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Blackmagic Design Inc. manufactures video cards and converters for the post production and television broadcast industries. The Multibridge, DeckLink and Intensity family of products have revolutionized the post production industry and made HDTV more affordable. And now the company has announced a new, lower price for their award winning Multibridge Eclipse video editing solution for high end post production and broadcast industries. This price reduction was made possible due to reduced cost in manufacturing the product in the company’s new manufacturing facility, and the savings are being passed along to customers—San Jose, California
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A new video technology is en route from Atlanta from a company called Clearleap. Sure, you’ve heard this all before… however, the technology has definitely caught the attention of Trinity Ventures of Menlo Park, California, and Noro-Moseley Partners of Atlanta, as all parties have now closed the first round of venture capital funding to the tune of 9M/USD. Trinity Venture’s General Partner Fred Want and Alan J. Taetle, General Partner at Noro-Moseley Partners, have been named to the company’s Board of Directors. Clearleap develops and markets technologies to expand consumer options for “what’s on TV” and they work with video content owners as well as satellite, cable and IPTV companies.
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Equinix, Inc. is providing Hulu, with their Equinix Internet Business Exchange (IBX) centers for the delivery of Hulu’s free streaming service. Hulu offers a selection of hit shows, clips, movies, and more at Hulu.com and other destination sites online, including AOL, Comcast’s Fancast.com, MSN, MySpace and Yahoo! Hulu’s selection of premium programming is provided by leading content companies, including FOX, NBC Universal, MGM, Sony Pictures Television, Warner Bros. Television Group and many others. Hulu will use Equinix’s data center environment to directly connect with an aggregation of network service providers that link to end-users. Equinix’s centers offer immediate and direct access to a critical mass of leading carriers, ISPs, and network service providers within the same physical location. Equinix’s centers will also provide Hulu with a secure and redundant physical infrastructure with a strong track record of uptime. Power operations at each center include a high-performance backup system that guarantees uninterrupted power even in the event of utility power disruption. Security features include interlocking “mantrap” doors, multiple layers of biometric hand-geometry scanners controlling access, as well as 24-hour security officers and hundreds of surveillance cameras—Foster City, California
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Grid Networks builds tools for content management and distribution and offers a proprietary, peer-to-peer (P2P) system combined with conventional content delivery for reliability and lower operating costs. And, you probably did not know, that Cisco was a major investor in Grid Networks, investing 9.5M/USD during that firm’s Series A Funding from Panorama Capital last October. Then it should come as no surprise that Cisco is going to include Grid Network’s P2P software in their home net product lines. The GridCast client will be embedded into edge devices over the next year or so. To be phased out by Grid will be the Scientific Atlanta brand currently in use. Grid Networks is also working with some, or a few, satellite-, cable-type TV nets with production trials.
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The pay direct-to-home (DTH) TV industry is characterized by two broad growth patterns: maturing markets with decaying rates and high growth/emerging markets. So reports In-Stat in their latest research report. In mature markets, growth will come from premium services (HD and DVR/PVR), while emerging/high growth markets will experience a period of relatively robust subscriber acquisition. This will likely be followed by consolidation and a gradual decay in the growth rate, the high-tech market research firm says. Their research found the following: The growing number of premium services and related boxes are creating a favorable product mix with higher ASPs and DTH set-top box unit shipments in 2008 are expected to eclipse 80 million, growing to a peak of 83.5 million in 2010. The research, entitled “World Report on Digital Satellite Set-Top Boxes” (#IN0804064ME), covers the worldwide market for digital satellite set-top boxes. It provides worldwide and regional forecasts for unit shipments, average selling prices, and revenue by set-top type, including DVR and HD models, through 2012. It includes extensive analysis of regional markets, standards, distribution, and technologies. For more information on this research, or to purchase it online, please visit www.instat.com/catalog/mmcatalogue.asp?id=162.
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Marvel Studios has entered into its first basic cable distribution agreement with FX for the company’s self-produced movies. This is a five picture deal, and FX will have the rights to the studio’s upcoming feature films that include Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk, with the remaining films to be named at a later date. Iron Man is expected to arrive in theaters on May 2nd and The Incredible Hulk on June 13th. This agreement with FX does not include broadcast TV or Canadian rights or the second, free, TV window.
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A curious move by Microsoft… as they continue to develop Silverlight, the browser plug-in for their mobile phone technology, they have also just licensed Flash Lite and Reader software from Adobe. As Silverlight is not ready for prime time yet, this may have been a solid move to ensure mobile users can access Flash-ready entertainments and information on their mobile appliances immediately. One day, certainly, Silverlight and Flash will be competitors in what could be a crowded market place—for now, the Microsoft deal assists Adobe with their distribution goals.
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Satellite Information Services Ltd. has been selected as the preferred bidder for the Outside Broadcasts division of BBC Resources Ltd. The BBC announced SIS has been selected, following a rigorous evaluation process, which examined bids from financial and industry buyers. The BBC will transfer the staff and business to SIS later this year, including the fleet of television production units, plus
sound, support and communications vehicles and award winning special cameras. The transfer would mean that SIS will be covering major sporting events including the Beijing Olympics for BBC television in August. This brings together the largest OB provider in the United Kingdom with the operator of the biggest satellite uplink fleet in Europe and follows the recent announcement of the strategic alliance between SISLink, the broadcasting division of SIS, and Intelsat, the leading provider of fixed satellite services worldwide, which enabled SIS to gain access for the first time to the USA—London, United Kingdom
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At the McGraw-Hill Companies’ 2008 Media Summit in New York, held March 12th through 13th, the keynote speaker was Robert A. Iger, President and CEO of The Walt Disney Company. He had some rather interesting things to say… for example, the Disney deal with Apple‘s iTunes is a good business. Iger indicated more than 4 million movies have been sold in the past 1-1/2 years and, on the television streaming side, 40 to 50 million episodes have been purchased. According to Mr. Iger, it’s not that consumers are watching all of this content on their iPods, but are, rather, downloading these views in addition to watching them on TV. Cannibalization does not seem to be a problem for Disney and he sees electronic delivery growing with the technology and screen viewing improves. The Disney leader also stated the company sees the digital business as a revenue generator, with revenues from this section of their business to grow to between 750M/USD to 1B/USD during 2008, with the broadband-enabled computer becoming one of Disney’s major entertainment vehicles.
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Quite a milestone for OpenTV, as the company now has revealed more than 100 million OpenTV-enabled DSTBs (digital set-top boxes) and TVs have been deployed all over the world. This number beats the combined totals of Xbox, Xbox 360, Sony PS3 and Nintendo Wii devices since their launches. Plus, this is 8x the number of BlackBerrys that have been sold to date. Congrats—San Francisco, California
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User-generated video content for online consumption is, for the most part, asinine, save for the rare frames of video excellence that spark broadband connections. And advertisers have noted this as well… in fact, you may wish to read an extremely worthwhile article at TechNewsWorld’s online website bylined by Anick Jesdanun entitled “Advertisers Leery of User-Generated Video Content.” As millions flock to the web to make money with videos of shameful quality, few will manage to accomplish that goal. Quality user-generated online video content devoid of language most foul, nudity and criticism that would entice advertisers is rather rare…
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Viva Vision now has a partnership with Univision Móvil, which offers a comprehensive Spanish-language suite of mobile offerings. These include in-show wireless integrations, mobile video, WAP portals, PSMS programs and downloadable content catalog. Together, the companies will develop new mobile entertainment products for consumers in the U.S. Viva Vision has developed an entertainment slideshow application that displays popular images from Univision’s extensive content library to wireless handsets across the country. Their proprietary platform allows subscribers to pause, rewind, fast-forward, and save favorite images from the slideshow. The subscriber community also controls which content is featured by voting on its favorite images. The Univision Móvil slide-show product is currently available on Verizon Wireless, Alltel Wireless, Metro PCS, Claro Puerto Rico, and Centennial Puerto Rico, with new carriers to be announced soon—Los Angeles, California
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A port for Android? Yes, quite true—Webtide has just developed the first web and application server that has been designed specifically to operate on Google‘s Android mobile platform. This is a port of Jetty (an open-source web container) and is named i-Jetty for the Android open source software stack that also includes a full OS, middleware and key apps, all based on Linux and Java. This servlet from Webtide will allow users to modify and save changes, view and listen to multimedia files and to make phone calls. These features will provide users with the ability to access the information on their phones from more familiar web browsers. Google developed Android collectively as part of the Open Handset Alliance, which is comprised of a group of more than 30 mobile and technology companies working to open up the mobile handset environment. You’ll be able to glom onto i-Jetty via this link—Manhattan Beach, California
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