Europe's online source of news, data & analysis for professionals involved in packaged media and new delivery technologies
Across Europe, Blu-ray Disc movies hit a new high in the run-up to Christmas with 1.5 million discs being sold in the month of December – an increase of almost 400 % compared with the previous year. ... Read more...
Pioneer has finally called it quits on the LaserDisc format, the last manufacturer left still making the players. The company is set to officially end the production of LaserDisc players at the end of... Read more...
Ascent Media Group has teamed with Akamai Technologies and Sofatronic to create an integrated digital workflow and distribution solution for the production, hosting and delivery of BD-Live functionality... Read more...
Dreamer, a leader in interactive TV solutions, has announced that their BIDDLE platform will be utilised by Technicolor to offer digital content delivery services including online and disc-based direct... Read more...
Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment is to release a new Blu-ray + DVD Combo Packs (Blu-ray + DVD in a single package) that will be extended across a slate of Disney-branded theatrical and Platinum ... Read more...
Sony’s new-generation PlayStation 3 features a cost-reduced design due to integration and some key changes in components from the previous-generation model, according to a teardown conducted by iSuppli... Read more...
Naples-based company Eco Controllo claims it has developed a new codec technology for High Definition digital TV with a compression which is up to four times superior to that currently available, including... Read more...
Blockbuster and Sonic Solutions have announced an alliance to give consumers access to a vast library of premium digital entertainment across a wide assortment of home and mobile electronic devices... Read more...
A husband-and-wife team have been sentenced to seven months in prison having been found guilty of running an illegal DVD and CD copying operation in Durham, North East England... Read more...
CD/DVD packaging provider Key Solutions has unveiled a multipurpose pack concept targeted to the children’s market – the Lunch Box. The DVD round-shaped box can be used as an actual lunch box when... Read more...
Consumers will be able to store as many as 100 high-definition movies or 60 hours of HD recording on a stamp-sized memory card and retrieve them with devices such as mobile phones and digital cameras, ... Read more...
The Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem (DECE), a consortium aiming to set new standards for the transfer and storage of copyrighted digital content, announced that six new members signed at CES in... Read more...
If one goes by the flurry of announcements made by the Blu-ray Association at CES, the hidef format is successfully weathering the economic storm. In the US, three million of the 10 million-plus Blu-ray... Read more...
UK-based AXAR Media develop cutting-edge wireless technology, the only household-wide wireless HD video product to be launched at CES... Read more...
From 1 January, AudioDev Test Center has become the official Blu-ray Disc testing center for BD-ROM (Data/Video) in Europe after receiving its certification by the Blu-ray Disc Association... Read more...
Gütersloh, Germany-based replicator and service provider arvato digital services will present a new multimedia CD format, the CD X+, and other digital solutions for the audio market at Midem 2009 in ... 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.
