVD (which, sigh, but it’s too good not to share).

It’s a bootleg copy of one of our most popular Netflix shows, a curated collection called “Sex, Secrets and Love.” You can watch this collection yourself on Netflix Streaming, or find it on DailyMotion. Or, if you’d prefer a hard copy, did you know: You can order up a DVD of your favorite six TED Talks through our DVD on Demand service. And as with this bootleg above, you can make your own cover art …

Here’s TEDTalks: Sex, Secrets & Love on Netflix, if you’re interested.

What next? Bootlegs of Khan Academy videos?

On the heels of their Q2 earnings release, Redbox parent company Coinstar has announced an amended agreement with Sony that extends it past the upcoming September 2012 termination deadline. At the end of September, 2014, Sony will retain the option for two one-year extensions.

The deal gives Redbox to continue to distribute Sony films on the very same day that Sony makes them available for purchase to the general public. It also gives Redbox the option to license Blu-Rays, among other things.

Translation: No delays on Sony films.

This news comes amidst licensing struggles with other companies like Disney and Warner Bros. Earlier this year, Warner Bros implemented a 56-day delay period for new releases, meaning that companies like Redbox and Netflix wouldn’t be able to distribute their films to customer for nearly two months after they’d been on sale. Redbox promptly fought back, electing to purchaser the films from retailers, at nearly double the cost.

Disney also recently imposed a 28-day delay on rentals to Netflix and Redbox. Redbox circumvented this in a similar fashion.

Well have to wait and see if and how any future deals with Warner and Disney allow Redbox to provide same-day release rentals to customers. Things could get a bit more interesting when Redbox’s new streaming service, Redbox Instant Streaming, debuts later this year.

[Coinstar SEC Filing, via Engadget]

The service is made possible by Amazon’s CreateSpace DVD on Demand service and offers over 2,000 titles from a wide assortment of movie and television studios like CBS Networks, Lionsgate, MTV Networks, Universal Studios, Nickelodeon, and Disney. In addition to nearly-forgotten movies and shows, the Never Before on DVD store will also offer more current wares such as Mob Wives: Season 1 and Teen Mom: Season 1.

Brad Beale, director of digital video content acquisition for Amazon, extolled the new store for offering fans a way to finally put an end to the seemingly endless wait for certain movies and television shows to finally be released on DVD. “In addition to being available on DVD, many titles are available digitally to enjoy right away through Amazon Instant Video and Prime Instant Video,” he said. “We will continue working to bring our customers even more great video content on DVD as well as digitally.”

Since you’ve been waiting forever for some of these titles to finally make it to DVD, don’t worry that this is a brief opportunity. Amazon says that the releases will always be available and they never go out of stock because the DVDs are only made to respond to customers’ demand. More, some of the Never Before on DVD titles will also be viewable on Amazon Instant Video.

Most of these newly available titles have been listed on Amazon in formats other than DVD so there are already lots of reviews for the items. Interestingly enough, several of the reviews lament the lack of DVD for the titles. At last, you patient cinephiles can finally sleep a little better knowing you can add such neglected classics like Fastest Gun Alive, Travels With My Aunt, The Green Slime, Class Act, The Wonderful Country, or the 1993 ode to rollerblading, Airborne, to your DVD collection.

Provided you consider Warner Brothers’ new approach to converting a DVD into a digital file progress. Many don’t, including the collective at PublicKnowledge.org. To demonstrate just how much they can adapt to the digital revolution, Warner Brothers has introduced perhaps the most cumbersome “Disc-to-Digital” program, one that actually dissuades people from using, which is perhaps the WB’s goal all along.

Does this mean that Warner Brothers is releasing ripping software–or, well hardware, I guess–to the public to facilitate this transformation process? Of course not. That would be entirely too easy. No, what Warner Brothers proposes is something entirely different and absolutely inconvenient. Public Knowledge has the details:

…the first phase in this process is to let DVD owners bring their DVDs to a store that will handle the digital conversion. Tsujihara described this process as allowing consumers to convert their libraries “easily, safely and at reasonable prices.”

You did read that last paragraph correctly. The head of Warner Home Entertainment Group thinks that an easy, safe way to convert movies you already own on DVD to other digital formats is to take your DVDs, find a store that will perform this service, drive to that store, find the clerk who knows how to perform the service, hope that the “DVD conversion machine” is not broken, stand there like a chump while the clerk “safely” converts your movie to a digital file that may only play on studio-approved devices, drive home, and hope everything worked out. Oh, and the good news is that you would only need to pay a reasonable (per-DVD?) price for this pleasure. [Emphasis added]

To demonstrate this process in action, Public Knowledge has also put together an incredibly handy diagram of how the process works:

Maybe one day these movie studios will understand the concept of ownership and digital distribution a little better than they do. Until then, there are still copies of DVDShrink floating around the Internet. Just flex those Google muscles a little and you should be rewarded with the appropriate exe file.

In others news, it’s clear Frank Zappa and his awesome t-shirt were well ahead of their time.

“We’ve always known how much America loves easy, affordable entertainment, and today we can prove it two billion times over,” said Scott Di Valerio, CFO of Coinstar, Inc. and interim president of Redbox. “Just 18 months ago, we rented our one billionth DVD and we couldn’t be more excited to celebrate this remarkable second rental milestone with our customers.”

Apparently, Redbox’s growth has boomed in the last little bit. The company was founded in 2002, but wasn’t focused on their current objective until 2005 when Coinstar bought a significant stake in the company. So Redbox basically rented their second billion discs 4 times faster than their first billion discs.

According to Redbox, that magical 2 billionth disc was the Ryan Gosling thriller Drive, which was rented at a kiosk outside a McDonald’s in Philomath, Oregon.

So, this is a milestone for Redbox. But customers get to join in on the celebration by grabbing a free rental on March 8th (that’s today). All you have to do is enter the promo code “THANKS2U” and you’ll receive your free movie. If you want to upgrade to a Blu-ray of a video game, you can use the code to get a standard DVD rental’s price off.

Redbox has had some run-ins with Hollywood in recent months. After Warner Bros doubled their window on new releases to rental companies like Redbox and Netflix, Redbox refused to wait that long. They are currently purchasing Warner Bros. DVDs from retailers at a higher premium to avoid the 56-day waiting period.

Earlier this month, we learned that Redbox had stuck a deal with Universal to keep the 28-day DVD window.

So tonight, enjoy your free movie. Why not Drive?

Universal Studios Home Entertainment and Redbox, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Coinstar, Inc, announced the signing of a multi-year agreement that will continue to make Universal Blu-ray Disc and DVD titles available for rental at Redbox locations nationwide 28 days following their home entertainment release.

That agreement will last all the way to August 2014.

As I mentioned before, this Universal deal comes on the heels of some strained negotiations between Warner Bros. and Redbox. In January, Warner Bros. doubled the window of new releases on DVD. That long-accepted 28 days jumped to and an absolutely ridiculous 56 days. This affected not only Redbox, but Netflix as well. Warner Bros then extended the lunacy by suggesting that Netflix impose a 28-day waiting period on its subscribers before they can even add new releases to their queues.

Earlier this month, we found out that Redbox planned to defy Warner Bros’ new rental delay. Redbox is currently purchasing Warner Bros. DVDs from retailers, a move that is definitely not as cost effective.

“The multi-year agreement between Universal Studios Home Entertainment and Redbox represents a win for consumers, Universal and Redbox,” said Galen Smith, senior vice president, Redbox. “Redbox is committed to forging relationships that provide our consumers with affordable and timely access to new release content.”

Although some might argue that 28 days is still pretty far away from “timely,” it’s much better than 56. Hollywood’s plan to throw any obstacle they can in front of low-cost viewing runs on the idea that people wil get fed up with waiting and go buy the full price DVD or rent it off cable on-demand. Then again, instead of prompting people to run out and buy the DVD, these kinds of moves are just as likely to prompt people to snatch up the film through other, cheaper means.

According to the LA Times, beginning February 1st, Netflix users will not be able to immediately add new Warner Bros releases to their DVD queue. Currently, as soon as a new film jumps into Netflix’s database, users can add it to their queue. Of course, they still have to wait the designated window before the DVD will actually ship, but it serves as a kind of placeholder.

Well, now users will have to wait 28 days after the film is released on DVD before they can even add a new Warner release to their queue.

Earlier this month, Warner Bros and Netflix reached an agreement that extended the new release window from 28 days to 56 days. Once a DVD goes on sale, Netflix will have to wait nearly two months before they can ship the DVD out to customers. This rule also applies to Warner Bros new releases with Blockbuster and Redbox.

So now, a Netflix customer will have to wait 28 days to even add a new release to their queue, and then wait another 28 days before it’s actually shipped.

Apparently, the idea behind this is that any obstacle to lower-cost film viewing is good. Warner Bros believes that the current Netflix policy makes the wait for a new DVD tolerable. If a person adds it to their queue, they know it’s on the way. There’s a clear indication that as soon as it’s available, it will be shipped right out to their house.

But in the mind of Warner Bros, not having the DVD sitting comfortably in your queue will make you more likely to go out and buy the full-priced DVD.

It’s shit like this, Warner Bros. And people wonder why downloading a film seems like such an attractive option to many.