Audio Video News

Pioneer buying NEC Plasma: NEC announced Friday Feb 6 that it would sell its plasma display panel (PDP) manufacturing business to Pioneer. NEC plans to concentrate its efforts on "network solutions and semiconductors," according to the announcement. The deal, estimated by Japanese analysts at about $379 million, could make Pioneer the dominant player in the hot plasma display market. The company projects that its PDP market share will rise from 14% to 22% as a result.

High-density DVDs—which would almost double the capacity of today's standard 4.7Gbyte discs—could become commonplace with the advent of dual-layer DVD burners. Such devices are being introduced by several manufacturers and should begin to arrive at retailers in May.

TDK and Blu-ray: Blank-media giant TDK has officially endorsed Blu-ray technology, according to an April 5 report out of the CeBIT technology show in Hanover, Germany. TDK is the latest to join the Blu-ray contingent, following Hewlett-Packard and Dell Computer. The 50-gigabyte capacity of Blu-ray discs will accommodate feature-length high-definition video programming and recording. TDK's contribution will make the 5" discs more user-friendly by eliminating a proposed "disc caddy."

DTV sales soar: Digital television products are flying off the shelves, according to statistics presented by the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) at the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) convention held in Las Vegas in mid-April. Shipments of DTV products increased more than 124% in January and February of this year, compared to the same period in 2003, reaching a total of $1.3 billion in revenue. During the two months, 853,443 DTV units went from factories to dealers. More than 9.73 million DTV products—defined as "integrated sets and monitors displaying active vertical scanning lines of at least 480p"—have been sold since 1998, CEA spokesmen stated.

Sony's turnaround plan: The electronics giant has initiated an ambitious plan to achieve a 10% profit margin by March 2007, the company stated in a news conference on May 19. Key product lines in the program include flat-panel television sets and DVD recorders. Sony is in possible buyout discussions with US film studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Inc., a move that could significantly affect the corporate bottom line for years to come. Rumored price for the studio and its 4000+ library of titles is $5 billion.

ClearPix in the clear? On July 21, the US House of Representatives Judiciary Subcommittee voted 18-9 in favor of the "Family Movie Act." Passage by the full House, Senate, and President would free manufacturers of DVD filtering technology (such as ClearPlay, Inc.) from legal consequences as a result of violating movie industry copyrights. ClearPlay and other companies offering "clean up" technology for feature films have been criticized by members of the Directors Guild of America for violating the sanctity of cinematic art.

DirecTV in the north: On August 13, DirecTV Group Inc. has received clearance from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to move one of its satellites into an orbital slot controlled by Telesat Canada, a move that will expand DirecTV's reach to an additional 24 markets. The El Sugundo, CA–based satellite service should soon be serving as many as 130 markets, and could add as many as 7 million new customers to its existing base of 13 million. The company's new Canadian service should be in full operation by early October.