Europe's online source of news, data & analysis for professionals involved in packaged media and new delivery technologies
Europeans are increasingly opting to view movies and TV shows via digital platforms, but the market for DVDs and Blu-ray Discs is still by far the much larger market in terms of consumer spending and ... Read more...
The British Video Association's annual general meeting brought together some 150 movers and shakers of the domestic home video industry to listen to guest speaker, Iain Wright MP, Shadow Minister for ... Read more...
Futuresource Consulting commissioned Audiencenet, a specialist in online research communities, to set up and manage an online community for the Futuresource FES2013 conference in July of this year... Read more...
The Spanish video retail association the Asociación Nacional de Empresarios Mayoristas del Sector Videográfico (ANEMSEVI) has launched a nationwide Blu-ray Disc promotional campaign... Read more...
The Seed Advantage SEIS Fund 1 has announced that it has successfully funded Video Now (VN), a new TV and film publishing and distribution business. VN will use the funds to license entertainment rights... Read more...
The Industry Trust for IP Awareness and Paramount Pictures UK will launch an exclusive Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues trailer that sees Ron Burgundy inspiring audiences to choose official film... Read more...
The home entertainment sector saw continued stability in the third quarter of 2013, with total consumer spending flat compared to the same period last year, according to the latest figures published by... Read more...
The message on the pack is unequivocal: "Buy physical media bearing the UltraViolet brand and you automatically own a digital copy that you can access anytime, anywhere and on any device." BOB AUGER, ... Read more...
In response to a request from the Office of the US Trade Representative, the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) submitted a list of 'notorious physical markets' outside of the US where consumers... Read more...
For the second year running, the European Publishers Council (EPC), representing Europe's leading media organisations, released its Global Media Trends Book. It aims to illuminate digital media... Read more...
In an exercise aimed at enhancing the value of digital home entertainment offerings and bring consistency to the way digital products are marketed to consumers, the trade body DEG: The Digital Entertainment... Read more...
Consumer expenditures on physical media continued to decline steadily in France, according to the latest figures from the Centre national de la cinématographie (CNC), the domestic audiovisual... Read more...
Marking Germany as the exception in Europe, consumer spending on Blu-ray Discs and DVDs combined will increase 6.4% to €1.6 billion this year, says TANIA LOEFLER, Video Analyst at IHS Electronics... Read more...
Hewlett-Packard has filed a lawsuit against seven leading manufacturers of DVD and Blu-ray disc drives, alleging they colluded to fix market prices, conspiring to artificially inflate the drives' prices... Read more...
DVD and games rental chain Blockbuster UK is set to go into administration for the second time in 10 months after its private equity owner failed to turn the business around... Read more...
According to The NPD Group, the cloud-based digital locker storage system UltraViolet is having a positive impact on early adopters and is meeting several of the initial objectives of the companies who... 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.
