Europe's online source of news, data & analysis for professionals involved in packaged media and new delivery technologies
Booming subscription sales by services like Netflix, Lovefilm, Spotify and Deezer mean so-called "access services" rather than sales of products like discs and downloads accounted for a quarter of the... Read more...
While the vast majority (79%) of online US adults obtain the video content they watch from traditional television programming providers such as cable, satellite or fiber-to-the-home, a significant number... Read more...
The Walt Disney Studios unveiled its cloud-based digital movie service, Disney Movies Anywhere. Buyers of its movies will be able to view them digitally on multiple Apple devices (iPhone, iPad, iPod touch... Read more...
4K TV display panels have become increasingly available and affordable to TV manufacturers, and Taiwanese panel makers Innolux and AUO are forecast to lead 4K panel shipments worldwide this year. According... Read more...
According to a new report by Research and Markets, the global 3D TV market is to grow at a CAGR of 19.7% over the period 2013-2018 in terms of units and 2.04% in terms of revenue. One of the key factors... Read more...
Content theft sites made nearly a quarter of a billion dollars last year from advertising on rip-off sites, according to a new report from the Digital Citizens Alliance. According to the study, the 30... Read more...
As Europe and the US stagger out of recession (maybe), eyes are turning to Africa, a continent still showing steady economic growth. With a population of over a billion, about half of whom are under 25... Read more...
Technicolor group's 2013 revenues from continuing operations were down 1.1% to €3,449 million over 2012 (€3,489 million). However, at constant rate and scope they ended up 2.4%, including a... Read more...
France's leading independent replicator QOL has been placed in the hands of administrators - redressement judiciaire - for a period of six months. Accounting for some 40% of the domestic Blu-ray... Read more...
Packaged media is still alive and well if one goes by the latest products released by High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire-based Alpha Duplication. The UK's largest CD duplication and DVD duplication specialist... Read more...
The market for optical media in Morocco is estimated at between 30 and 40 million discs annually, retailing at approximately $1.50 each. That did not deter ANTHONY OWEN, a DVD veteran with more than ten... Read more...
HMV's flagship store on London's Oxford Street - the largest music shop in the world - may have closed its doors earlier this month following the chain's bankruptcy, but it is still keen to promote its... Read more...
The raw economics of online movie distribution are compelling. Depending on your perspective they might also be exciting, or frightening, says a new report, "Online Movies 2014: The Internet as a New ... Read more...
The fight against counterfeiters continues unabated in the British Isles. Criminal assets worth £213,166 have been taken during a Proceeds of Crime confiscation proceeding after a large-scale, international... Read more...
MPEG LA, LLC announced that a group of 25 companies have agreed on HEVC license terms expected to issue as part of an HEVC Patent Portfolio License in early 2014. Final agreements are yet to be concluded... Read more...
Testing and certification company BluFocus has entered into an agreement with Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem (DECE), to act as the administrator for the UltraViolet Compliance Verification Programme... 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.
