Christophe Geoffroy, International Non Food Director, Carrefour is to speak at PEVE Digital Entertainment 2008, thus completing a quartet of keynote speakers including Ron Sanders, President of Warner Home Entertainment; Matt Brown, Executive VP International at Sony Picture Home Entertainment and Eddie Cunningham, President of Universal Pictures International Entertainment.

Geoffroy (pictured) oversees the DVD category for Carrefour, the largest retail group in Europe and second only to Wal-Mart worldwide. The French-based company, which had a turnover of €97.2bn in 2006, operates over 14,500 outlets (13,000 in Europe) ranging from hypermarkets to convenience stores. The world's ninth largest private employer, it has a presence in 30 countries and continues to expand.

"The involvement of Carrefour in this event serves to reinforce the importance of the home entertainment business to the retail sector and vice versa," says organiser Screen Digest. "This crucial relationship will be further explored during a special panel session designed to give leading European entertainment specialists and mass merchants the opportunity to raise key issues such as how to optimise the management of the DVD supply chain and how best to meet changing consumer demand in today's evolving home entertainment business."

Other conference sessions will:
- assess the potential of on-demand-media (ODM – also known as manufacturing-on-demand) to increase the range of titles available at retail;
- examine the increasing crossover between movies and video games;
- explore how the exciting new developments in 3D can be extended from the theatrical environment to the home;
- analyse what the future holds for home entertainment, both in terms of packaged media - now that Blu-ray has the hi-def arena to itself – and digital delivery.

Speakers will include other senior executives from the US studios and independent content owners as well as representatives of major international players such as Microsoft, MOD Systems, Sonic Solutions, Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, etc.

Story filed 10.03.08