Substantial cash bonuses and stock options for 2005 were granted DTS CEO Jon Kirchner and other senior executives, the company said in an 8-K filing at the SEC. Each share option has an exercise price of $18.32, DTS’s closing price Feb. 23, when the options were granted, the filing said. The options vest in 25% installments on the first 4 grant anniversaries and have a 10-year term, it said. Kirchner received the largest cash bonus, $160,000, of the 6 executives listed. He got options on 67,000 shares and 16,500 restricted shares. Kirchner stands in 2006 to gain a 100% target bonus and 150% maximum bonus based on his $350,000 base salary, the filing said.
LG Wed. said it’s removing the 71W and 62W LCoS rear- projection TVs from its 2006 product plans, at least temporarily, blaming uncertainty surrounding the production status of parts procurement from microdisplay supplier SpatiaLight.
The first microdisplay-based projection TVs incorporating a new Philips “enabling lamp” technology is poised for mass-market introduction this month, Philips said. The technology, called “Vidi,” generates increased brightness and enhanced contrast through a series of electronic “pulses,” Philips said. Projection sets incorporating Vidi are capable of a 25-30% brightness boost compared with models lacking the feature, it said. A Philips spokesman said the Vidi name was coined by combining the words “video” and “digital,” since the technology “rightly addresses the digital video projection market.” It was “purely coincidental” that Philips applied the same name to content protection technology approved by the FCC for the broadcast flag mandate, he said. That technology, which Philips co- developed with Hewlett-Packard, has been renamed the Video Content Protection System (CED Aug 5/04 p1). It’s designed for use with DVD+RW recorders. It enables consumers to record DTV programs but prevents content coded with the broadcast flag from being retransmitted over the Internet without authorization.
The first 13 Blu-ray movie titles will hit the streets May 23 from Sony Pictures and Lionsgate to support Samsung’s launch the same day of the first commercially available Blu- ray player, it was announced Mon.
There’s nothing nefarious about Toshiba disclaimers that its first HD DVD players may require firmware upgrades for full interactivity (CED Feb 24 p1), Mark Knox, spokesman for Toshiba’s HD DVD Promotion Group, told Consumer Electronics Daily.
Toshiba keeps tripping over itself as it tries to explain whether its first-generation HD DVD players will support full interactivity from launch or will require firmware upgrades.
As Toshiba Wed. made its first N.Y.C. stop in a 40-city road tour promoting HD DVD’s imminent introduction, the firm issued a one-page clarification reaffirming that its initial HD-XA1 and HD-A1 decks will support “advanced navigation” and interactivity from “Day One.”
Pierce (Jack) Roberts’s resignation Thurs. from the XM board overshadowed impressive company gains in revenue and subscribers in Q4 and annual results. At the same time, as XM spent heavily in the quarter to counter Howard Stern’s Jan. 9 debut at rival Sirius, XM subscriber acquisition costs (SACs) and costs per gross addition (CPGA) took significant hits.
DTS remains “consistently optimistic” Blu-ray and HD DVD will “get off the ground this year and will accelerate as we get into the latter half of the year and into 2007,” CEO Jon Kirchner told analysts Mon. in the company’s 4th- quarter conference call. Even so, the company’s expectations for 2006 revenue from the next-generation formats are"extremely modest,” Kirchner said: “Much of our year doesn’t depend on that revenue, but I think the important thing is getting off the ground as we head towards the holiday buying season, the latter half of the year, with a reasonable sampling of products and content and at very attractive price points.” He said DTS came away from CES “very encouraged” about Toshiba’s opening $499 price on its HD DVD player, due to reach store shelves late next month. “I think that will help the market move forward in a bigger way,” Kirchner said. He resisted an analyst’s attempt to get him to handicap a format-war winner by year-end. “We are agnostic in the market,” he replied: “I think the one thing like everybody else is we would prefer to see less customer confusion, whichever way it goes. And I think there is credible support lining up behind the formats.” He said he believes a lot more will be known about the outcome of the battle as Q4 approaches. Asked what to watch for in measuring the progress of the Blu-ray and HD DVD launches, Kirchner said: “The first things are, people need to get to market with a reasonable initial product offering. That is, a few player models from both camps being out there at sensible price points, and that I think is something to watch because it is important.” As fall approaches, a 2nd development to “focus on” is how many more hardware models emerge from a wider base of manufacturers, Kirchner said. Additionally, he said, “you want to watch the game platform space because Sony has a lot riding on its introduction of the PS3,” which will have Blu-ray functionality and is due in the spring. Citing independent forecasts that Sony will ship 7-10 million PS3s they year they're introduced, Kirchner said: “I would say watching those numbers makes sense because obviously they're going to be a leading indicator as to how successful that format is, as well as what the penetration is likely to be for content.” Assuming there’s a “reasonable” base of Blu-ray and HD DVD hardware available by Q4, there could be software titles collectively could number in the “low 100s as you approach holiday time, if our experience with DVD is any indicator,” Kirchner said: “From there I think the studios have the capacity to ramp up on this, provided that the production capacity exists at the replicators. They are going to sensibly track their title output to the installation base to try to maximize the revenue that can come from these formats.”
LG is “working hard to make sure we have not only the most cost-effective approach” to DTV converters under the new DTV transition law’s subsidy provisions (CED Feb 9 p1), but also “one that provides value to the consumer and the best reception performance possible,” Vp John Taylor told us. LG got the tap from MSTV and NAB, along with Thomson, to develop a prototype low-cost converter box. “This is not a high-end box by any means,” Taylor said. “It doesn’t output high definition. It doesn’t include a DVR. It doesn’t include a DVD. Just the basics.” LG believes the $50 box it’s designing for MSTV and NAB will qualify for the $40 voucher program, even if it includes a PSIP-based “simple” electronic program guide, because it’s “very cost-effective to implement,” Taylor said. “It’s a necessity in today’s multichannel digital world to have a simple navigation device. It’s not a full-blown Gemstar guide, nor does it need to be. When you look at the growing number of multicast channels, we think this is just an important component of the overall package. We call it a low-end, affordable approach.” LG hasn’t yet shown a final prototype to MSTV or NAB, but the company has met all the “development timelines” and plans to complete the project this year, Taylor said: “As Thomson has said, we believe our approach also will serve as a benchmark for the industry -- a reference design, if you will -- against which others can build to assure these set-top boxes provide the level of performance that will serve dealers but also give broadcasters the confidence that their signal is getting through.” Taylor said: “There are plenty of things in the box that aren’t mentioned in the legislation. It’s going to have the V-chip. It’s going to have closed captioning. It’s going to have all the basic things that you have to have with an ATSC receiver not only to be lawful, but to provide utility.” Asked if the 37.5 million $40 vouchers covered by the law’s $1.5 billion allocation will suffice for all households that need them, Taylor said no one knows for sure how many boxes will be needed. With the FCC’s requirement that all TVs shipped after March 1, 2007, must have ATSC tuning, Taylor said, “many of these analog TVs out there that might otherwise require an adapter are just going to be replaced, so the overall population of sets requiring these adapters will shrink by the time they're needed. That being said, there also will be, I think, many American consumers who will not take advantage of the subsidy program. And frankly there will be other products out there that will be well outside of the scope of the subsidy program. There will be those who want to spend not $50, but $100 or $200 for a more full-featured device that does other things.” The $40 voucher is “a good starting place, and I don’t want to sound negative at all about it,” Taylor said. “It’s a program that will help complete this transition in a smooth manner. We're excited that there is a definitive hard date -- that 2009 is something we can all work toward and make sure that consumers are not disenfranchised.”