Paramount Home Entertainment

Paramount Home Entertainment (formerly Paramount Home Media Distribution, Paramount Home Video and Paramount Video) is the home video distribution arm of Paramount Pictures, a division of ViacomCBS.

PHE oversees home entertainment and transactional digital distribution activities worldwide. The division is responsible for the sales, marketing and distribution of home entertainment content on behalf of Paramount Pictures, Paramount Animation, Paramount Television Studios, Paramount Players, Showtime, MTV, Nickelodeon, Comedy Central, CBS and other contents like Miramax and the back catalogue of DreamWorks Pictures (pre-2010). PHE additionally manages global licensing of studio content and transactional distribution across worldwide digital distribution platforms including online, mobile and portable devices and emerging technologies. CBS Films releases, however, are distributed by Sony Pictures Home Entertainment and later on, Lionsgate Home Entertainment, though they may revert to PHE when the respective deals expire.

History
In 2008, PHE launched a direct-to-video label, Paramount Famous Productions (with the "Famous" part of the name a throwback to the days when the company was called Famous Players).

In the United Kingdom and Australia, the Paramount Pictures film library was released by CIC Video alongside Universal Pictures until 1999 before CIC turned into two separate units: Paramount Home Entertainment International and Universal Studios Home Entertainment International.

On May 27, 2010, IFC Films struck another home video distribution deal with PHE.

In October 2012, it was announced that PHMD and Warner Home Video had signed a distribution deal, allowing Warner to gain U.S. and Canadian DVD, Blu-ray, UltraViolet, Flixster, and DVD-manufacturing-on-demand distribution rights to over 600 Paramount titles. The deal came into effect as of January 1, 2013. The deal, however, has expired as of 2017 as evidenced by Paramount titles no longer appearing on Warner Home Video's web store. Distribution of the titles included in the Warner deal have since reverted to Paramount.

In February 2015, PHE signed a distribution agreement with Universal Pictures Home Entertainment, whereby the latter will distribute the former's titles overseas, particularly the territories where Paramount holds an office. The deal began on July 1, 2015, in the United Kingdom.

In June 2016, Paramount started releasing Ultra HD Blu-ray discs.

In May 2019, PHMD reverted its name back to Paramount Home Entertainment, which is the name they carried from 1999 to 2011.

After ViacomCBS purchased a 49% stake in Miramax on April 3, 2020, PHE acquired distribution rights to the entire Miramax library, as well as the pre-2005 Dimension Films library.

In July 2020, PHE signed a new UK home entertainment distribution deal with Elevation Sales (a joint venture between StudioCanal UK and Lionsgate UK), as well as signing other home entertainment distribution deals with Koch Media for Italy, Divisa Home Video for Spain, and Dutch FilmWorks for Benelux, all starting in January 2021.

In July 2021, PHE signed a deal with SF Studios, allowing them to distribute their content in the Scandinavian market, after they ended their deal with Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment.

HD DVD and Blu-ray support
Paramount brands the majority of its HD content under the label 'Paramount High Definition' which is seen both on the title box cover and as an in-movie opening. Films from Paramount subsidiaries such as Nickelodeon Movies and MTV Films as well as from former sister studio DreamWorks Pictures use no special branding, Paramount Vantage (another subsidiary) releases only select titles under the Paramount High Definition banner.

In October 2005, Paramount announced that it would be supporting the HD video format Blu-ray in addition to rival format HD DVD, becoming the first studio to release on both formats. Its first four HD DVD releases came in July 2006, and it released four titles on Blu-ray two months later. In August 2007, Paramount (along with DreamWorks Pictures and DreamWorks Animation) announced their exclusive support for HD DVD. However, when other studios eventually dropped HD DVD and players for the technology stopped being manufactured, Paramount switched to Blu-ray. In May 2008, it released three titles on Blu-ray and continues to release its high-definition discs in that format exclusively.