Europe's online source of news, data & analysis for professionals involved in packaged media and new delivery technologies

News in Brief

THE MOTION Picture Association of America provided the U.S. Trade Representative with a detailed listing of the world?s most notorious marketplaces for the distribution of illegal film and television shows. The MPAA list includes peer-to-peer networks, Bit Torrent portals, infringing download and streaming hubs, linking websites and newsgroups, as well as physical markets located in the Ukraine, Australia, Canada, China, Indonesia, Ireland, Brazil, Russia, Thailand, Mexico and India.

ARVATO Entertainment has joined the One-Blue Blu-ray Disc product licensing programme as a licensee. German-based arvato signed the Registration Agreement for BD ROM Movie Disc and/or BD ROM Data Disc that grants the company access to important patents essential to the Blu-ray Disc standard from leading licensors. One-Blue administers the licensing programme. For hardware and software products, the product license covers Blu-ray Disc, DVD and CD essential patents.

UK-BASED independent distributor Firecake Entertainment has released a one-disc collection of 18 low-resolution films on a single dual-layer Blu-ray Disc, entitled Ultimate Horror Classics. All 18 films are in the public domain, and include horror classics such as Last Man on Earth (1964), White Zombie (1932) and Sweeney Todd (1934). Despite being collated on a BD disc, the movies are mastered in 480i resolution, and the disc does not include any bonus footage. It is thought to be the first time any distributor has put multiple DVD-quality films on a single 50GB BD disc The collection of movies was first released in the UK in 2012; the US version wis released this month and retails at $25.

THE MEDIA and entertainment industry will outperform the major stock market indices for the first time in years, a report by Ernst & Young predicts. Out of 10 media and entertainment sectors during the five years covered by the report, cable operators have the highest average profitability at 41%, followed by cable networks, 37%, interactive media, 35%; satellite television, 26%; electronic games, 25%; conglomerates, 23%; content and information services, 19%; television broadcast, 17%; film and television production, 10%; and music, 10%. In estimates for 2013, cable operators remained top with 41%; cable networks, 38%; interactive media, 33%; electronic games, 26%; satellite television, 25%; conglomerates, 25%; television broadcast, 19%; content and information services, 19%; film and television production, 12%; and music, 10%.

GLOBAL online TV and video revenues (over fixed broadband networks) will reach $34.99 billion in 2018, a massive increase from the $3.98 billion recorded in 2010 and the $15.94 billion expected in 2013, according to the Online TV and Video Forecasts report from Digital TV Research. By 2018, 520 million homes in 40 countries will watch online television and video (both paid-for and ad-supported), up from 182 million in 2010.

FINDINGS from research firm Dataxis suggest that global shipments of 4K TV sets will surpass 5% of the total annual TV shipments in 2017, while the installed base of 4K TV sets in Europe, North America and mature Asian markets, such as Japan and South Korea, will also reach 5% in 2018.