Europe's online source of news, data & analysis for professionals involved in packaged media and new delivery technologies
The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) released a new report indicating global music sales dropped 89% last year, down to $18.42 billion, with declining sales in the United States... Read more...
The operators of popular file-sharing Web site the Pirate Bay have been sentenced to a year in jail, convicted of breaking Sweden's copyright law by helping millions of users freely download music, movies... Read more...
The Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA) will organise a Blu-ray technical seminar at the MEDIA-TECH Europe 2009 event. This programme, an introduction to the three-day seminar that the Blu-ray Disc Association... Read more...
Despite the economic downturn, global shipments of Blu-ray players, excluding PS3, are expected to total nearly 12m units this year, according to the new quarterly ‘Blu-ray Hardware Performance’ tracking... Read more...
Nexpak, the manufacturer and supplier of DVD and Blu-ray packaging, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection last week. The Duluth, Georgia-based company listed assets between $1 million and $10 million... Read more...
According to a tracking study by market research The NPD Group, most US consumers plan to hold steady or increase their entertainment spending in 2009, despite the economic downturn. According to the ... Read more...
NEC Electronics Corp is in talks with Renesas Technology Corp to merge their semiconductor activities, thus creating Japan’s biggest chipmaker – and the world's third largest, behind the US’ Intel... Read more...
Over 90% of US households says that DVD owners should be able to copy a DVD to their computer in the same way that they save music from a CD, according to a new survey commissioned by the National Consumers... Read more...
If current growth trends continue, the Internet will overtake traditional TV as the most consumed form of media for the first time in June 2010. Internet consumption in 2010 will average 14.2 hours per... Read more...
The global movie and entertainment market generated total revenues of $138.5 billion in 2007, of which the pre-recorded DVD Video market accounted for $53.2 billion, according to The Media: Global Industry... Read more...
Some 2.5 million broadband households in North America are ready to purchase an Internet-connected TV if priced at a $100 premium over regular TV sets. This figure translates into $250 million in additional... Read more...
Sharp and Pioneer are reported to be setting up a joint venture to merge their optical disc businesses and take a leading position in the growing Blu-ray disc market... Read more...
UK-based 10th Planet has announced the first use of DVD Sequr Copy Protection on a replicated DVD, “Crudelli on Crime,” an independent documentary production by the martial arts expert and TV presenter... Read more...
Sony DADC has launched a new Media Packaging Solutions facility for customers at its London office. One key packaging area that the company has identified as a focus for this new business team is eco-... Read more...
Packaging supplier Key Solutions has acquired a factory in Serbia, located in Golobok, 80 kms from Belgrade. Established only six years ago, the French company has already sales offices in the Benelux... Read more...
German replicator CDA Datenträger Albrechts goes green with its PRO-EARTH Pack for DVD and Blu-ray “in response to the increasing demand for environmentally-friendly packaging solutions... 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.
