Europe's online source of news, data & analysis for professionals involved in packaged media and new delivery technologies
Sony has launched two new Blu-ray Disc players in Europe covering both ends of the market – the 'wide appeal' BDP-S300 (€600) and the high-end BDP-S500 model (€900... Read more...
The Weinstein Company, recently created by Bob and Harvey Weinstein, the brothers who founded Miramax in 1979, will begin releasing titles in HD DVD in the Spring through their video distribution company... Read more...
Hamburg-based multimedia producer Enteractive GmbH consolidates its pioneering status in the DVD business by developing Sudokia on HD DVD – the world’s first interactive game on the new high-definition... Read more...
Warner Home Entertainment unveiled plans to launch a peer-to-peer video download service in Germany beginning in March, using Bertelsmann-created file-swapping technology to sell movies online at the ... Read more...
Toshiba has announced a new line of entry-level, mid-range and high-end players that will retail for under $500... Read more...
AudioDev, a leader in testing services in the production of optical media, has appointed Rob Barnes (picture) as Vice President of Services. The Services Department is responsible for Customer Service... Read more...
Verbatim has announced what it says is the world's first mini BD-R/RE media, measuring 8cm in diameter and providing 7.5GB of capacity. The MKM Mini BD media will be available this month in Japan to coincide... Read more...
A Channel 4 film directed by Michael Winterbottom is to be distributed in cinemas, on DVD and online simultaneously for the first time. The film, The Road to Guantanamo, is due to be screened on the UK... Read more...
ZOO Digital Group plc, the digital media technology company and parent of ZOOtech, announces the proposed acquisition of certain assets of Scope Seven... Read more...
The American Pie series of films has amused consumers to the tune of more than $351 million in receipts, so it was no surprise that the latest offering American Pie Presents Band Camp, was also a hit. ... Read more...
Researchers at the University of Berlin in Germany have developed a method of data storage that will bump Blu-ray and HD DVD optical disc storage capacity up to 500GB... Read more...
Dolby Laboratories has appointed Ramzi Haidamus (picture) as Senior Vice President and General Manager of Dolby Laboratories Licensing Corporation, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Dolby Laboratories. In ... Read more...
Toshiba announced the formation of an Australian HD DVD Consortium to promote the HD DVD optical disc format and hit back at Blu-ray. The new group includes members such as Intel and Microsoft as well... Read more...
DTS commissioned a study conducted in conjunction with Nielsen Entertainment Research, showing a solid base of home theatre and surround sound owners throughout the Western European marketplace. Revealing... Read more...
Hitachi plans to release later this year the world's first Blu-ray camcorder featuring a disc drive that allows for the recording of up to one hour of full high-definition video... Read more...
Gun smugglers in the US have found a novel way to traffic their deadly goods – by packing the weapons into the spare space found in the cases of humble DVD players... 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.
