Warner Launches Deep-Vault Streaming Service
LOS ANGELES — Warner Home Entertainment this week clarified some misleading information circulating on its new subscription-based Warner Archive Instant streaming service.
Warner Archive Instant (WAI), is designed to offer legacy movie and TV buffs access to titles kept deep within the studio’s massive film libraries, is billed as a $9.99 per month specialized video-streaming service dedicated to making available rare and hard-to-find content from the Warner Bros. catalog.
The service offers hard-to-find classics (in HD 1080p) that are not currently available on Blu-ray Disc or elsewhere. Warner said it is targeting “longtime as well as new film enthusiasts” for the service, which will be carried on connected TV streaming devices such as Roku set boxes as well as PCs and Macs.
Warner Archive Instant content is drawn solely from the Warner Bros. Entertainment library, which the studio said is the world’s largest. It includes films from Warner Bros. Pictures, as well as titles from other studios that it has been affiliated with over the years, including Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (pre-1986), RKO Radio Pictures, Allied Artists, Monogram, Lorimar, New Line Cinema, Castle Rock Productions and others.
Subscribers will have access to “hundreds of rare and hard-to-find films from deep within the studio’s film vault, ranging from the silent ’20s all the way to the acid-wash ’80s.”
Content is consistently refreshed, allowing plenty of time to explore and discover the studio’s film library.
Although some titles may also be found on some larger streaming services, Warner said “WAI is really about providing very deep classic titles and heretofore unavailable TV programming.”
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Doug Lung is one of America's foremost authorities on broadcast RF technology. As vice president of Broadcast Technology for NBCUniversal Local, H. Douglas Lung leads NBC and Telemundo-owned stations’ RF and transmission affairs, including microwave, radars, satellite uplinks, and FCC technical filings. Beginning his career in 1976 at KSCI in Los Angeles, Lung has nearly 50 years of experience in broadcast television engineering. Beginning in 1985, he led the engineering department for what was to become the Telemundo network and station group, assisting in the design, construction and installation of the company’s broadcast and cable facilities. Other projects include work on the launch of Hawaii’s first UHF TV station, the rollout and testing of the ATSC mobile-handheld standard, and software development related to the incentive auction TV spectrum repack. A longtime columnist for TV Technology, Doug is also a regular contributor to IEEE Broadcast Technology. He is the recipient of the 2023 NAB Television Engineering Award. He also received a Tech Leadership Award from TV Tech publisher Future plc in 2021 and is a member of the IEEE Broadcast Technology Society and the Society of Broadcast Engineers.