e*newsMagazine for the Media Manufacturing Industry Industry.news p2 Business.news p3 Association.news p4 Expo.special p5 May 8, 2006 www.media-tech.net Introduction Frankfurt - an Expo and so much more Looking ahead The Expo in Frankfurt will be an exciting and the delegates. At a time when business is The Expo in Frankfurt is less than event. Reports from the exhibitors is that there just beginning to revive, the exhibition, the party, a month away and like yourselves, is going to be lot of new product for driving the Daily magazine, the comprehensive seminar/ we are working hard here on the forward CD and DVD production and, of course, workshop program are all there to make the Frank- preparations for the event. for Blu-ray and HD DVD. furt Expo an important event for you commercially, SPECIAL EDITION socially and for gathering information. The MEDIA- An important part of the Expo is Both the new formats will be well represented TECH Expo is being held at the Frankfurt Messe always the Association Meeting which on the floor of the Exhibition and in the work- on May 30 to June 1, 2006. is held the night before the opening shops and seminars. The active participation of the Full details at http://www.media-tech.net of the show and this year includes Blu-ray Disc Association, the DVD Forum and the elections for new Board Members. the HD DVD Promotion Group all point to the There are two positions open for elec- importance that the broader industry places on the tion or re-election. PR & Marketing Expo and the companies exhibiting there. Director, Sam Rajkovich is retiring from The drive from the MEDIA-TECH Association is to the Board and on behalf of all the make this a strong event for both the exhibitors members I‘d like to thank him for his support on the Board - it takes time and effort to be an active Board Member. Industry News The second board position to be voted on is for Vice President, held by Boude- HD DVD is here - officially wijn van Dijk. Boudewijn has brought much to the Association in his first The first wave of next-generation of optical The players predictably sold out quickly in the term on the Board and under the disc has been formally launched US as first adopters made a beeline for the small Association‘s rules is required to be number of Best Buy, Sears, Wal-Mart, Costco re-elected to continue contributing to HD DVD made its real debut into the US market and Tweeters stores that were allocated units. the Association. In all, there are six in the middle of April when Toshiba released its It is estimated that in total between 10,000 and members who have put their names HD DVD players into the retail chain. This follows 15,000 of the $500 HD-A1 and the $800 HD-AX1 forward to help drive the Association the launch in Japan a couple of weeks earlier were shipped to the US for the launch. Best Buy onwards and you can see who‘s who where the players were supplied with two comple- were able to support the hardware launch with a on page 5. So the Association meeting mentary movies. limited number of HD DVD movie titles. Around is an important opportunity for you 12 were available including Serenity, Million as a Member, not only find out more Dollar Baby, Phantom of the Opera, Apollo 13 about the latest developments in the and The Last Samurai, all being sold slightly Association, but also to have your say discounted at US3$30. Toshiba‘s production of on the future direction and who you players is expected to ramp up quickly now want to drive that future. with the expectation that it will be able to ship Bryan Ekus up to 700,000 units within the first year. BD Managing Director player launches are also expected shortly with MEDIA-TECH Association a number of companies saying they will start supply in May/June. [ e*news – Magazine for the Media Manufacturing Industry ] p1 Industry.news p2 e*news BD and HD DVD authoring gets software boost Sonic Solutions has formally launched The software systems have been in development title releases and create a better understanding its high-definition authoring and encoding for some time as Sonic Solutions used its of the interactive features offered by both systems, Scenarist 4 and CineVisio, to substantial DVD authoring user base to contribute formats. The HDAA activities include training and enable major motion picture studios to to the development of the high-def software. seminars, and are focused in three geographical begin the rollout of Blu-ray Disc and Sonic Solutions formalised this process in 2005 centres: Burbank, California; London, England and HD DVD commercial titles. under the High Definition Authoring Alliance Tokyo, Japan. (HDAA), creating an association of top authoring Sonic further expanded the HDAA to include an Scenarist 4 offers complete support for and post-production facilities around the globe. Advisory Group which includes computer and HDMV (Movie Mode) and BD-J Blu-ray The existence of the HDAA and their access consumer electronic manufacturers such Sony, Disc authoring in addition to Standard to pre-release versions of Scenarist 4 and CineVisio Samsung, Pioneer, LG, Mitsubishi and dts so that and Advanced Content HD DVD authoring. has helped the industry move to commercial there is some interaction between the authoring CineVision is Sonic‘s high-quality encoding technologies and the hardware that will be workstation which gives control over all used to play the discs back in the consumer‘s three HD video codes: AVC/H.264, VC-1, homes. This should ensure that there is a clearer and MPEG-2. understanding of the practical demands that the authoring places on the playback equipment. Industry News Industry News Industry News Blu-ray media debut Cinram ships HD DVD Factory CD-R prices to rise? TDK has started shipping both Some of the first commercial HD DVDs are With manufacturing capacity rapidly shifting recordable and rewritable BD media starting to hit the market are being produced from CD-R to DVD-R, reports are that the into the US market. by Cinram, which has shipped titles, which ex-factory CD-R prices are set to rise for the include Million Dollar Baby and The Last first time as demand outstrips supply. The 25GB BD-R recordable media has Samurai to U.S. retailers. been developed using an inorganic Reports from the Taiwanese, Chinese and Indian copper-silicon write layer, separating The shipment of the HD DVD titles coincides with producers indicate a $0.01 rise in prices taking the technology from traditional organic the launch of the HD DVD format players into the Taiwanese product into the US$0.13-0.14 region dyes used for CD-R and DVDR. The U.S. retail market. The discs have been produces with the China/India product being supplied BD-RE discs can be written at 2x speed at Cinram‘s Olyphant facility in Pennsylvania, typically at $0.02 less. With no planned additional (72Mbps) and can be overwritten where Cinram has worked closely with HD DVD production coming on stream, and demand also 10,000 times says TDK. Both discs types developers to perfect the disc production process. remaining stable, prices are likely to be hold for use the Durabis 2 scratch resistant Cinram says that it intends to extend production the immediate future. surface so that they avoid the neces- to its other plants around the world. sity of a cartridge. Prices have been set at $20 for the BD-R and $25 for the BD-RE. The next product releases from Industry News TDK will be dual layer 50GB versions priced at US$48 for the BD-R and New DVD variants for industrial apps $60 for the BD-RE and the company is currently working on quad layer and 6x DVD continues to develop into new applications write speed versions. Panasonic, CMC with Hitachi Maxell leveraging the basic and Ritek also have plans to release technology to produce super capacity 940GB BD media over the next few months cartridges for mass storage applications. with the late Autumn being a likely release period. Hitachi Maxell‘s new variant has a thickness of 92 micrometers, around 1/13th the thickness The stacked volumetric optical discs (SVOD) is of a standard DVD. 100 of these super-thin aimed at corporate industrial and medical sector double-sided discs are loaded into a single data users who need to store large amounts of data at cartridge creating a high-capacity removable a relatively low cost. The cartridges are expected archive storage system which still measures to cost around US$350 and come onto the market only 65 mm thick. early in 2007. [ e*news – Magazine for the Media Manufacturing Industry ] p2 Business.news p3 e*news Warner‘s DVD price drop to combat China pirates Warner Home Video is trying a new boxes and are complete with all the extras that tactic to combat the massive Chinese are seen on the standard international releases domestic pirate DVD market by intro- and that currently sell at 35 Rmb. ducing no-frills versions of movies at With a number of secure replication ventures prices that compete head on with the now serving the Chinese markets, the studios are pirate market. looking at ways to expand their DVD business in the area. At previous conferences in China, A basic DVD movie will sell at Rmb12 studio representatives have noted that whilst the ($1.50) in a simple card sleeve.