Europe's online source of news, data & analysis for professionals involved in packaged media and new delivery technologies
On 22 June 2007, the Court of Appeal in London upheld the decision of the Patents Court, a specialist division of the High Court in London, given in London almost exactly one year ago, and delivered judgment... Read more...
The European Commission has closed an investigation into the CD-R Disc Licensing Programmes administered by Philips in Europe following changes to those programmes... Read more...
Innovative implementations of HD DVD's HDi interactive, web-connected features will be highlights of the forthcoming DVD Forum Europe 2007 conference held in Berlin on 3 September. Beside the architects... Read more...
A Paris Appeal Court ruling, in April 2005, that anti-copy systems integrated in DVD discs were illegal as they prevent private-use copying, has been struck down yesterday by France's Cour de cassation... Read more...
Call/Recall, a military- and commerce-funded very high capacity optical storage research company, could be offering the world's highest capacity optical storage technology to license, leap-frogging 300GB... Read more...
An outline of the implementation regulations for the Advanced Access Content System (AACS), the copyright management scheme to be used by Blu-ray Disc and HD DVD, has been announced, Nikkei Electronics... Read more...
An increasing number of China-based optical disc drive and electriccal home appliance makers, such as Shinco Electronic and TCL, have stepped into assembling entry-level DVD recorders that have mechanical... Read more...
The so-called fourth generation of optical storage format has been highly promoted lately, and considering that neither the Blu-Ray nor the HD DVD has become a de facto standard for HD content, holographic... Read more...
Toshiba, in expectation of surging demand for high-definition video due to the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games, will launch HD DVD recorders in China in 2008 in a bid to promote the HD DVD standard over the... Read more...
Imation (UK), a leading supplier of removable data storage media, has tunveiled its new advanced bright white surface inkjet printable media, to meet the increasing consumer demand for multiple custom... Read more...
Shanghai-based Yue Ying, one of China's most notorious retailers of pirated goods, has been ordered to pay about £15,000 in damages to studios including Columbia, 20th Century Fox and Paramount over ... Read more...
With effect from 6th February, kdg France holding SAS has sold the entire share capital of its Welsh subsidiary, kdg UK Limited, to Peter John Hewitt of Loughton, Essex... Read more...
Broadband services have become faster and cheaper, especially in countries where there are a large number of cable and DSL providers, according to a new study by The Organization for Economic Co-operation... Read more...
DIC Entertainment and legendary investor, Warren Buffett, have joined forces to create an all-new, direct-to-DVD animated series, The Secret Millionaire's Club, which will promote financial literacy to... Read more...
Bootleg music and movie sales are a bigger problem in the Czech Republic than anywhere else in the European Union, according to the IFPI (International Federation of the Phonographic Industry... Read more...
Disney, Intel and Cisco Systems have confirmed ambitious expansion plans for MovieBeam, the on demand movie service seeking a slice of the $10bn US movie rental business... 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.
... Read More...
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.
