Europe's online source of news, data & analysis for professionals involved in packaged media and new delivery technologies
Over 20% of broadband households in Western Europe have watched a film or TV programme online in the past six months, according to research firm Parks Associates. In all the countries surveyed – the... Read more...
Protecting movie assets is not the preserve of Hollywood studios. Independent filmmakers may have a long shot at the Oscars, but they require no less protection of their investment as the big boys do, ... Read more...
Debuting at CES, the Chinese-led Digital Interactive Interface for Video & Audio (DiiVA) Consortium announced it will be demonstrating its innovative interface technology, which enables a new home-networking... Read more...
All charges related to copying copyrighted works in the criminal trial of The Pirate Bay were dropped on the second day of proceedings, leaving only charges that the website made copyrighted works available... Read more...
A new SNL Kagan study, The State of Home Video, forecasts a new wave of revenue growth in the retail home video business in the next decade, generated by the emergence of Blu-ray Disc as the next-generation... Read more...
A leading French film publisher EMYLIA has struck a licensing deal with D-BOX Technologies to integrate the D-BOX Motion Code system on selected high-definition Blu-ray titles... Read more...
Despite a 3D DVD standard being finalized in January the Blu-ray Disc Association is telling the market 3D Blu-ray is unlikely to be coming to homes soon... Read more...
The IFPI has announced the success of raids by Polish police against an organised criminal syndicate that produced and distributed pirate music and films on an industrial scale... Read more...
Newly-rebranded content processing and re-purposing business re:fine – encompassing the companies previously known as 24-7DVD, Vode and Caseys Film and Video – has hired digital media specialist Brett... Read more...
The fall in revenue of the DVD market in France is celebrated in some quarters of the domestic online prophets as they are waiting for the speedy demise of the physical media. However, a leading French... Read more...
German optical disc replication machines and solar technology Singulus achieved sales amounting to €213 million for the financial year 2008 and thus met its own forecast (€210 million to €230 million... Read more...
Market research firm, The NPD Group, is reporting the US market for video game hardware swelled to $445.4 million during January, a 17% increase from the same period last year... Read more...
Docdata media Ltd. in Telford (UK), a part of the docdata media division, has sold its complete business activities for CD and DVD replication and Audio Cassette manufacturing to Sound Performance Manufacturing... Read more...
The Blu-ray Disc Association has announced the appointment of its regional Promotions teams chairs. Andy Parsons has been re-elected for the U.S region; Yutaka Komai was re-elected for Japan/Asia Pacific... Read more...
The battle for high definition packaged media is still brewing in China where the official news agency reports the arrival of yet another home-grown system – High Definition Next-generation Versatile... Read more...
Apple is working on a web-connected TV set with built-in iTunes access, if some Wall Street analysts are to be trusted. It would be the next step from the AppleTV that enjoyed a lukewarm reception... 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.
