Europe's online source of news, data & analysis for professionals involved in packaged media and new delivery technologies
Figures just published by the British Video Association show that James Cameron's film Avatar from Twentieth Century Fox becomes the first title to sell over 1 million copies on the high definition... Read more...
Consumers are using the built-in features on their HDTV at a high rate, with an increasing number gaining access to Web-enabled content directly through their televisions, reveals findings just released... Read more...
KIT digital Content Solutions, a company that was spun off with little fanfare in June 2012 as a wholly independent business from KIT digital, a global provider of video asset management solutions, has... Read more...
Leading glasses-free 3D displays specialist Dimenco unveiled Dimenco Nabla, a technology it claims delivers 'the ultimate glasses-free FHD 3D experience.' Nabla is the result of optimizing the company... Read more...
While the UK video entertainment market is still dominated by the purchase and rental of DVD and Blu-ray, figures published by the British Video Association show a massive rise of 49% in viewers' spend... Read more...
Worldwide metrics are on the rise for 3D technology as a whole, according to IHS Screen Digest's latest Cross Platform Intelligence report. The 3D homevideo market is showing strong growth, bucking the... Read more...
More than one in seven children asked their parents for a tablet this Christmas, according to the latest round of Living with Digital consumer research from Futuresource Consulting to be released... Read more...
The UK government published today the final part of its response to the copyright consultation Modernising Copyright: a modern, robust and flexible framework that spells out a range of copyright... Read more...
A large-scale international counterfeit and smuggling scam was dismantled by police following the seizure at Manchester Airport of the UK's biggest ever haul of counterfeit CDs... Read more...
A trader has been sentenced to 18 months imprisonment after admitting making and possessing for sale almost 5,000 fake copies of DVDs from his video shop, Premier Videos, located in London SE1... Read more...
To encourage customers to do away with rolls of wrapping paper, tape and high shipping costs this holiday season, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment has launched an online shopping destination, the Sony... Read more...
Technicolor announced a strategic alliance with Village Roadshow Ltd, a long-standing customer and a leading entertainment company operating in film and DVD distribution as well as cinema, production, ... Read more...
Global packaging specialist AGI-Shorewood unveiled its new name ASG (AGI Shorewood Group), together with its new visual identity. Following the merger of AGI and Shorewood Packaging earlier this year, ... Read more...
Kaleidescape, developer of home servers, announced a service that enables the digital delivery of movie purchases over the Internet with video and audio quality equal to Blu-ray and DVD. Featuring the... Read more...
UK commercial broadcaster Channel 4 has begun selling DVDs and Blu-ray discs direct to consumers through an online retail division - Channel 4 Store - launched in the first week of December with 120 titles... Read more...
The European Commission has imposed a record €1.47 billion fine on seven electronics manufacturers for rigging the market for cathode ray tubes (CRT) used in television sets and computer monitors... 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.
