Since Live 8 on 2nd July, which featured the headline-making reunion of Roger Waters with Pink Floyd, work has been underway on the DVD release of the event. We reported on this last month, where the release date was expected to be November 28th.

We were told today that the official DVD will be appearing earlier, on November 7th (November 8th in the US). The DVD will contain not just concert performances, but backstage and rehearsal footage, as well.

Each region's DVD set will be tailored to reflect key artists and performances for that territory - and if there was a local show, that will get good coverage. Naturally, there will be certain artists who will appear on ALL versions of the set - and Pink Floyd is a sure thing for that category. All the bands who performed at Live 8 surrendered their rights to the performances so nobody can refuse to be on the DVD, as Led Zeppelin did with the original Live Aid show.

The set will be released by EMI, who secured the DVD rights to Live 8 after agreeing to pay several million pounds up-front to the event’s organisers, according to a report in UK newspaper, The Times. Naturally, a show like this sparked a frantic bidding war for the rights to produce an event DVD. EMI offered the organisers a generous cut of the profits and a large advance, which helped with the running costs of the event.

The Live 8 DVD is expected to generate greater sales than the DVD of the original Live Aid show, which sold more than a million units.

Bob Geldof said: "I hope this will be the biggest selling DVD of all time. It deserves to be. [The profits from the DVDs] will help us achieve our goal of changing the lives of the extreme poor for the better and making our generation the one that helped end the disgrace of poverty."

There has been a website set up which should contain more details of the DVD soon - www.live8livedvd.com - but naturally we will also endeavour to bring you the latest news regarding this release.