Europe's online source of news, data & analysis for professionals involved in packaged media and new delivery technologies
Privately-held French replicator MPO International has entered into a joint venture with US management solution company Zomax to consolidate the two companies' separate Ireland media replication businesses... Read more...
Toshiba has filed a complaint with the International Trade Commission (ITC) against 17 manufacturers and importers of DVD players, DVD recorders and other DVD-related products, as a means to halt infringement... Read more...
Tsuburaya Dream Factory has announced it will be adopting HD VMD as its preferred HD format for content distribution. In agreeing to represent format developer New Medium Enterprises, TDF will manage ... Read more...
The US administration may file a complaint at the World Trade Organization this week over China's piracy of copyrighted movies and books, according to people briefed by the Bush administration, the Bloomberg... Read more...
Last week, Microsoft took the wraps off the Xbox 360 Elite. The upgraded machine features a 120 gigabyte hard drive, HDMI port and cable, a black finish instead of the white one on current versions, but... Read more...
Sheffield, UK-based video title production solutions company ZOOtech has expanded the depth and experience of its sales management team with the addition of two appointments to ZOOtech Business Development... Read more...
WalMart-owned ASDA, the UK’s 3rd largest supermarket chain, was set to anger the DVD industry by selling the DVD of the latest Bond blockbuster – Casino Royale – for £7 (€10.50). The special ... Read more...
New Medium Enterprises has signed an agreement to sell its first Versatile Multilayer Disc (VMD) replication lines to Bars Media Group based in Kazan, Russia... Read more...
The world's first independent Blu-ray film distribution and manufacturing company, Edge of Light Media, has been launched to release indie and mini-major films, TV shows and music videos worldwide in ... Read more...
The Chinese government is starting to crack down on copyright infringement on a more systematic fashion. A Shanghai court ruled that the Shanghai Le Ying AV Products Company DVD retail outlet, located... Read more...
Cinram posted fourth quarter net profit of $48m on revenue of $616.7m – a 26% increase over the same period in 2005 when the company recorded a net profit of ¢38.2m on revenue of $650m. However, for... Read more...
eBay.co.uk and The Federation Against Copyright Theft (FACT), have launched a campaign to educate consumers on how to buy and sell DVDs safely on eBay... Read more...
Shoppers who want to choose energy-efficient electronic household products such as TV sets, DVD players, laptops and set-top boxes are being ‘left in the dark’- according to new research by the UK... Read more...
DVD sales in Germany passed the 100-million mark for the first time in 2006, but revenues fell 4%, according to the latest figures from video trade body Bundesverbande Audiovisuelle Medien (BVV... Read more...
More than one million counterfeit discs containing pirated music and films were seized by police in a major street operation in downtown Guatemala City last week. In addition to the counterfeit discs, ... Read more...
At a press event yesterday at the CeBIT tradeshow in Hannover, Germany, several companies including Studio Canal, Universal, Toshiba and Microsoft announced the establishment of the European HD DVD Promotional... 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.
