Digeo postponed the holiday 2007 retail launch of its Moxi Multi-Room HD DMR to 2008, CEO Mike Fidler said. “While we are certainly disappointed about this, we want to make sure our first entry into the retail space is one that delivers the best consumer high-definition entertainment experience possible,” Fidler said. “We are really excited about the new developments we are building into the Moxi Menu and the advanced hardware platforms we have chosen for both the Moxi Multi-Room and Moxi Home Cinema HD DMRs.” Though “using the latest and greatest technology means the consumer gets a more future-proofed product, it also requires a little more work,” Fidler 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.
Sony hasn’t announced U.S. plans for the 11-inch OLED TV it just launched in Japan, but the product could arrive stateside this year, Sony Electronics President Stan Glasgow told a New York media briefing Thursday. “I'll leave it at that,” he said.
“Product development considerations and timing” persuaded Panasonic to leave DVD-Audio playback capability out of its new DMP-BD30 Blu-ray player (CED Oct 31 p1), Vice President Gene Kelsey confirmed Thursday. The DMP-BD10, which the DMP-BD30 will replace when it arrives at retail the week of Nov. 12, did have DVD-Audio capability, Kelsey said. Panasonic remains committed to DVD-Audio, though it wishes there was more software available, and nothing precludes it from building DVD-Audio capability back into future Blu-ray models, Kelsey said. But for the DMP-BD30, Panasonic wanted to concentrate on its video processing capability and was intent on getting the product to retail for the holiday selling season, Kelsey said.
The NTIA is “telling everyone that coupons will be distributed in early 2008,” a spokesman told us Thursday. He spoke in response to Best Buy Senior Vice President Mike Vitelli’s urging, in Wednesday House Telecom Subcommittee testimony, that the agency tell consumers requesting coupons Jan. 1 not to expect them until April 1 (CED Nov 1 p1). The NTIA “will send coupons to households that request coupons when we know that retailers near them have converters available,” the spokesman said.
HOLLYWOOD -- National Treasure 2 will be Disney’s first Blu-ray title with Profile 1.1 picture-in-picture interactivity, Buena Vista Home Entertainment President Bob Chapek told us in an interview Tuesday at the Blu-ray Festival. It’s due on Blu-ray the first half of next year, Chapek said. “We haven’t announced a date, and I won’t announce a date until the theatrical release is done,” Chapek said.
Since the Blu-ray release of Bruce Springsteen with the Sessions Band: Live in Dublin, viewers have questioned the quality of the concert video, saying it looks more like SD or VHS than the MPEG-4/AVC-H.264 HD averaging 25 to 30 Mbps data rate as claimed on the packaging. To our eyes, the video appears soft, grainy and dingy -- although the titles, credits and other material that overlay the beginning of the video are sharp and clear, and the surround audio is fine. The video was shot in HD with nine cameras, as the label says, but the video quality “is as the artist wanted,” said Adam Sosinsky, vice president of new technology at Sony BMG Music Entertainment. Springsteen wanted granularity added to give the product a more analog feeling in keeping with the theme of the music, Sosinsky told Consumer Electronics Daily at this week’s “Blu-ray Festival” in Hollywood. A lot of first impressions are that the video in Live in Dublin is too dark, Sosinsky said. Springsteen wanted a lot of grain introduced into the product, which largely accounts for impressions that the footage was shot in SD, he said. Many artists want a Blu-ray to look as if you're in the theater with the artist, Sosinsky said, while others want it to be as close to the digital master as can be. In the case of Live in Dublin, Springsteen wanted the HD master to be grainy, and so was happy that the Blu-ray was faithful to the master. “That’s Springsteen,” Sosinsky said, saying he has met the performer. Springsteen won’t even pass on an audio-only CD recording until after he has played in a CD boombox to hear how listeners will hear it, Sosinsky told us.
Best Buy thinks it will be ready to accept DTV coupons closer to April 1 than Jan. 1, when consumers may begin requesting them from the government, Senior Vice President Mike Vitelli told a House Telecom Subcommittee hearing Wednesday. That’s when the chain expects its point-of-sale systems to have been modified and “thoroughly tested” for coupon redemptions, Vitelli said.
CENTURY CITY, Calif. -- “Consumer choice is where it’s at, and consumer choice is with Blu-ray,” Mike Dunn, Fox Home Entertainment president, told a “Blu-ray Festival” media briefing Monday on the Fox Studios lot. Blu-ray movies are outselling HD DVDs two-to-one and have been since March -- as Fox predicted they would at the 2007 CES, Dunn said.
“Technology favors Blu-ray,” which is why the Home Theater Specialists of America endorsed the format over HD DVD, HTSA Director David Berman told a “Blu-ray Festival” media briefing Monday in Hollywood. Blu-ray’s capacity advantage over HD DVD explains why so many CE companies have invested in the format when it would have cost them little to back HD DVD, Berman said. HTSA has 62 retail members with 100 total storefronts, Berman said. They average $8.5 million in annual sales and 37.2 percent in gross margin, he said. HTSA polled members and found 92 percent of their next-generation product sales were Blu-ray players, Berman said. Of the rest, most involved LG’s dual-format player, he said. Blu-ray hasn’t locked up the format war because “traditional retail is misinformed” or lacks access to the accurate information that HTSA members have, he said. Customers walking into a mass merchant see an HD DVD player at $199 and are dissuaded from buying a Blu-ray deck because it costs three times as much, he said. “They need a catalystic reason” why they should buy Blu-ray, Berman said.
Strong sales in electronics -- especially Bravia LCD TVs, Vaio PCs and Cybershot digital cameras -- helped Sony post a $641 million net profit Q2 on 12.3 percent revenue growth to $18.1 billion, the company said Thursday. But Sony’s games business was a drag on earnings due to high PS3 costs.