Europe's online source of news, data & analysis for professionals involved in packaged media and new delivery technologies
Blu-ray has succeeded. It delivers the very best quality of high definition video and audio to the home. But is that enough, asks PAULETTE E. PANTOJA, Founder and CEO of BluFocus? Here, she is pushing... Read more...
Barely a month after it filed for bankruptcy, Swedish optical media test equipment maker AudioDev announced its was back in business, “stronger and better prepared... Read more...
French optical disc replicator QOL – and one of Europe’s BD pioneers – has been named an official Blu-ray test centre, endorsed by Blu-ray Partners France and leading consumer electronics manufacturers... Read more...
According to the UK digital music firm Music Ally, in January this year only 17 per cent of web users said they regularly downloaded music from illegal file-sharing sources on the web, compared to 22 ... Read more...
Global household penetration of fixed broadband continues apace, with total subscribers on track to break the 500-million barrier next year, according to recent research from Futuresource Consulting... Read more...
A DVD piracy gang were facing jail today for Britain's biggest film copying scam. The "sophisticated" family-run business, which made an estimated £7 million, hid behind a "veneer of respectability... Read more...
Senators have voted through the so-called Hadopi 2 law, which will allow judges to impose punishments on those found to have made illegal downloads. The law is a complement to the Hadopi (the Internet... Read more...
Joost was squeezed out of the market by broadcasters setting up their own VOD channel admits Mike Volpi, who resigned as CEO. He said that in April, when Disney joined the Hulu joint venture, it became... Read more...
With France’s so-called HADOPI law just voted, JIM BURGER, Partner at law practice Dow Lohnes, takes stock of the various measures for suppressing illegal Internet file sharing, considered or already... Read more...
Czech, Prague-based Brickbox Digital Media has announced both its expansion into Western Europe, with the opening of a facility in London, and the appointment of Neil Bottrill as manager of digital services... Read more...
As both sides await a judge’s ruling over the legality of RealNetworks' DVD copying software RealDVD, the Hollywood studios have filed a new complaint, charging that RealNetworks lied in court about... Read more...
The Internet-based TV services of the four major US TV networks – ABC Full Episode Player, CBS Audience Network, NBC.com and Fox.com – together with Hulu, the joint venture between NBC Universal, ... Read more...
Blu-ray Disc sales continue to rise despite the recession biting the sector as a whole in the first half of the year, according to the British Video Association, putting a brave face on dire figures... Read more...
Pioneer and Sharp have signed an agreement to integrate their optical disc operations under a joint company, with the aim of expanding their presence in the Blu-ray Disc market, the two companies said... Read more...
Almost half of all South Koreans subscribe to mobile TV services that enable users to view programmes, movies and other entertainment content via handheld devices according to industry data... Read more...
Hamburg, Germany-based BD tool developer sofatronic released 1.1 version of the Blu-ray middleware authoring software, Kaleidoscope. The new features streamline the authoring process in a convenient and... Read more...
Back to business!
Even though our website activities were on the back burner for over a year while we reshaped our operations, professionals from nearly 50 countries have kept logging in to tap into fifteen years of archives that uniquely chronicle the birth, the life, but not yet the death, of packaged media.
Though our service brief has been including coverage of new content delivery channels for several years, there is still enough activity on the DVD and Blu-ray Disc front – globally – on which to focus our reporting energy, especially as 4K UHD seems to be gathering pace.
While our company, Globalcom Ltd, remains based in the UK, we are running the website afresh from South Korea! Always looking for new challenges and a desire to share widely the knowledge gained, I took up a faculty position at Hannam University’s Linton School of Global Business (in Daejeon) where I teach globalization and communication technology courses.
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TECHNICOLOR has posted its results for the full year 2016. Group revenues increased by 34.8% at constant currency, reflecting the change in scale of Connected Home and Entertainment Services. The two segments combined recorded revenue growth of 48.2% year-on-year at constant rate resulting from the contribution of the acquisitions completed in 2015 and double digit organic growth in Production Services activities.
VODAFONE SPAIN is launching a new 4K TV service with 5 TV channels (10 by year end ) and VoD content for subscribers with convergent packages, like Vodafone One. The five new channels are Odisea 4K, Festival 4K, FunBox UHD, Insight TV and Slow Channel – and one 4K transmission of the best football match of La Liga every week. The company will be the first in the country to offer 4K VoD content with 850 titles including films, TV series and documentaries.
APPLE will make its first forays into original content in the “next few months”, according to Eddy Cue, the company’s SVP of internet software and services. Speaking at the Code Media conference in California, Cue revealed that Carpool Karaoke and Planet Of The Apps will become available “in most countries in the world” on Apple TV. Mac and iOS devices as part of Apple Music, the company’s subscription music offering.
MPEG LA ANNOUNCED that several patent owners in MPEG LA’s AVC Patent Portfolio License have filed patent enforcement actions in the Landgericht Düsseldorf, Germany, against both Huawei Technologies Deutschland GmbH and ZTE Deutschland GmbH for infringing patents essential to the AVC/H.264 (MPEG-4 Part 10) digital video coding standard used in mobile devices and other products. According to the complaints, Huawei and ZTE offer mobile phone products in Germany, which use patent-protected AVC methods without licenses with the individual patent holders or a portfolio license that includes these patents offered by MPEG LA. The suits seek monetary damages and injunctions.
DELUXE is to close its UK restoration operation at the end of March with the potential loss of 12 jobs.Recent projects worked on include the nine surviving silent Alfred Hitchcock films for the BFI. In 2015, the department won the Best Archive Restoration award at the 2015 Focal International Awards for its work on Camera Obscura: The Walerian Borowczyk Collection for Arrow Films. The division was formed in 2011 through the merger of Deluxe Digital London (DDL) and Deluxe 142’s restoration operations following Deluxe’s acquisition of Ascent Media. Deluxe said it would maintain its restoration facilities in Madrid, Spain and Los Angeles, US.
MOBILE and desktop video consumption are running virtually neck-and-neck, with 86% of consumers saying they watch video on smartphones and other mobile devices, compared to 70% on desktops, AOL found in a fresh study that tracked usage trends across seven global regions. Additionally, 57% of consumers watch videos on a mobile phone every day, compared to 58% on desktops and laptops.
