Europe's online source of news, data & analysis for professionals involved in packaged media and new delivery technologies
While recording a third-quarter 4% increase in revenue to $467.3 million from $450.5 million in 2007, Canadian replicator Cinram's net earnings fell dramatically to $1.5 million compared with $34.8 million... Read more...
The Digital Entertainment Group (DEG) has announced the winners of the inaugural Green Entertainment Awards, part of the first-ever Green Media Summit, held last week at the Luxe Hotel in Los Angeles. ... Read more...
Following in the footsteps of Paramount, Universal, Buena Vista, 20th Century Fox and Sony Pictures, Warner Bros will end its home video and DVD business in South Korea at the end of the year due to poor... Read more...
Retailers in France, Italy and Scandinavia have introduced disposable DVD movies that can be viewed up for 48 hours, then self-destruct. German retailer DVD-D Germany Ltd is the latest to enter the fray... Read more...
Sony DADC has announced the completion of its latest investment round in Blu-ray Disc authoring and mastering facilities at its London office, focusing on the evolution of its BD-Live authoring tools ... Read more...
The DVD Forum, the 220-member industry body responsible for the advent of DVD as well as the ill-fated HD DVD standard, is now focusing on network applications as well as on the feasibility and potential... Read more...
With figures in the red, Sonic Solutions announced a restructuring intended to improve execution and financial performance. The restructuring will result in a reduction of Sonic's workforce as well as... Read more...
Suffolk, UK-based Liquid11, developer of Europe's premier DVD film content locking and billing mechanism, DVDPay, has launched in the US. The patent pending product is designed to create a new window ... Read more...
In response to NOP research published in 2007 that suggested that 9% of UK adults had mistakenly bought fake DVDs believing them to be the real thing, the online auction site eBay has linked with UK anti... Read more...
A massive counterfeit DVD factory in a home in Edinburgh, Scotland, has been smashed by police who seized £750,000 worth of counterfeit goods... Read more...
The European Commission is set to present new guidelines aimed at paving the way for the spread of mobile television in Europe "within a few weeks," EU Information Society Commissioner Viviane Reding ... Read more...
Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment has gone "live" with its new copy protection software, MediaEscort, to protect the studio's filmed entertainment content that is streamed via the Internet to its... Read more...
Germany's Federation Against Copyright Theft (GVU) is calling for initiative against the distribution of pirated movies on the Internet, advocating technical solutions to curb illegal downloading... Read more...
Anthony Peet, VP/General Manager of Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment, was elected as the new British Video Association Chairman at the recent BVA Council meeting... Read more...
InfoSmart, a leading DVD-R manufacturer in Hong Kong and Brazil, has announced its purchase of a $1.4 million Smart BD replication system from Anwell Technologies. The BD system will be installed in InfoSmart... Read more...
Richmond, Virginia-based Circuit City, the second biggest US consumer electronics retailer after Best Buy, has filed for bankruptcy under Chapter 11 protection. It is the largest US retailer to fall victim... 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.
