Europe's online source of news, data & analysis for professionals involved in packaged media and new delivery technologies
In December of 2007 ABI Research conducted an online survey of 1002 television and video consumers in the United States. Its aim was to measure American consumers’ viewing and content/service purchasing... Read more...
DGP, the London, Soho-based digital post production and new media facility, has signed an exclusive affiliation agreement with interactive authoring tool developer ZOOtech to offer production services... Read more...
In a true Economics 101 textbook illustration, Blu-ray Disc players from Samsung, Sony and Sharp are now the most expensive they have been all year, reports TG Daily, as HD DVD's exit from the high-def... Read more...
The format war between HD DVD and Blu-ray is not only causing confusion among consumers, but it will result in major challenges for manufacturers as they seek to stimulate mainstream adoption of either... Read more...
“An investment of $250 million and 80 new Blu-ray production lines will be needed in the next two years to meet demand. That is what it will take to meet the demand of not only Blu-ray movies, but also... Read more...
Blu-ray discs are taking the lead over HD DVD discs in South Korea's fledgling high-definition market with strong support from big companies such as Samsung Electronics and Korea Telecom... Read more...
Blu-ray Disc sales continue to pick up steam, with total U.S. sales since inception (about a year-and-a-half-ago) hitting 9 million units through March 16, according to HMR research. In just 11 weeks ... Read more...
Lazer-Video Multimedia (LVM), a Russian optical disc manufacturer, has finalised the deal that will see the purchase of an INDIGO Blu-ray manufacturing line from Oerlikon... Read more...
Belgian-French packaging manufacturer BDMO has won the right before a German court to market its Double Push Tray internationally without infringing Pozzoli’s European patent... Read more...
MPEG LA’s first meeting of essential HD DVD patent owners, currently consisting of 16 companies, was held in Los Angeles last month for the purpose of creating a joint license providing “fair, reasonable... Read more...
Leading German independent replicator CDA Datenträger Albrechts reacted swiftly to the misleading impression given in a statement issued by the MPEG-LA office earlier this month that lists CDA as one... Read more...
New Medium Enterprises, developer of the HD VMD format, is to acquire Slovak consumer appliance manufacturer FKH Electronic for $11 million. It will be the first producer of HD VMD products in Europe... Read more...
The Content Delivery and Storage Association (CDSA) has set a new packaging standard for polypropylene DVD cases, the group announced last week. The CDSA hired Milliken Chemical Company to analyze packages... Read more...
This year's Nobel Prize in Physics has been awarded to the developers of the technology that is used to read data on hard disks. It is thanks to this technology that it has been possible to miniaturize... Read more...
Last week, Cinram International Income Fund reported a fourth quarter 2007 net loss of $317 million, primarily attributable to the booking of a $386-million impairment charge (write-off of worthless goodwill... Read more...
ODS Business Service Group, Europe’s largest CD/DVD replicator, has restructured its operations in the wake of the insolvency of its flagship Dassow plant in Northwest Mecklenburg, Germany... 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.
