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News in Brief

THE BOARD of Directors of Technicolor, the troubled French cinema production services provider and manufacturer of television set-top boxes, meeting 29 May in Paris, unanimously recommended to the company's shareholders that they vote in favour of the transaction agreed between Jesper Cooperatief - an entity controlled by JPMorgan Chase & Co. - and Technicolor. The Board rejected a rival offer made by investment fund Vector Capital Group to buy as much as 30% of the company, which would be back on the table only if shareholders rejected the JPMorgan plan at a meeting on 20 June.

TESTRONIC Labs has announced that its File-Based QC Lab has implemented a Veristream testing tool designed by Deluxe Digital Studios. Veristream analyzes source video masters and encoded streams identifying potential corruption or processing issues that could have been introduced throughout the video production process. In doing so, Veristream predicts potential video anomalies in a highly accurate, fast, and reliable way providing efficient ways for operators to review and verify potential issues.

DESIGNER 3D glasses by Oskav will soon be available to purchase from 3D TV stands in showrooms across the UK. For customers, the signature range of designer 3D glasses makes it possible to enjoy blockbuster 3D cinema, passive 3D TV and broadcast 3D events in style. 3D glasses by Oskav are also compatible with passive 3D TVs made by LG, Toshiba, Philips and Panasonic. The company's current range includes six classic styles priced from £19.99 - £24.99. In addition, Oskav can design bespoke 3D glasses in any colour and in a range of styles for adults and children. The 3D lenses are made with 10 layers to guarantee visual performance.

US FEDERAL regulators considered testimony on whether to allow citizens and filmmakers to legally crack DVD encryption meant to protect them from being copied. Filmmakers, video mixers and others have petitioned the US Copyright Office for the ability to continue to use DVD decryption tools to copy short clips of DVDs from motion pictures to put into their own films. The issue isn not whether they have a fair-use right to the material, but whether they can utilize decrypting tools to make the best reproduction for filmmaking purposes.

THE UK'S Channel 4 said that revenue for its 4Rights unit were up by £17.8 million to £65.6 million in 2011 with profits up year-on-year from £7.4 million to £18.1 million due largely to DVD and Blu-ray Disc sales. The firm cited the success on video of films such as The Inbetweeners Movie, Submarine and Attack The Block.

BLUFOCUS, an leading testing and certification facility specialising in the QA of media products, has announced its membership of the Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem (DECE). DECE is responsible for the development and operation of UltraViolet, a digital rights authentication and cloud-based ecosystem that allows consumers unprecedented access to their home entertainment collections.

MICROSOFT, in an effort to keep costs down, will ditch DVD playback support for Windows Media Player in Windows 8, though there will be the option to purchase Windows Media Center to get DVD functionality. Windows Media Player will be available within all editions of Windows 8, but users won't be able to use it to play DVDs. It's too expensive, said Microsoft in a blog post.

EMMY Award-winning Moving Picture Experts Group, developer of audio and video digital compression standards such as MP3, MPEG-2, MPEG-4 that have helped launch the multi-million dollar MP3, set top box, DVD and mobile communication industries and are used by millions of people worldwide on a daily basis, holds its 100th meeting in Geneva, Switerland, on 30 April-4 May 2012.

VIDEO rental company Netflix has no plans to sell its DVD division, Chief Executive Reed Hastings said during a conference call with analysts. Some industry analysts have speculated Netflix might sell the DVD unit as it turns into a company that streams movies and TV shows to Internet-connected televisions and devices. Once the darling of the home entertainment industry, the company has had a brutal year, thanks to a series of major missteps in its attempt to transition from discs to streaming.

ENTERTAINMENT Distribution Company (EDC) obtained accreditation to the CDSA's Content Protection Security Programme. The accreditation, which forms part of the CDSA's Anti-Piracy & Compliance Programme (APCP), is the second accreditation granted to EDC which has held accreditation in the Copyright and Licensing Verification Programme since 2002. In March of this year, EDC also received accreditation from SEDEX which strives to drive improvements in responsible and ethical practices in global supply chains.