LAS VEGAS -- A broad group of retailers will begin taking preorders today (Fri.) for Sony’s first Blu-ray player, shipping to stores in July for availability to consumers 30-45 days later. The BDP-S1, at $999 MSRP, will have 1080p output for Blu-ray discs and also upscale legacy DVDs to 1080i through its HDMI connector, Sony executives told Consumer Electronics Daily at the company’s line show here Thurs.
Advanced Access Content System (AACS) language is set to be released in the next few days, requiring content owners to warn consumers when using the optional “image constraint token” (ICT) on Blu-ray or HD DVD discs, a spokesman for the AACS LA licensing authority told Consumer Electronics Daily.
The HD Audio-Video Network Alliance (HANA) is focused on “creating an entertainment network that will make it possible for all consumers to once again simply sit back and be entertained in their homes without having to become IT experts,” a spokesman said in reply to our query how it differs from the Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA) (CED March 8 p1). HANA “is not targeting the world of everything connected to everything,” said the spokesman, Bill Rose, an industry consultant. “Our goal is to provide our customers with access to all of their HD content from anywhere in the home, using one wire and one remote control. Our focus is on all consumers, not just the technically savvy. Our promise is the elimination of complex wiring, configuration and the need to download software.” HANA applauds the DLNA’s “ambitious plans for total convergence” and will provide the necessary guidelines and products to connect to DLNA networks as they become available, Rose said. However, HANA believes that for “entertainment systems to be entertaining, consumers demand simplicity,” he said. The group selected IEEE-1394 as a baseline “because we believe it provides the best solution to achieve that simplicity today,” he said. “HANA also believes that the right approach is to separate the PC-IT networking experience from the family’s entertainment systems. A single connection point between them will allow those consumers who want to include their PCs in their living room to be able to do so, but it is not a requirement.” Additionally, he said HANA counts content providers among its members, he said: “They need an environment that will enable them to provide their content securely and to provide it in a wide variety of ways based on their customers’ business plans and the consumers’ needs. Although the PC-IT industry has made great strides in security, it is clear that there is more to be done.” By comparison, isolating the connection between the PC network and the entertainment network enables HANA to provide “new and exciting models for enjoying content while providing the security content owners need,” Rose said. “We embrace connections to other networks but leave it to the content and service providers to determine if and when that connection is secure enough to meet their business models. DLNA’s goal is laudable and HANA looks forward to the day when they will deliver this level of simplicity across multiple industries and platforms. In the meantime, HANA will stay focused on entertainment -- and in particular high definition content -- delivered in a manner that everyone in the home can enjoy.
LA QUINTA, Cal. -- Blu-ray and HD DVD have the green light to commercialize products now that there’s an interim license on an Advanced Access Content System (AACS) -- the backbone of content protection for both formats. But it could take 6-12 months to complete the final AACS license agreement, MPAA Exec. Vp-CTO Brad Hunt told the IRMA Recording Media Forum here Sat.
LA QUINTA, Cal. -- Although the industry is soon to be “blessed with not just one, but 2 next-generation discs,” many on the Blu-ray side “made a significant attempt to avoid this situation,” Adrian Alperovich, exec. vp at Sony Pictures Home Entertainment (SPHE), told the IRMA Recording Media Forum in a keynote here Fri. But “sadly, there were others involved in the process who undermined this effort,” said Alperovich, who’s responsible at SPHE for international sales and worldwide business development.
Blockbuster swapped 2005 revenue growth for profitability to cope with one of the video rental industry’s most challenging years ever, the chain said Thurs., reporting Q4 and year-end financial results.
The MPEG-4-based AVC codec will become the mandatory media format for video interoperability in mobile devices under updates to the “home network device interoperability guidelines” announced Tues. by the Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA).
If Howard Stern had told CBS Radio in 2004 he was interested in jumping to Sirius when he was negotiating his contract with the satellite radio provider, it would have “pursued a satellite radio project jointly” with him. So says the 43-page suit filed last week against Sirius, Stern and Don Buchwald, Stern’s agent and manager, alleging unfair trade practices against Sirius and breach of contract against Stern and Buchwald, among other charges.
The audio flag bill introduced last week in the House to give the FCC authority to require content protections on digital radio (CED March 3 p4) is “a fundamental attack on traditional home taping practices that consumers have engaged in since the first analog cassette recorder reached the U.S. market in 1964, and the reel-to-reel recorder decades before,” Home Recording Rights Coalition Pres. Gary Shapiro said Fri. Like other RIAA-supported proposals, the bill isn’t just a “flag” proposal aimed at preventing mass redistribution of music over the Internet, Shapiro said. It gives the FCC “remote control over consumers’ right to engage in reasonable and customary ‘unauthorized’ recording, even in the privacy of their homes for noncommercial purposes,” he said: “Virtually all home recording is ‘unauthorized’ by copyright owners… But as the Supreme Court held in the Betamax case, that does not make it unlawful. Exercising their ‘fair use’ rights under the law, consumers have lawfully been making unauthorized tapes of music off the radio for more than 50 years.”
Replicator Cinram -- which produces DVDs for Fox, Lionsgate and Warner -- will have “sufficient capacity in place” for Blu-ray and HD DVD by early summer, “in time for any product launches,” COO David Rubenstein told analysts Fri. in a 4th-quarter earnings call.