By Andrew Shapiro

One of the things both our industrial clients and our entertainment clients have in common is an increase in the amount of content they need to send abroad. Establishing a foothold for your business in an international market or making sure your latest nature special gains as much revenue as possible form the European market are both excellent reasons to consider producing replication runs for overseas consumers. The only down side, in fact, is the confusing array of standards and compatibility issues that can arise when leaving the USA. Lets take a look at the major considerations in some depth: Read the full story

Thoughts from the Austin Game Developers Conference

With the phenomenal growth of the video gaming market over the last few years, many of us have turned our attention to this area of the business looking for new opportunities. To that end, and in the interests of educating myself a little more about the gaming industry, I recently attended the Austin Game Developers Conference, the smaller of two events held every year that bring together game developers, publishers and of course the vendors who supply the tools of the trade – because somebody has to pick up the tab for all those wonderful Tex-Mex meals. Read the full story

As with DVD, enabling independent producers can help drive the growth of the BD market.

Technology providers for the entertainment industry often refer to market “tiers” – Tier 1 is typically Hollywood; Tier 2 is outside Hollywood. Tier 1 is smaller, but more influential. To be successful, you need to garner at least one Tier 1 customer, because then you can attract Tier 2 customers. If you’re lucky, then you make it to the broader market of Tier 3: the pro-sumers, amateurs and wannabees. Or so the theory goes. Read the full story

There’s a lot of money to be made in “free” music…

We know all about the Long Tail, but what about the Short Nose? The front end, whether it belongs to a car or a consumer, is the place where the first impact generally takes place, where the nature of the experience is determined. Western content companies have had mixed results with their encounters with the digital front end. Their obsession with monitoring and monetizing every pixel and audio sample has led to a misplacement of priorities that has hobbled the evolution of their business models into fully digital economics. Read the full story

PROCEDURE TO CREATE A ‘DDP ARCHIVE’ DISC MASTER WITH COPY PROTECTION ‘ENABLED’ FOR SUBMISSION TO CREATE A GLASS MASTER AND STAMPER WITH COPY PROTECTION ‘ACTIVATED.’

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