Europe's online source of news, data & analysis for professionals involved in packaged media and new delivery technologies
French on-line DVD rental leader, glowria, has purchased the third largest on-line DVD rental company in Germany, DiViDi Entertainment GmbH. The acquisition makes glowria the Number 1 market player in... Read more...
Two companies have recently announced lawsuits against Sony regarding the technology used in Blu-ray Discs. Target Technology, developer of silver alloy for targets, has claimed infringement regarding... Read more...
HD DVD has officially launched in the US, as Toshiba shipped 10,000 of its first HD DVD players to stores across the US, from where they were quickly sold out according to reports. And initial reviews... Read more...
In the biggest bust of a pirated media production racket this year, Taipei County police seized 42 DVD burners and nearly 60,000 bootleg DVDs and arrested seven suspects, the Movie Picture Association... Read more...
Hitachi Maxell have developed an ultra thin DVD with a thickness of just 92 microns, or roughly 1/13th the thickness of a conventional DVD disc, which can be stacked 100 discs high in a cartridge format... Read more...
Building on its close partnership with the French cinema industry, QOL was Europe’s first independent replicator to manufacture high-definition DVDs. LAURENT VILLAUME, Founder and CEO, explains to JEAN... Read more...
DVD players and recorders will have a combined market of 176.6 million units sold worldwide in 2010, up from 140.8 million units in 2005, according to research firm In-Stat. The forecast for 2006 predicts... Read more...
Video title production developer ZOOtech announced an agreement to develop at least 26 new titles for the award-winning Know-It-All interactive DVD education series... Read more...
The Lynic Group is completing the acquisition of kdg UK. Established in 2003, the Welsh subsidiary of leading independent replicator Austria-based kdg had been initially sold to entrepreneur Peter John... Read more...
A new volume key used on next-generation DVD discs scheduled for release this week by the Advanced Access Content System Licensing Administration (AACS LA) has reportedly already been cracked. The previous... Read more...
New Medium Enterprises, developer of the Versatile Multilayer Disc format,entered into a Memorandum of Understanding with MPEG Technology Company to buy a controlling stake in it. The company specialises... Read more...
Now that free DVDs are a common sight as giveaways with magazines, particularly in the UK, Future Publishing has announced that, in partnership with Sony Computer Entertainment Europe (SCEE), its Official... Read more...
Following the official launch of its 40GB disc and HD player at CeBIT 2006, Versatile Multilayer Disc (VMD) format developer New Medium Enterprises said it been “inundated with trade inquiries from ... Read more...
LFP Video Group (Larry Flint's Hustlerworld) has teamed up with New Media Adult Entertainment (CDGirls.com) to distribute what they claim to be the first Blu-ray adult title, Jenna Haze Oil Orgy, a title... Read more...
The companies backing competing formats for next-generation DVD technology will never again talk about forming a unified standard, an executive at Matsushita Electric Industrial said on Friday, leaving... Read more...
Recent figures by the Digital Entertainment Group show that the first quarter of 2007 was the strongest Q1 in the history of DVD hardware and software sales in the US... 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.
