Europe's online source of news, data & analysis for professionals involved in packaged media and new delivery technologies
Features
DVD & Beyond 2011
Welcome to the 13th edition of our annual publication, the companion to www.dvd-intelligence.com, our industry website. A magazine, launched at the dawn of DVD, that still offers today food for thought on the present and future of discs, surely is a reminder that packaged media is still a massive global business worth about $50bn. Read More...
Is UltraViolet the next great advance in entertainment?
Data privacy and security are issues that ought to be the talk of the town as cloud-based UltraViolet is being deployed. Worryingly, it may not be, says SARAH DALE-HARRIS, Corporate Counsel at Accenture Inc. And will it be a bonanza for copyright holders? Read More...
Changing formats in times of economic squeeze
Unaccustomed as he is to putting pen to paper, MARK SAXE was nonetheless flattered and accepted the Publisher’s invitation to write a “personal and honest” piece. "I could write about the onslaught of Blu-ray 3D, which to me seems much less an onslaught and more like a slow and painful dragging-up," he says. Read More...
Goodbye, and good luck
David Fisher retires after 37 years as Editor of Screen Digest plus two years as News Editor. Given that the monthly magazine chronicles all aspects of media and telecommunications, Fisher has become a living encyclopaedia and a sharp observer of global trends. In a valedictory column for the publication, he looks back and forward. Read More...
3D bandwagon rolls on, but will the wheels come off?
New consumer technologies usually have a longer gestation period than is often realised. Given this long history of false starts, any cynicism surrounding the current 3D revival might be forgiven. However, DAVID MERCER, Principal Analyst at Strategy Analytics, explains why 3D really does seem to be here for good, this time. Read More...
Producing for 3D - what are the challenges?
“3D adds complexity that goes well beyond what we have seen before,” says ADAM LESH, US Chief Technology Officer of Testronic Labs. He reviews the various technical challenges to overcome in order to ensure consumers will embrace the next frontier in home entertainment. Read More...
Filtering & graduated response against online infringers
In most legal systems, the primary copyright enforcement mechanism is for the copyright owner to bring a civil action against an alleged infringer. Critics have complained that, given widespread online infringement, case-by-case judicial enforcement imposes unjustified costs on all parties. JIM BURGER, Partner at US law firm Dow Lohnes, reviews the remedies being considered. Read More...
Crossing the Digital Divide
“I’m often asked – especially recently with repeated reports that DVD sales are declining and BD sales aren’t making up the difference– if DVD is doomed. Is Blu-ray whistling past the graveyard? Will packaged media soon pack it in altogether? My short answer is ‘it depends on your context,’” says JIM TAYLOR, Senior VP and Chief Technologist at Sonic Solutions. Read More...
Slow, but inexorable - the march of Blu-ray Discs
Notwithstanding Blu-ray’s impressive gain – sales more than doubled in 2009 – it is not enough to compensate for declining consumer spending on DVD. HELEN DAVIS JAYALATH, Senior Analyst at Screen Digest, assesses the performance of packaged media in 2009 and its outlook for 2010. Read More...
Going green: time to talk about eco-discs
The packaged media industry goes at great lengths to cut the CO2 footprint in many supply chain operations – manufacturing, packaging, logistics – but so far show little interest in the disc itself, where the environmental impact would be greatest. It’s time to wake up, says BARRY HURLEY, Director of EcoDisc Technology, to JEAN-LUC RENAUD. Read More...
Green packaging - What is the industry's commitment?
Al Gore’s award-winning documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, was released by Paramount in 2006 in a package that sets the sustainability bar by being made of 100% post-consumer waste recycled paper. LARRY JAFFEE, journalist and author, wonders if ‘going green’ is a serious commitment by the industry or merely paying lip service. Read More...
QOL at 10 keeps on innovating
QOL, Europe’s first independent manufacturer to take the plunge into Blu-ray, celebrates its 10th anniversary. In a candid conversation, its CEO LAURENT VILLAUME shares his memories, on-going concerns and how market realities are shaping his strategic vision and present new opportunities. Read More...
From dubbing to 3D - how to stay ahead
Pioneering and expanding the range of services is Eyeframe’s recipe for staying ahead in a challenging market. CHRISTOS GLARIDIS, Director of the leading independent production company, tells JEAN-LUC RENAUD how streamlining workflow and creative commitment form the basis for getting clients to embrace Blu-ray. Read More...
BD-Live: an exercise in perseverance
Having just completed U2-360 - At the Rose Bowl Blu-ray disc, ANDY EVANS, Founder and Managing Director of London high-end authoring house The Pavement, offers a reality check on the trials and tribulations - and ultimate satisfaction - of producing a BD-Live title. Read More...
An industry executive speaks
In a series of Q&As, professionals in all facets of the packaged media industry share their views of things past, present and yet to come. It’s the turn of TORSTEN LEYE, Marketing Manager, Optical, Verbatim. Read More...
On predicting the future
Predicting the future, let alone the future of packaged media, is a perilous exercise, and possibly counter-productive, as the exercise closes doors rather than keep them open, argues JEAN-LUC RENAUD, DVD Intelligence publisher. Consider that: Apple was left nearly for dead 15 years ago. Today, it became the world's most valuable technology company, topping Microsoft.
Le cinéma est une invention sans avenir (the cinema is an invention without any future) famously claimed the Lumière Brothers some 120 years ago. Well. The cinématographe grew into a big business, even bigger in times of economic crisis when people have little money to spend on any other business.
The advent of radio, then television, was to kill the cinema. With a plethora of digital TV channels, a huge DVD market, a wealth of online delivery options, a massive counterfeit underworld and illegal downloading on a large scale, cinema box office last year broke records!
The telephone was said to have no future when it came about. Today, 5 billion handsets are in use worldwide. People prioritize mobile phones over drinking water in many Third World countries.
No-one predicted the arrival of the iPod only one year before it broke loose in an unsuspecting market. Even fewer predicted it was going to revolutionise the economics of music distribution. Likewise, no-one saw the iPhone coming and even fewer forecast the birth of the developers' industry it ignited. And it changed the concept of mobile phone.
Make no mistake, the iPad will have a profound impact on the publishing world. It will bring new players, and smaller, perhaps more creative content creators.
And who predicted the revival of vinyl?
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