DVD players sold to U.S. consumers since the format’s launch a decade ago totaled 200 million units in 2007, the Digital Entertainment Group said Monday at CES. Sales were flat last year at 33.52 million compared with 33.87 million sold in 2006, as were Q4 sales -- 12.6 million in 2007, versus 12.5 million a year earlier, the DEG said. Over 90 million U.S. households owned DVD players at year-end, with 60 percent owning multiple decks, the DEG said. Over 8.9 billion DVD software units have shipped since the format’s launch, with 2007 shipments flat compared with 2006 -- 1.69 billion versus 1.66 billion. Nearly 4.5 million next- generation disc players, including standalone Blu-ray and HD DVD decks and game consoles, have been sold to consumers since their 2006 launch, the DEG said, giving no format or year-to-year breakdown. In a bitter pill for HD DVD, the DEG award for HD DVD title of the year was a tie between two Warner Home Video titles -- The Bourne Ultimatum and The Ultimate Matrix Collection. Warner also captured top honors for Blu-ray title of the year -- Planet Earth Box Set Complete Edition. The DEG has a “satellite group” creating a Tokyo-based “working committee,” it said Monday. At IFA, the DEG announced an alliance with its sister group in Europe and thinks the same benefits can be had by establishing a working committee in Japan, it said.
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.
LAS VEGAS -- “I never put banners up that say, ‘Mission Accomplished,'” Sony CEO Howard Stringer told reporters Monday at a CES briefing here when asked if he thinks HD DVD is dead in the wake of Warner’s exclusive embrace of Blu-ray (CED Jan 7 p1).
Zoran’s SupraHD 741 processor is powering at least three of the 14 converter boxes listed by NTIA as coupon- eligible, a Zoran spokesman said Thursday. They're the AMTC AT-2016, the Apex DT1001 and the MicroGEM MG2000, the spokesman said. “In addition, there will be multiple additional models from top retail brands also achieving the NTIA certification in the coming days and months, which we will announce as they roll out to retail,” he said. The list of certified models grew to 14 Thursday with another box bearing an obscure brand name -- the Goodmind DTA1000.
News coverage of the DTV coupon program sent the number of coupon requests soaring Wednesday following a somewhat slower start on New Year’s Day, NTIA told us Thursday. At Wednesday’s peak, NTIA’s contractor processed about 80,000 coupon requests an hour, the agency said. Requests slowed somewhat on Thursday, it said.
EchoStar’s TR-40 is rare among the 13 coupon-eligible DTV converter boxes, bearing as it does a familiar brand name among the NTIA-certified models listed as of Monday. EchoStar didn’t respond to our queries seeking comment on its strategy for fielding a product to deliver over-the-air TV reception to legacy analog TVs. The company has set a CES news conference for next week. Obscure names like MicroGEM, MaxMedia and AMTC dominate the list of boxes certified in the last week, joining DigitalStream, Sansonic and other unknowns. MicroGEM, with U.S. headquarters in midtown Manhattan, bills itself as “a leading solutions provider for companies in the electronic and technology industries,” according to its website. “Our strategic relationship with global manufacturing facilities allows MicroGEM the ability to provide custom high quality consumer and commercial electronic products,” it said. China-based MaxMedia, with U.S. headquarters in City of Industry, Calif., describes itself as “a state-of-the-art solution designer and provider in HD media and HD 1080 broadcasting.” Its certified box, model MMDTVB03, is codenamed “StingRay,” the site says. Though it rightly says the StingRay complies with NTIA rules, it wrongly identifies NTIA as the National Television Institute Association.
Incorporation of HD Radio in satellite radio receivers should be a condition for approving the XM-Sirius merger “to insure a level competitive playing field” between satellite and terrestrial digital radio, iBiquity Digital told the FCC in an ex parte filing. The agency should require XM-Sirius to end and prohibit exclusives with suppliers, retailers and auto makers, the HD Radio developer said. IBiquity has “no formal position” on the merger, it said. However, major radio group owners with significant stakes in iBiquity have register vehement opposition to the merger. Ibiquity fears a combined XM-Sirius “could be in a better position to hamper iBiquity’s ability to introduce HD Radio technology into the marketplace,” it said. Exclusive XM-Sirius deals with auto makers “could serve as a barrier to iBiquity’s ability to sell HD Radio receivers to end users,” it said. XM and Sirius “may have used subsidies and incentives paid to the automobile manufacturers and their suppliers to discourage proliferation of HD Radio products,” and a merger could “exacerbate these problems,” it said, adding that a merged XM/Sirius would have a stronger economic position and more cash for subsidies and incentives. As sole provider of satellite services, the merged entity would have more leverage over retailers, car makers and suppliers, iBiquity said. “This combined satellite monopoly would be in a better position to act anticompetitively to exclude HD Radio products,” it said.
Audiovox has significantly underreported its DVD player shipments and owes millions of dollars in back royalty payments and so is in breach of contract of its MPEG-2 and IEEE-1394 license agreements, license authority MPEG LA alleges in a lawsuit in the New York State Supreme Court in Manhattan, a trial court.
Best Buy -- riding a successful Black Friday with “more rational” flat-panel TV pricing than a year earlier -- scored a 52 percent Q3 net profit gain, the chain said Tuesday. Revenue was up 17 percent and same-store sales at U.S. stores 6.1 percent.
The second Funai Philco-branded DTV converter box (model TB100HH9) to win NTIA certification as coupon- eligible (CED Dec 17 p7) has no smart antenna interface, but its companion box (TB150HH9) does, we're told. Both Philco boxes have analog passthrough, but Funai’s Magnavox-brand certified box has neither a smart antenna interface nor analog passthrough, we're told. Meanwhile, of three Sansonic boxes submitted for NTIA certification, one has analog passthrough, Sansonic USA told us. None have smart antenna interfaces, it said. Of the three Sansonic boxes, one (the FT300A) has won NTIA certification.
Many CEA member companies have signed OCAP license agreements and will help draft OCAP specifications, News Corp. told the FCC in an ex parte filing. That participation “does not necessarily constitute endorsement of everything” OCAP, but it does show how many CEA members participate in OCAP developments, News Corp. said. But signing “the only license agreement that cable operators make available is not the same as supporting a particular policy position or endorsing a commercial solution,” a CEA spokesman said. “CEA continues to believe that its DCR+ proposal offers the best pathway to a competitive cable equipment marketplace, and will continue to advocate for such competition on behalf of its member companies.”