Europe's online source of news, data & analysis for professionals involved in packaged media and new delivery technologies
UK sales of video games, music and DVD/Blu-ray discs rose 2.2% to £5.66bn in 2014, representing the second consecutive year of growth for the sector, according to figures just released by the Entertainment... Read more...
One in seven people on the planet and one in three people in the United States and Europe watch video content delivered by online and mobile platforms and players each month. These findings are from JW... Read more...
The shift from physical discs to digital video - via subscription video on-demand (SVOD) services - is now clear from both time spent with the media and revenue generated by them. How far will this progress... Read more...
US consumers continued expanding their digital collections of movies and television shows in the third quarter of 2014 with electronic purchases soaring at double-digit rates compared to the year earlier... Read more...
Awareness and satisfaction of UltraViolet (UV) is on the rise among US consumers. According to The NPD Group's Digital Video Adoption Monitor (UltraViolet) Report, 44% of consumers have heard of UV or... Read more...
A South Korean activist is reported to be ready to launch balloons carrying DVDs of Sony's The Interview toward North Korea. The comedy depicting an assassination attempt on the country's leader... Read more...
It shouldn't be news to anyone in the television and video industries that their customers or 'viewers' have been finding lots of new ways to watch their content over the past few years. If it is, they... Read more...
It has been another difficult year for many CE vendors as convergence takes its toll on dedicated product sectors and competition has squeezed profits in key areas like TV. However, worldwide CE sales... Read more...
The worldwide television market is forecast to grow to 234 million units in 2014, representing a 3% growth from 2013, according to the latest research from Futuresource Consulting. However, 2014 is projected... Read more...
VDC Group, the UK's largest independent optical disc replicator, has just launched a new digital platform, NtertainU. Whether it's showcasing the latest cinema releases or an old classic from the archives... Read more...
The UK's Intellectual Property Office (IPO) published clear advice on the new Private Copy Exception for consumers who own DVDs and Blu-ray Discs, which are normally protected from copying by Technical... Read more...
Rogue 'cyberlocker' operators peddling stolen content are making nearly $100 million in annual revenues by operating as hubs for the for-profit distribution of infringing digital copyrighted content, ... Read more...
Warren Lieberfarb is universally recognised as the 'architect of the DVD' and in 1999 received a special Emmy Award from the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences in recognition of his unique role. ... Read more...
Disney's Frozen is the UK's biggest-selling DVD and Blu-ray disc of the year so far, having racked up sales of 2.44 million, according to Official Charts Company data. The animated musical, inspired... Read more...
Making inroads in the UK at a snail pace, the cloud-based digital locker system UltraViolet may get a boost with the introduction of UV functionalities on supermarket chain Tesco's video streaming service... Read more...
Growth in digital subscriptions, rentals and purchases will hold total consumer revenue from traditional home entertainment sources steady, according to new analysis released at the PEVE Entertainment... 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.
