Europe's premier online source of news, data & analysis for professionals involved in DVD, Blu-ray and new delivery technologies
Features
BD-Live: an exercise in perseverance
Having just completed U2-360o– At the Rose Bowl Blu-ray disc, ANDY EVANS, Founder and Managing Director of London high-end authoring house The Pavement, offers a reality check on the trials and tribulations – and ultimate satisfation – of producing a BD-Live title. Read More...
An industry executive speaks
In a series of Q&As, professionals in all facets of the packaged media industry share their views of things past, present and yet to come. It’s the turn of TORSTEN LEYE, Marketing Manager, Optical, Verbatim. Read More...
DVD and Beyond 2010 magazine
Welcome to the 12th edition of our annual publication, the companion to www.dvd-intelligence.com, our industry website. Like in previous years, we examine the state of packaged media and we track developments in the range of alternative digital delivery technologies that may – or may not – impact on the sector. Read More...
An industry executive speaks
In a series of Q&As, professionals in all facets of the packaged media industry share their views of things past, present and yet to come. It’s the turn of JOHN FITZGERALD, CEO of EDC-Entertainment Distribution Company, based in Hannover, Germany. Read More...
The changing role of TV displays
It is not so long ago that the main TV set in a European household sat in the corner of the living room with the sole purpose of receiving programmes from a relatively limited number of channels, delivered over the air or from a local cable operator. How things have changed, pounders JIM BOTTOMS, Managing Director of Corporate Development at Futuresource Consulting. Read More...
On predicting the future
Predicting the future, let alone the future of packaged media, is a perilous exercise, and possibly counter-productive, says JEAN-LUC RENAUD, as the exercise closes doors rather than keep them open. Consider that: Apple was left nearly for dead 15 years ago. Today, it became the world’s largest technology company, topping Microsoft. Read More...
Filling the spending gap
Consumers are spending less on transactional in-home entertainment, particularly on packaged media, than they were five years ago, but growing demand for VOD and digital delivery is beginning to offset – if not compensate for – the decline, says MARIJA JAROSLAVSKAYA, analyst at Screen Digest. Read More...
An industry practitioner speaks
In a series of Q&As, professionals in all facets of the packaged media industry share their views of things past, present and yet to come. It’s the turn of STEFAN BOCK, CEO of msm-studios, a premium service provider for mastering, post-production and media creation, based in München, Germany. Read More...
An industry practitioner speaks
In a series of Q&As, professionals in all facets of the packaged media industry share their views of things past, present and yet to come. It’s the turn of MATHEW GILLIAT-SMITH, CEO of Fortium Technologies, a leading provider of copy protection and fingerprint identification software for the film, entertainment and broadcast industries based in the UK. Read More...
An industry practitioner speaks
In a series of Q&As, professionals in all facets of the packaged media industry share their views of things past, present and yet to come. It’s the turn of ANDRZEJ MACKIEWICZ, CEO of disc manufacturer TAKT S.J. in Bolesław, Poland. Read More...
An industry practitioner speaks
In a series of Q&As, professionals in all facets of the packaged media industry share their views of things past, present and yet to come. It’s the turn of IAN BRENCHLEY, Managing Director of authoring and post-production studio Metropolis in London. Read More...
An industry practitioner speaks
In a series of Q&As, professionals in all facets of the packaged media industry share their views of things past, present and yet to come. It’s the turn of JAKOB SKARIN, Founder & CEO of packaging design company Jakebox AB in Sweden. Read More...
Rising to the green challenge - a thinner disc
Technological advances, ecological awakening, retailers’ green policy and government regulations coalesce to making carbon footprint-busting discs an ever more attractive proposition. WILHELM F MITTRICH, CEO of EcoDisc Technology, explains the concept and identifies the market opportunities. Read More...
Striving in the corporate market
From VHS, CD, DVD and Blu-ray authoring, replication and duplication to encoding for digital cinema, VOD, Internet and mobile, not forgetting archiving, SYMON ROUE, Chairman of re:fine, explains why the one-stop shop approach he has taken was a successful strategy to strive in the corporate market. Read More...
Holography - Quo Vadis?
Has anything happened in the past three years that might bring holographic discs closer to reality? MEGUMI KOMIYA, Feature Editor at DVD-Intelligence, takes stock of the latest developments, pinpointing promising advances. Read More...
Do you own what you bought?
Do you own all the discs in your collection? Be honest – aren’t there a few that you ‘borrowed’ from friends and haven’t yet got around to returning? What about those DVDs that you always meant to give back to the neighbour, but now she’s moved away…?
You can play discs, watch them, even copy them, without anyone stopping you. Of course it would be illegal, but is it really likely that the Serious Crime Squad is going to break down the door and confiscate your library of Bob the Builder DVDs because you made copies to give to the kids?
We are used to physical media ‘just working’, regardless of where it came from, how long you’ve had it and what technical standards it uses. Sure, CD-i players are hard to come by these days, but in the main, once acquired, most hardware lets you access the original content forever.
Imagine then that you put your disc in the trusty player you bought in 1994 and a message appears “You don’t have the rights to play this disc”. The player is right – you picked it up at that party you gatecrashed in the 1990s and ‘discovered’ it a week later.
Guiltily you try another disc, and another, and realise that all the discs in your collection, paid for or not, are blocked.
Not only that but all your friends are experiencing the same problem – none of their CDs or DVDs work anymore, every unit in the player park is revolting rather than revolving.
Wow, that was a nightmare you’d rather not have again. You wake in a sweat and make a coffee, grateful that this was only a bad dream. Selecting the Music Video you downloaded last week on your Media Centre PC, déjà vu spoils your view: “You do not have the rights to play this track.”
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