Europe's online source of news, data & analysis for professionals involved in packaged media and new delivery technologies
The falling cost of DVD players means some machines are now cheaper than the films they can play. No 1 UK supermarket chain Tesco`s own-brand model will hit stores this week priced at £17.97 as part ... Read more...
Over 23 million pirate CDs and DVDs were seized by customs at European borders in 2006, with an overwhelming 93% traceable to China, as opposed to 51% in 2005... Read more...
Thamesdown SDC, the UK’s Number 2 independent CD/DVD replicator, ceased trading and went into administration last week... Read more...
The DVD Association gathers on 21 June to recognize significant achievements in the DVD Industry through a day of sessions concluding with the 2007 DVDA Excellence Awards ceremony... Read more...
Toshiba unveiled the first high definition laptop computer with a HD DVD optical. The Qosmio G30 notebook, initially announced at last year's CES and now showcased at the CeBIT electronics trade fair ... Read more...
Subtitling and dubbing are services central to the global distribution of home entertainment. JAMES GARDNER, Operations Director at IMS Group, says that today's new release is tomorrow’s re-release, ... Read more...
Tsotsi, the South African gangster film based on the exploits of a shantytown thug, has itself become the target of criminal gangs who are selling pirated DVD copies across the country... Read more...
Three weeks into its aggressive spring retail and marketing campaigns, the North American HD DVD Promotional Group today claims HD DVD is significantly ahead in the dedicated consumer electronics player... Read more...
Universal Pictures International plans to debut the first “download to own” movie service in the United Kingdom, allowing customers to download digital versions of blockbuster movies for keeps when... Read more...
The war of words between Blu-ray and HD DVD is intensifying and Europe has become a key battleground. Sony's Blu-ray-enabled PS3 games console finally launched here in late March and immediately dwarfed... Read more...
VMH VideoMovieHouse.com, a Canadian online seller and renter of DVDs worldwide, has drawn ambitious plans to expand the www.dvdmarketplace.com website it currently operates... Read more...
New Medium Enterprises has signed a deal with Icon Film Distribution to release movies on the red laser-based HD VMD format in Australia and New Zealand. Icon’s titles will be made available when HD... Read more...
Spanish authoring and video production house Voilà DVD Art Studio has pioneered the first DVD title with audio navigation and audio description. Woody Allen’s Match Point, already seen by 1.5 million... Read more...
The death of DVD is much exaggerated if Lionsgate’s latest sales figures are to go by. The company says its 11,000-title DVD catalogue generated revenue of $256 million, up 21% from last year... Read more...
AudioDev, leading supplier of test equipment for optical media, is restructuring its operations in the face of a market slowdown. Some 25 jobs are to go... Read more...
According to recent survey by Mizuho Information & Research Institute on consumers' attitude toward next-generation optical disc equipment (reported by Nikkei Business), only 3.7% of respondents consider... 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.
