Europe's online source of news, data & analysis for professionals involved in packaged media and new delivery technologies
Optical disc manufacturing tool maker Singulus Technologies Group met its own forecast for the business year 2007. Adjusted for ETA Optik and BESS, which were deconsolidated in the meantime, sales amounted... Read more...
SlySoft, a software developer based in the Caribbean, had released version 6.4.0.0 of its AnyDVD HD product that makes it possible to produce backup copies of Blu-ray discs protected with BD... Read more...
DVD pirates in the country of Malaysia should be shaking in their boots as it is being reported that 2 more sniffer dogs have been added to an already steller DVD dog detecting team. The country has become... Read more...
Blu-ray players will be in 29.4 million homes worldwide by the end of 2008, according to a new research by UK-based Strategy Analytics. Sony’s PS3 games console will continue to drive the Blu-ray market... Read more...
Future Shop, Canada's largest retailer and e-tailer of consumer electronics has introduced a practical solution to allow the transition to Blu-ray while still enjoying existing HD DVDs for the 35,000 ... Read more...
Thomson’s Technicolor division has added a new DVD compression and authoring operation in Bangalore, India, inside its new animation and game design facility. Opening in May, the new compression and... Read more...
Black Friday could turn blu if one goes by the low-price offers on Blu-ray players. Wal-Mart plans to offer a Magnavox BD player for just $128. The basic player will be available in stores and online ... Read more...
Toshiba Corp cut its full-year profit forecast by 31% because of the costs to withdraw from the HD DVD business and falling prices for flash memory. The company said it will book a ¥45 billion ($452m... Read more...
The deepening economic crisis was the backdrop to The Changing CE World conference in Barcelona. It was fitting for Futuresource, the organiser, to start with a status report of the state of the industry... Read more...
Though unconfirmed by the company, Toshiba is to write off in the region of ¥100 billion ($986 million) for its ill-fated HD DVD business, according to Japan's Nikkei business daily... Read more...
Sony Pictures Home Entertainment will be the first Hollywood studio to distribute Blu-ray Discs in the Chinese market. The announcement was made by SPHE senior vice president, international T Paul Miller... Read more...
Last year, global TV shipments rose 4% to almost 200 million units, worth over $100bn, and growth will accelerate to reach 280 million units, worth $160bn, by 2012, according to a new consumer electronics... Read more...
Sonic Solutions is to acquire CinemaNow, the online entertainment provider based in California. With an offer of over 6,000 Hollywood movies, TV shows and music videos, CinemaNow will combine with Sonic... Read more...
The red laser-based high-definition disc format developer New Medium Enterprises reacted to the demise of HD DVD, seeing increased opportunity for its HD VMD, now that it faces only the more expensive... Read more...
Philips and Funai have entered a brand licence agreement under which Funai is to assume responsibility for the sourcing, distribution, marketing and sales of all Philips’ consumer television activities... Read more...
ZOO Digital Group has launched a new media tool that will allow customers to produce DVD covers in different languages at a much faster rate and for a lower cost. The new Media Adaptation Tool will let... 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.
