DCD Business Report articles from June 2004

DCD Business Report archives from June 2004

Home Video Viewing: Does Technology Lead Or Follow?
June 7, 2004... Between direct broadcast satellite (DBS), digital cable, HDTV, personal video recording (PVR) and video rentals or sell-through purchases on DVD, consumers have a number of technology and service options from which to choose, but do they all...

TiVo Subscriptions Grow.(Brief Article)
June 7, 2004... A recent report from TiVo Inc., the creator of television services for digital video recorders (DVRs), to its investors indicates the company added 264,000 subscriptions during the first quarter of 2004, more than three times the number added...

New Technology Will Take Games Everywhere.
June 7, 2004... PC-based games have been big business for some time. The explosion of wireless phones and other mobile devices have some industry experts predicting that online games accessed via these devices will proliferate to create a $2.6 billion industry...

Snapshots From The Deloitte Touche Report.
June 7, 2004... The electronic-game industry is big business. In 2001, U.S. sales of video games and related hardware climbed to $9.4 billion, surpassing Hollywood box-office receipts of $8.4 billion. Electronic games and their underlying technologies are...

Music, Music, Everywhere...
June 7, 2004... In record time (no pun intended), the online music market has taken off, with new entrants coming into the field every day. It has been a bit more than a year since legal download services first made the scene but, since then, all the major...

Big Money In Live Concert CDs.(Brief Article)
June 7, 2004... New York City-based Clear Channel Entertainment purchased the patent for DiscLive's (also of New York City) disc-burning technology that enables the mass-production of CDs and DVDs within minutes of the end of a concert. DiscLive recently...

Applying The 'Library' Mind To Managing Media Assets.
June 7, 2004... In a world of converging media types, flexibility and the ability to work within an open operating environment are critical to the efficient management of rich media assets. No one knows this better than the staff of Cornell University's...

More Capacity & Faster Processing Power Lead The Game.
June 7, 2004... Dual-layer, 8.5 gigabyte DVD+/-R discs are making their way to market this summer from disc manufacturers CMC Magnetics, Ritek and Prodisc Technology, all exhibitors at Computex 2004 in Taiwan last week. Trial production of the dual-layer...

New 'Cell' Technology To Power Home Networks.(Brief Article)
June 7, 2004... In a Reuter's news report from Tokyo last week, Sony Corp. indicated it plans to offer a broadband television by 2006 that will incorporate the new "Cell" processor it is developing in cooperation with IBM and Toshiba. Information from the...

Data Filter.
June 7, 2004... What's Happening: The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has taken legal action against 493 additional illegal music file sharers. As with all the lawsuits filed so far this year, the RIAA is utilizing the "John Doe" litigation...

Top 20 DVD Titles Week Ending May 30.(Brief Article)
June 7, 2004... Weeks Last This Title On Label Week Week 2 Newline 36 1 LORD OF THE RINGS-RETURN OF THE KING 2 Disney 1 2 MIRACLE 2 Fox 729 3 BUFFY VAMPIRE SLAYER:SEASON 6 2...

Demand for Mobile Video Poised To Grow.
June 7, 2004... A new report, Mobile Video Services in the U.S., 2004-2009, from In-Stat/MDR of Scottsdale, Ariz., a high-tech market research organization, indicates that, with a number of limited deployments already underway in the United States,...

Online Movie Access 'A La Napster' - Truth Or Fiction?
June 21, 2004... The competition by content-distribution entities to obtain larger pieces of the home- entertainment and TV-viewing pie saw increased activity in recent weeks as satellite, cable, broadband and DVD companies made announcements or delivered...

MPAA Asked To Support File-Sharing.(The Distributed Computing Industry Association (DCIA))(Digital Media Wire)(Brief Article)
June 21, 2004... In a just-released news report from Digital Media Wire, The Distributed Computing Industry Association (DCIA), a trade group made up of peer-to-peer file-sharing networks, including Sharman Networks' Kazaa, is said to have made a plea to the...

PC/CE Convergence Takes More Steps Forward.(personal computers, consumer electronics.)
June 21, 2004... The convergence between consumer electronics and personal computing will take another step forward this week as major chip maker Intel reveals its new chip sets (Intel 915 Express and Intel 925 Express), previously referred to as "Grantsdale."...

DVR Users Watch More Video-On-Demand.
June 21, 2004... Challenging a widespread media-industry assumption that digital video recording (DVR) and Video-on-Demand (VOD) technologies are competing for viewers' usage, Lyra Research Inc. of Newtonville, Mass., has found that DVR users actually tend to...

Justice Department Finds No Movielink Antitrust.
June 21, 2004... The on-demand video enterprise Movielink, a joint venture formed by five major movie studios-- Sony (Columbia-TriStar Pictures), Warner Bros., MGM, Paramount and Universal, and representing approximately 50 percent of the domestic box office...

Entrepreneur Creates Copyright-Free Music Service.(Brief Article)
June 21, 2004... easyMusic.com, part of easyGroup.com, the U.K.-based, self-proclaimed online business incubator, revealed its plan to offer online music downloads on a "copyleft" basis (the opposite of copyright). According to a company release,...

HD-DVD Gets Go-Ahead...(HD-DVD VERSION 1.0)(Brief Article)
June 21, 2004... The DVD Forum steering committee recently approved version 1.0 of the physical specifications for HD-DVD read-only discs. According to the specification, HD-DVD devices will be required to support three video codecs, including VC-9 technology,...

...While DualDisc Hybrid Also Wins Approval.(hybrid audio disc)(Brief Article)
June 21, 2004... The CD/DVD hybrid audio disc also was approved at the recent DVD Forum meeting. The approval is considered by some industry experts to be a necessary element for industry acceptance of the DVD-Audio format. DualDiscs are either a hybrid CD/DVD...

Blu-ray Group Pushes Ahead.(Blu-ray Disc Association )(Brief Article)
June 21, 2004... The Blu-ray Consortium, led by Sony and Philips, is going full-steam ahead with its high-density DVD format. At a Blu-ray Summit held last week in Los Angeles, formation of a more formal organization, the Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA), was...

New InterVideo DVD Recorder.(Brief Article)
June 21, 2004... InterVideo's new WinDVD Recorder Platinum records video captured from a camcorder, a DV camera, a digital TV set-top box or a VCR directly to DVD for immediate playback. The same software has TV time-shifting capabilities, enabling viewers to...

Peerflix DVD Trading Service Launched.(Brief Article)
June 21, 2004... Similar in concept to a file-sharing network, newly formed Peerflix allows movie enthusiasts to trade the DVDs they own. Users log into the Peerflix site, they create a list of DVDs they want, and they post DVD titles they own and are willing...

DVD Xpress Direct Disc Recording.(Brief Article)
June 21, 2004... DVD Xpress from ADS Tech now features real time direct to VCD, SVCD or DVD recording capabilities from VHS. The unit can be plugged into a PC USB port to transfer video and audio signals from analog camcorders or VCRs. The signal is...

Data Filter.
June 21, 2004... WHAT'S HAPPENING?: The National Association of Recording Merchandisers (NARM) and the Video Software Dealers Association (VSDA) entered into negotiations to see if it makes sense for the two trade associations to merge or to form a mutually...

Top 20 DVD Titles (Week ending 6/13/04).(Illustration)
June 21, 2004... Top 20 DVD Titles (Week ending 6/13/04) Wks On: 1 Label: Universal Last Week: --- This Week: 1 Title: ALONG CAME POLLY Wks On: 1 Label: Warner Home Video Last Week: --- This Week: 2 Title: MYSTIC RIVER Wks On: 4...

The Numbers.(Brief Article)(Illustration)
June 21, 2004... Consumers Electronics Sales to Dealers of Select Video Products 2004 2003 %Change Analog Direct View Televisions 196,921 446,238 -55.9 Analog TV/VCR Combinations 18,924 59,029...

Viacom, Blockbuster Announce Terms Of Separation.(Brief Article)
June 21, 2004... Viacom Inc. and Blockbuster Inc. jointly disclosed the terms of their proposed separation. The transaction would involve Viacom's distribution of its interest in Blockbuster through a "split-off" exchange offer to Viacom stockholders....