Bloggers are wrong for calling the Avatar Blu-ray a defective product or blaming any playback problems on bad authoring or DRM, Fox Home Entertainment executive Danny Kaye told us in an e-mail. “I don’t speak for bloggers, but it’s just as with all new BD titles, there is the need for consumers to make sure they have the latest firmware updates for their players,” Kaye said. “It’s not a new issue as some would appear to be saying on the blogs. If there were playability issues, it’s not due to Avatar; it’s the case of the CE player not being up to date. To my knowledge, as of today nearly all CE manufacturers are now up to date on their latest firmware updates for nearly all models, and more and more consumers are keeping their players up to date. When they do that, BD titles will play on those players.” Panasonic Hollywood Lab, which authored the Avatar disc, called it “the first Blu-ray release from a major studio to be produced without special features, trailers or promotional content, freeing up the maximum disc storage for the film and corresponding menu to ensure the best possible video and audio representation of James Cameron’s spectacular world of Pandora.” It begged the question of whether there'll be enough capacity on a single 50-GB disc to accommodate Avatar when it’s released in Blu-ray 3D. “We'll certainly deliver a high-quality experience when the time comes,” Kaye responded. “But for now, we're just dealing with the 2D, which I'm sure you'll agree is pretty spectacular. We'll look at the issues from all angles.” One “potential downside” of putting 3D on a Blu-ray disc is that it saps storage capacity, a Panasonic white paper said last summer (CED Sept 4 p1).
Paul Gluckman
Paul Gluckman, Executive Senior Editor, is a 30-year Warren Communications News veteran having joined the company in May 1989 to launch its Audio Week publication. In his long career, Paul has chronicled the rise and fall of physical entertainment media like the CD, DVD and Blu-ray and the advent of ATSC 3.0 broadcast technology from its rudimentary standardization roots to its anticipated 2020 commercial launch.
Apple is “on track” to begin shipping the 3G version of the iPad in the U.S. on April 30 and the Wi-Fi and 3G versions in nine other countries at the end of May, executives said late Tuesday on the company’s second-quarter earnings call. Apple expects no iPad production shortages, though early demand has far exceeded expectations, they said.
Ultimate Electronics’ failure to respond to a Council of Better Business Bureau inquiry provoked Best Buy to sue Ultimate to halt its “systematic campaign of false and misleading advertising,” the Best Buy complaint says. The council’s National Advertising Division announced April 12 that because Ultimate failed to cooperate with its probe, it had referred the case to the FTC. Best Buy filed a complaint at the council Jan. 5.
Philips signed a five-year “brand licensing agreement” under which Videocon will assume all responsibility for making and marketing Philips consumer TVs in India, Philips said Monday.
The ATSC 2.0-compatible 3D TV terrestrial broadcast system that LG demonstrated publicly for the first time at the NAB Show (CED April 15 p6) was more than a “concept” prototype, but is “still a ways off from commercialization,” LG spokesman John Taylor told us Wednesday. ATSC 2.0 standards activity “is really still in its early stages,” Taylor said. It’s possible the ATSC will incorporate “some of these technologies as enhancements to the ATSC family of standards in the 2011-2012 time frame,” he said. “But we wanted to show its feasibility in its early implementation here. That was really the main purpose of showing it.” The demo generated a lot of interest on the NAB floor because it showed new ways that terrestrial broadcasters can deliver 3D, “whereas the focus on 3D has been on satellite, cable and recorded media,” he said.
ESPN “learned a lot” in its hallmark live 3D test last September of the USC-Ohio State football game, Anthony Bailey, the network’s vice president of emerging technology, said Monday on a “Content Theater” panel at the NAB Show in Las Vegas. “There are some things in that game that we would never do again, and there were some things that we walked out of there with and said, ‘Wow, we've really come a long way,'” Bailey said. ESPN’s mantra is that “every game we do and every event we tackle in 3D, we have to provide a unique and exceptional visual experience that’s beyond what viewers have come to expect in 2D,” said Phil Orlins, coordinating producer of ESPN 3D, which debuts June 11. “I mean, it’s fairly obvious if we don’t do that, then really what’s the point? What’s going to drive the business for us if we don’t create that unique experience? But at the same time, that has to be tempered by our viewers’ expectations of being able to see the game, see where the ball’s going, and have all the things that sports fans are accustomed to having. That’s really the yin and the yang of every event we attack. How do we maximize the incredible dynamic aspects of 3D but at the same time not lose the basics of covering a sporting event?” With all live events, “the larger and less predictable they are, the more challenges you bring into the equation,” Orlins said. Bob Toms, ESPN’s vice president for production enhancements, agreed that the “struggle” will be delivering effective 3D but still being able to “tell the story.” For USC-Ohio State, ESPN shot much of the game in 3D from the sideline across from where the 2D cameras were, he said. “We got really lucky at Ohio State, frankly,” Toms said. “We're on the opposite side of the field,” and USC Head Coach “Pete Carroll decides to run every play toward our side. And it looked great. But had he decided to go to 2D side, it would not have been quite as successful.” ESPN is still learning which camera positions will yield the best 3D effects, Bailey said. Its next goal is “educate the arenas and the venues out there because they were built for television years ago and their camera positions are what they are,” he said. “We're coming in and saying, ‘No, they've got to be lower'” for 3D, or “'We need to be in the best seat in the house, so you've got to kill that seat,'” he said.
LAS VEGAS -- Most people who viewed 3D telecasts or highlight reels of Masters golf came away so impressed that they think the jump to 3D from HD will “be a bigger transition than it was from SD to HD,” said Dan Holden, chief scientist at the Comcast Media Center in Centennial, Colo. At the NAB Show’s Broadcast Engineering Conference on Saturday, he said Comcast plans to deliver 3D content in an “over-under” format at half the resolution per eye of full HD, which won’t require adding bandwidth. He thinks most other cable companies will do the same, he said.
Sirius XM paid CEO Mel Karmazin a $7 million cash bonus last month “in recognition of his performance and our corporate performance” in 2009, the company said in a preliminary proxy statement filed Monday at the SEC for its annual meeting, May 27 in New York. He also got $35.2 million in 2009 stock-option awards on signing a contract extension through 2012, the proxy said. This was his first “equity-based award” since joining Sirius in November 2004, it said. It raised his total 2009 compensation to $43.5 million, the filing said. It was by far the most he has been paid during his five years on the job. One reason Karmazin got the bonus was that Sirius XM was free cash-flow positive for all of 2009, the proxy said. It also credited him with “successfully negotiating and executing a restructuring of our capital structure, including the transactions with Liberty Media.” Analysts believe that the Liberty deal spared Sirius XM from bankruptcy last year.
The EPA on Monday released an “action plan” to probe the possible environmental harms of bisphenol A (BPA), a chemical used in manufacturing a wide range of consumer products. BPA is a key component of the polycarbonate plastics used in CDs, DVDs and Blu-ray discs as well as for many CE products. It’s also used in the polyvinyl chlorides (PVCs) that Greenpeace has campaigned actively to get CE makers to eliminate from their products.
Oculus 3D, a supplier to movie theaters of a 3D system that uses 35mm film (CED March 24 p5), is ready to launch that system now, CEO Marty Shindler told us in an e-mail. Oculus is “in active discussions with the various studios to gain their content in our format,” he said. When the system does launch, the 3D glasses with biodegradable frames that Shindler discussed at last week’s ShoWest convention in Las Vegas will be ready on Day One, he said.