Europe's premier online source of news, data & analysis for professionals involved in DVD, Blu-ray and new delivery technologies
Sydney-based Access Digital Entertainment's online DVD sales company EzyDVD is debuting Ultraviolet access in Australia with the soft launch this month of video-on-demand EzyFlix.tv. It enables customers... Read more...
In a move that echoes the UK's www.FindAnyFilm.com, now under the stewardship of the Industry Trust for IP Awareness, the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) has unveiled www.WheretoWatch.org... Read more...
Europeans have become 'hybrid consumers,' enjoying films across multiple formats and platforms, says TONY GUNNARSSON, Senior Analyst at IHS Screen Digest. Last year, consumers in Western Europe spent ... Read more...
The 'three-strike graduated response' policy introduced in 2009 to combat illegal internet downloading ought to be relaxed and its administration transferred from Hadopi - to be abolished - to the domestic... Read more...
In the first quarter of the year, News Corporation's flourishing digital distribution business and rising sales of Blu-ray Discs - that have offset most of the declines of DVD sales - have helped to stabilise... Read more...
While the industry seems to be hypnotised by 'the small 4K step for man,' Japanese public broadcaster NHK is more interested with 'the giant 8K leap for mankind.' Working with Mitsubishi Electric Corporation... Read more...
Electronics and home video retailer Saturn has announced the closure of two of the six stores currently operating in Switzerland, with the remaining four set to be re-branded as Media Markt locations. ... Read more...
Toshiba is launching a range of TVs that integrate Rovi's DivX Plus Streaming technology. This agreement will help increase the reach of Rovi's advanced adaptive streaming format and enable Toshiba DTVs... Read more...
Packaged media is weathering the digital 'onslaught' rather well - indeed is picking up after five years of downward trend - if we go by figures released by DEG: The Digital Entertainment Group. Overall... Read more...
Figures just released by the British Video Association show that the market for video entertainment grew by 10.1 % in value across physical and digital formats, as consumers spent £536.3 million... Read more...
The video industry celebrated with its usual gusto at the 2013 BVA Awards last night at Old Billingsgate, as winners from companies large and small revelled in their successes after months of tough trading... Read more...
As CE manufacturers are pushing 4K displays onto the market, eyes turn to Blu-ray discs, seen as providers of ultra-high definition content par excellence. The Blu-ray Disc Association has confirmed... Read more...
Ireland's leading video retail and rental chain Xtra-vision is going into receivership. Luke Charleton and Colin Farquharson, of Ernst & Young, have been appointed Joint Receivers. Headquartered in Tallaght... Read more...
In view of the "very disappointing" media sales, especially DVD sales, in the last two months - and a major factor in the poor second half - the board of Merseyside-based injection moulding specialist... Read more...
In a tough economic climate, Technicolor's first quarter 2013 revenues contraction was held in check by the good performance of disc replication. Group revenues from continuing operations fell from &euro... Read more...
While Sony Pictures will continue to sell DVDs and Blu-ray Discs, a key component of its sustainability strategy unveiled last week focuses on encouraging customers to switch to acquiring films digitally... Read more...
Cinema needs to get more digital
"Build it and they will come" may have been a line in a movie, but it could also be the cinema exhibitor's motto, argues DAVID HANCOCK, Senior Analyst at IHS Screen Digest. It is not entirely true, but the cinema's exclusive window for seeing a new release film means that a cinema always has a chance of getting people in.
Distributors plan and finance marketing campaigns, often as part of a wider media release strategy, while exhibitors focus on the operational mechanics and environment of the cinema venue. Now that the cinema world is three quarters digitised in projection systems and takes its place in the wider digital media landscape this work split needs to change.
Opening up the cinema to new technology has brought the IT world firmly into the operations of a cinema. This has opened the door to a range of other technology applications such as high frame rates, 3D, immersive or 3D sound, 4D, digital delivery by fibre or satellite. The fact is that the language of cinema is now driven by technology.... Read More...
JAPANESE independent replicator Toyo Recording, a leading disc manufacturer and solutions provider to the media industry, has purchased an additional Bluline II BD production line from Singulus Technologies. Established 50 years ago, Toyo Recording started as a bridal video production and high-speed video duplication. The company expanded to authoring, CD, DVD, and BD manufacturing for the advertising industry. Toyo Recording installed the first Singulus CD replication machine Skyline in Japan.
ANNUAL revenue generated from content delivered to mobile handsets and tablets is expected to increase by nearly $25bn over the next three years, reaching $65bn by 2016, a new report from Juniper has found. Growth would primarily be fuelled by an upsurge in game, video and eBook purchases via tablet devices, allied to increased opportunity for content monetisation via DCB (Direct Carrier Billing) on smartphones.
TESTRONIC Labs has been named an Authorized Test Center for the HTC Connect testing and compliance programme. HTC created this programme to offer consumer electronics manufacturers the opportunity to create an improved sound and visual standard when connecting HTC devices with their consumer electronics. For the consumer, this logo will indicate that wireless audio and video may be sent through their HTC smartphones to in-home and in-car electronics displaying the logo. Testronic is the first testing center in Europe to become certified by HTC for this programme.
TDK Corp., a leading innovators of Blu-ray technology, and the first to offer multi-layer Blu-ray discs, including BDXL, announced a number of restructuring measures aimed at improving its financial positions. Among the most significant changes is the plan to either sell its optical disc manufacturing business or simple withdrawing from Blu-ray disc manufacturing (by March 2014) as BD discs are becoming a commodity with low profit margins.
SOME 2013 Samsung Blu-ray players are featuring the Opera Devices Software Development Kit (SDK). Such players not only allow viewers to watch Blu-ray Discs and DVDs, but also enjoy various streaming video services with ease. The SDK offers superior online video support for YouTube, BBC iPlayer and more. The Opera toolkit helps build Smart TV solutions. With web-standards support, such as HTML5, CSS, JavaScript, SVG, 2D Canvas and WebGL, the Opera Devices SDK gives connected devices a boost with better web-content rendering and streaming performance.
CHINESE authorities have shut down two movie pirating websites in a clampdown on both online and offline piracy. YYeTs.com suddenly closed down on 25 April. The other site, Siluhd.com (Silu HD) was forcibly taken down and CEO Zhou Mou and eight other employees reportedly arrested. Silu HD is said to be China's biggest piracy site of HD movies, and claims to have 140 million registered users. YYeTs was less subtle and operated a blatant movie download site. The service hasn't gone down without a fight, and its semi-deactivated homepage currently directs users towards other URLs where they can download pirated content.
TWENTY-ONE Japanese broadcasters, consumer electronics maker and telcos have created a high profile development partnership to help Japan to move into television?s next generation transmission format, Ultra-HDTV. The groupg includes public broadcaster NHK, actively backing its Super Hi-Vision/8K format, as well as commercial broadcaster SkyPerfect JSAT, which has already promised to start 4K transmissions in mid-2014. Sony, Panasonic, Toshiba, Fujitsu, NEC, KDDI and others are part of the grouping, backed by Japan?s Internal Affairs Ministry which has earmarked a ¥3.1 billion (€24m) budget.
PRODUCTION of OLED screens is proving to be a real headache, says Paul Gray, director of TV research at consultancy DisplaySearch. He says that factories are only getting one good panel out of every 10 panels at 55-inches. "Production problems are making it very, very tough," he said. "There was a lot of hype about OLED last year and it will improve over time, but it will be painfully slow." Gray claimed that in comparison to OLED, LCD was a fast moving target.
SATELLITE operator SES has linked with Harmonic and chip-set manufacturer Broadcom to create what it describes as the first Ultra-HDTV transmissions using the High Efficiency Video Codec (HEVC) from Astra?s 19.2 degrees European hot spot. SES says using the HEVC compression improves transmission capacity by some 50 per cent. The signal was broadcast in DVB-S2 using a data rate of 20 Mbit/s. The live demonstration for the first time broadcasts a full 3840?2160 pixel Ultra HD picture in HEVC, while previous demonstrations were either broadcast in H.264 or using 4 HD pictures in parallel.
