Europe's online source of news, data & analysis for professionals involved in packaged media and new delivery technologies
Leading quality assurance services specialist Testronic has opened a new facility in Warsaw, Poland. The site will be specifically used to service the company's growing games business line, carrying out... Read more...
There are to date 12 million UltraViolet accounts registered, mostly in the US. Though when it comes to 'active' accounts - defined as storing multiple titles and regular access - they might represent... Read more...
Redbox DVD kiosk chain rented its 3 billionth disc in the US this month. This disc transaction milestone, Sony Pictures' The Call, was rented at a Walgreens store in Littleton, Colorado. The next... Read more...
The 2013 market report from the UK's communications industries regulator, Ofcom, reveals that people are still coming together to watch TV in the living room - 91% of UK adults view TV on the main set... Read more...
Russia's first online anti-piracy law, approved by the State Duma in June 2013, has officially passed into law 1 August 2013. The law was crafted with the participation of some 30 video and TV companies... Read more...
In an effort to better prepare content creators for the fast-moving technological advances in producing premium visual experiences for film, television and digital production, the International 3D Society... Read more...
Technicolor's first half year results show revenue growth up 3.1% at €1.6 billion, generating net profit of €6 million, up from a net loss of €26 million in the first half of 2012. The ... Read more...
Sony and Panasonic announced they will jointly develop a next-generation disc with recording capacity of at least 300GB by the end of 2015. Both companies have previously developed products based on the... Read more...
After 13 years producing some of the best DVDs and Blu-ray discs, London, Soho-based The Pavement decided to call it a day. The exit of the highly-regarded creative outpost shocked many in the industry... Read more...
The global TV market will return to growth in 2013 after shipments fell by 6% last year, with growth continuing out to 2017 according to a new report from Futuresource Consulting... Read more...
France's packaged media sales totaled €439.86 million in the first half of 2013 - down from €495 million in the same period last year. The overall 12.5% fall is attributed to a 15.8% drop in... Read more...
A man from Lancashire, UK, has been jailed for three years and ten months for the sale of counterfeit DVDs, CDs and MP3s, which yielded almost half a million pounds... Read more...
Backers of the Pure Audio Blu-ray format convened in Berlin on 5 July to establish the Pure Audio Group, a non-profit cross-industry body whose objective is to coordinate the marketing efforts behind ... Read more...
Sony DADC is launching a new integrated platform service offering that will manage complete media lifecycle operations for clients in the media and entertainment industries. The Global Platform Services... Read more...
The French government has issued a decree removing the threat of suspending the Internet access of those users caught illegally downloading copyrighted content. This sanction was the ultimate weapon that... Read more...
The Blu-ray Disc Association has secured a permanent injunction against Pivos Technology Group, Inc., preventing the company from infringing the BDA's trademark rights... 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.
