Sony’s decision to phase out its Qualia brand (CED Jan 27 p1) seems to have caught some retailers we polled by surprise, though a Sony spokesman said Qualia accounts were told of the action just before CES in “written and direct communications.” Several accounts we canvassed reported getting a Qualia 46W LED-based LCD TV ($15,000) within the past 60 days, while at the same time they've moved to sell off remaining inventory of LCoS-based Qualia 70W rear projection TVs.
Sony said it rode its Bravia LCD TV line to post record 3rd-quarter revenue, but the company also took tough restructuring steps to restore long-term profitability in key categories. Among casualties of the restructuring Sony disclosed Thurs. is that new product development in its high-end Qualia series already has stopped. A “gradual termination of production and sales” will follow, the company said. The phaseout schedule will vary by region, but after-sales support will continue, Sony said.
One format emerging the “clear winner” over the other is but one of 3 “possibilities” Netflix sees as likely in the Blu-ray/HD DVD battle, CEO Reed Hastings told analysts on the company’s quarterly conference call Tues. A 2nd likely scenario is that CE makers build players compatible with both formats and the other is that studios publish content in dual formats, much as game publishers do for PS2 and Xbox, Hastings said.
Microsoft figured prominently in the FCC’s decision last year to extend the integration ban to July 2007 when it switched sides and joined cable in urging the deadline extension for the development of a downloadable conditional access system (CED March 18 p1). But Microsoft since has been strangely silent on DCAS, nor did it file comments at the FCC pro or con reacting to NCTA’s Nov. 30 progress report in which it said a DCAS was feasible and will be ready to deploy nationally by July 2008. But Microsoft remains “very much engaged with all parties” in the DCAS debate, a spokeswoman told Consumer Electronics Daily. Microsoft is reviewing the NCTA report as well as the comments filed last Fri. “to determine an appropriate response,” she said. Replies in the docket (97-80) are due Feb. 6. Meanwhile, MPAA, weighing in on the NCTA report, told the FCC it has been involved in talks with CableLabs to improve the content protection available for the DCAS technology and license. MPAA and CableLabs already have reached agreement on several important issues, such as incorporating a “redistribution control trigger” bit in the specs and explicit rules for generating CGMS-A signaling to fill the analog hole. More talks are planned to discuss additional issues, including improvements in the DCAS robustness rules and further steps to address the analog hole problem, MPAA said. Verizon also submitted comments in which it agreed “in principle” with the NCTA that downloadable conditional access “presents distinct advantages over other methods of separating security and non-security functions in leased set-top devices and other devices offered at retail by consumer electronics manufacturers.” However, Verizon, like others (CED Jan 24 p1) said it’s unable to fully evaluate the NCTA proposal because it has no access to the DCAS requirements document currently being developed. Moreover, “to the extent that the DCAS proposal is crafted to meet cable-centric technological standards,” Verizon said, it would “present a framework that would unfairly and unnecessarily advantage the traditional cable companies over new entrants that use alternative technologies to deliver video services.”
CEA and its members “view skeptically” cable’s prediction that its proposed downloadable conditional access system (DCAS) is feasible and will be ready to deploy nationally by July 2008 (CED Dec 5 p2), they said. In comments on NCTA’s Nov. 30 DCAS progress report, CEA urged the FCC to evaluate cable’s findings in that report with a similarly critical eye.
Radio group members of the HD Digital Radio Alliance filled in many blanks Thurs. on plans to roll out HD2 multicasts in 28 markets as a bid to take terrestrial digital HD Radio technology mainstream (CED Jan 19 p1).
Launch of the first commercial-free “HD2” multicasts is expected within days, the HD Digital Radio Alliance said Wed., listing the first 28 markets that will participate. About 264 HD2 multicast channels spanning a wide diversity of music and talk formats have been created, said the Alliance, formed last month by top radio group owners to infuse terrestrial HD Radio with cash and promotional power in an aggressive bid to take the technology mainstream (CED Dec 7 p2).
Members of the NAB’s Audio Broadcast Flag Task Force will begin meeting with their recording industry counterparts to hash out content protection for terrestrial digital HD Radio. It isn’t known how long a compromise will take, but the NAB and RIAA already have agreed to take off the table a proposal to encrypt the digital content at the source.
Sony Electronics (SEL) doesn’t endorse CableLabs’ OpenCable Application Platform (OCAP) or related efforts, despite “certain misrepresentations” to the contrary made in an NCTA ex parte filing Dec. 23 at the FCC, the company told the Commission in a letter. NCTA’s ex parte listed SEL among companies that had signed an OpenCable intellectual property rights (IPR) declaration or participated in OpenCable engineering change request (ECR) meetings. But SEL said its only purpose for participating in the OpenCable ECR process has been to change the OCAP specification “in ways that would permit the retail availability of multi-function consumer electronics products that can receive bi-directional cable programming.” SEL believes OCAP, “in its current form, does not meet this goal,” the company said. But the OpenCable ECR process “is the only avenue available to interested parties to suggest changes to OCAP,” SEL said. SEL signed the OpenCable Contribution Agreement, which includes the IPR declaration, because it was required for participation in the joint CEA-NCTA technical working group, the company said. SEL said it “protested having to sign” the agreement, “but was told it would be excluded” from the working group meetings if it refused to do so. That SEL participated in the OpenCable ECR proceedings and signed the Contribution Agreement should be taken by the FCC “as evidence that SEL is dedicated to fixing what it considers to be the flaws in OCAP,” the company said: The Commission shouldn’t interpret either action “as an endorsement of OCAP as it now exists, or the process by which CableLabs has controlled the development of the OCAP specification to date.”
“Speed to market” and “speed to volume” will become much-repeated phrases in RadioShack’s strategy to reverse 4th-quarter sales results that were disappointing on many fronts, senior executives told analysts in a conference call Thurs. CEO Dave Edmondson pledged RadioShack’s senior management would move “more boldly and quickly than we have in the past” to respond to market trends and make the chain’s product assortment more “contemporary.”