Europe's online source of news, data & analysis for professionals involved in packaged media and new delivery technologies
The video industry celebrated with its usual gusto at the 2013 BVA Awards last night at Old Billingsgate, as winners from companies large and small revelled in their successes after months of tough trading... Read more...
As CE manufacturers are pushing 4K displays onto the market, eyes turn to Blu-ray discs, seen as providers of ultra-high definition content par excellence. The Blu-ray Disc Association has confirmed... Read more...
Ireland's leading video retail and rental chain Xtra-vision is going into receivership. Luke Charleton and Colin Farquharson, of Ernst & Young, have been appointed Joint Receivers. Headquartered in Tallaght... Read more...
In view of the "very disappointing" media sales, especially DVD sales, in the last two months - and a major factor in the poor second half - the board of Merseyside-based injection moulding specialist... Read more...
In a tough economic climate, Technicolor's first quarter 2013 revenues contraction was held in check by the good performance of disc replication. Group revenues from continuing operations fell from &euro... Read more...
While Sony Pictures will continue to sell DVDs and Blu-ray Discs, a key component of its sustainability strategy unveiled last week focuses on encouraging customers to switch to acquiring films digitally... Read more...
Even though the 3D TV industry faces several challenges including lack of content, high production costs and many viewers' reluctance to wear 3D glasse, Informa Telecoms & Media analysts forecast the ... Read more...
UltraViolet was a key feature at this year's PEVE conference in London. Many of the 280+ delegates were anticipating details about the deployment of the cloud-based content delivery locker system in Europe... Read more...
The market for Blu-ray and DVD rental in the United Kingdom is expected to plunge by 22% in 2013, as half the country's Blockbuster video stores shut down in a restructuring initiated by the company's... Read more...
New York-based KIT digital, a leading supplier of customisable software platforms for digital, multi-screen viewing, could seek Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on 24 April, according to the company's... Read more...
FindAnyFilm, one of the UK's leading websites for customers looking to watch, buy, download, stream or rent legitimate films, has announced the addition of UltraViolet titles on their website. This comes... Read more...
Long-time industry analyst, Jim Bottoms, has been appointed to spearhead Blu-ray Disc Association's local and industry activities throughout Europe. Bottoms, who also serves as the Executive Director ... Read more...
Consumers' video consumption habits are maturing and becoming more sophisticated, Accenture's third annual Video-Over-Internet Consumer Survey reveals. Online viewership is both high and consistent... Read more...
The 2013 BVA Awards extravaganza on 2 May in London will be hosted by stand-up comedian Rob Beckett, who was most recently seen as the resident co-host of I'm a Celebrity Get me Out of Here Now ... Read more...
Consumers are not widely using applications designed by broadcasters on their laptops, smartphones, and other second-screen devices, according to a research by The NPD group. Some 88% of US households... Read more...
An investigation carried out by the Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft (AFACT), the Australian Taxation Office and New South Wales Police Force led to the dismantling of a large-scale counterfeit... 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.
