Europe's online source of news, data & analysis for professionals involved in packaged media and new delivery technologies
Toshiba Storage Device Division has unveiled at CES the world's first half-height HD DVD writer which that can read and write to single- and dual-layer HD DVD-R discs, providing high-definition video ... Read more...
At next week's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Warner Bros. plans to announce its so-called Total DVD disc, which can play films in both Blu-ray and HD-DVD formats... Read more...
Zoran Corporation has demonstrating its Vaddis-based DVD reference design with its latest HDXtreme 2 DVD upconverter with integrated Full HD 1080p High Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI... Read more...
Are the days of packaged media numbered? If we go by the demonstrations made at the recent DVD Forum Europe 2007 conference in Berlin of what the next-generation HD formats have in store, the answer is... Read more...
In a deal reached this week after tense negotiations, the eight-company consortium behind the Advanced Access Content System, created for use by both next-generation DVD formats to prevent unauthorised... Read more...
Authorities who raided a Springvale (Australia) home last week found computer hardware with the capacity to copy more than $3.7 million worth of pirated DVD movies, including hardcore pornography and ... Read more...
The Blu-ray Disc Association announced yesterday at the CES at Las Vegas that the format specification is complete and that licensing is ready to begin for BD-ROM, BD-RE and BD-R. The completion of the... Read more...
The chip company Broadcom has unveiled its BCM7411D chip, which it claims is the industry’s first high definition (HD) audio/video decoder chip that is fully compliant with the emerging Blu-ray and ... Read more...
With effect of January 1st, CDA has hired two new Sales Managers... Read more...
A man from Workington, Cumbria, was ordered to repay over £59,000 after he was found guilty of copying illegally CDs and DVDs... Read more...
The Rank Group Plc, the international gaming and leisure group – and a British distributor of movies for half a century – announced that it has reached agreement to sell Deluxe Film, the film processing... Read more...
US adult film maker Digital Playground said it will throw its support behind Blu-ray, adding spice to the multibillion-dollar standards war raging in Hollywood... Read more...
dr.schwab Inspection Technology is opening its US Service Center, which will be up and running from mid-February 2006. Located in Stillwater, Minnesota, the new facility is well located to provide technical... Read more...
For years the streets of San Salvador have been full of street vendors selling bootleg copies of CDs and DVDs for very low prices. Now, new tougher copyright laws have come into place since 1st January... Read more...
New Medium Enterprises, developer of the versatile multilayer disc (VMD), and Beijing E-world Technology, developer of China's own version of the next-generation Enhanced Versatile Disc (EVD) standard... Read more...
FilmMates Home Video Entertainment will be using USA Video Interactive Corp SmartMark anti-piracy technology to protect its films for distribution... 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.
