Europe's online source of news, data & analysis for professionals involved in packaged media and new delivery technologies
After 40 hours of debates, the French National Assembly has adopted the so-called “Creation et Internet” law aimed at clamping down on the illegal downloading of copyrighted material. The Assembly... Read more...
Eco-friendly efforts among Hollywood majors have generated an 11% carbon footprint reduction in production of DVDs across all studios between 2006 and mid-2008, resulting in a savings of 130,000 tons ... Read more...
As more 3D movies are released in the cinema, technology is arriving that will allow viewers to enjoy the same experience from the comfort of their own sofa. At present the most reliable technology will... Read more...
CD/DVD manufacturer Entertainment Distribution Company is closing its plant in Blackburn, Lancashire, with the loss of 260 jobs, moving production to its other plant in Hannover, Germany. EDC produces... Read more...
Raids in London have led to the closure of the UK’s largest ever illegal DVD manufacturing facility as well as a sophisticated large-scale printing operation, printing covers for counterfeit DVDs... Read more...
Through its holding company QOL Fi, French independent replicator QOL has finalised the acquisition of Belgium disc manufacturer Vogue Trading Video (VTV), a subsidiary of the Roularta Media Group... Read more...
Earlier this month, IEEE, the world's largest technical professional society, granted its prestigious IEEE Milestone Award to Philips for its contribution to the development of the Compact Disc. The award... Read more...
Warner Bros. debuts a manufacturing-on-demand DVD service to provide consumer access to classic titles from the studio’s vault never before available on disc. To order their movies, fans visit WarnerArchive... Read more...
According to Strategy Analytics Digital Media Strategies (DMS) research, the top 27 digital media companies in the world increased earnings by more than 20 per cent, to $74 billion in 2008 up from $61... Read more...
The UK Office for National Statistics has added rotisserie chicken, rosé wine and Blu-ray discs to a typical basket of goods used to calculate the country’s inflation. MP3 players and rentals from ... Read more...
In its latest report on the subject, London-based analyst Screen Digest estimates that European consumers bought 37.8m Blu-ray Discs in 2008. In 2009 this figure is set to more than double to 85.7m discs... Read more...
Officers from the Metropolitan Police Obscene Publications Unit have arrested two men and seized over 50,000 counterfeit DVDs following a joint operation with City of London Police, FACT (Federation Against... Read more...
A report has found that some straightforward steps to tackle film piracy would increase UK economic output by £614 million and protect the jobs of many thousands of people employed in the film industry... Read more...
Technicolor has extended its existing multi-territory DVD replication and distribution agreements with Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment. The Thomson subsidiary is also to create a state-of-the-art... Read more...
The Blu-ray Disc Association announced on Wednesday in Beijing that DRA (Dynamic Resolution Adaptation) technology, a digital audio coding standard to which China owns intellectual property rights, has... Read more...
London-based DGP, the leading independent DVD production house in the UK, has been acquired by JHM Investments Ltd after a short period in administration. The deal sees DGP become part of the group that... 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.
