We started at the rear of the hotel where we discovered TAD (Technical Audio Devices), a company that, for the past 28 years, has focused only on the pro audio market. It has decided to brave the home audio market and, for the past three years, has been developing a statement loudspeaker that…
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The Consumer Electronics Show (CES) officially opened today and we spent our time at the Alexis Park noticing even more exhibitors than last year. On hand were plenty of new products, companies, and high-rez software demos. Multichannel demos were in heard in several rooms—all to good effect.
A few years ago, when media pundits began discussing the possible ramifications of 500 channels of television, the concept of "narrowcasting" quickly became the buzzword du jour. The idea was that programming in the future would be aimed at increasingly better-defined markets. Rather than an all-sports channel, an astute broadcaster would operate multiple channels devoted to individual sports: an all-basketball channel, for example, or round-the-clock motor sports. Advertising tailored for a tightly defined market might prove more efficient than its shotgun-effect equivalent.
Television…
As promised earlier in January, Warner Music Group has announced a major restructuring that it hopes will put it in better shape to compete in the "challenging business environment of today's music industry." The move comes after the recent closing of WMG's $2.6 billion acquisition by Edgar Bronfman, Jr. and a group of investors.
Key elements of the restructuring include the consolidation of several business divisions within the Elektra Entertainment Group and The Atlantic Group labels, including the legal and business affairs, finance, and label sales units. Elektra's chairwoman Sylvia…
Alleged unauthorized copying of compact discs will cost Technicolor, Inc. approximately $2.3 million. On March 26, the Southern California disc replicator agreed to settle a case brought against it last year by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), in which the RIAA charged that workers at one of Technicolor's disc plants had made and distributed batches of illegal copies. The total of the settlement was less than 10% of the amount originally sought by the RIAA.
Technicolor is one of the entertainment industry's oldest and most trusted sources for media replication.…
The British Library vs DRM: The BBC reported February 3 that Dr Clive Field, the British Library's director of scholarships and collections, called the increasing restrictions of fair use by digital rights management (DRM) cause for concern.
Restrictive DRM technologies are designed to prevent the public from illegally "sharing" digital media. However, many librarians and other observers point out that they also prevent legitimate uses currently deemed appropriate, such as "fair use" and "library privilege." (Libraries are granted access to and the rights to copy and distribute content by…
No, you aren't reading an old newsdesk article that has inadvertently been published a second (or third) time. On March 2, congressional representative Mike Ferguson (R-NJ) introduced House Resolution 4861, "the audio broadcast licensing act of 2006." Ferguson's co-sponsors were Edolphus Towns (D-NY), Mary Bono (R-CA), Bart Gordon (D-TN), and Marsha Blackburn (R-TN).
Ferguson invoked piracy as the rationale behind his resolution. "With exciting new digital audio devices on the market today and more on the horizon, Congress needs to streamline the deployment of digital services and protect…
When CDs were becoming popular, Neil Young made no secret of his disdain for the sound of digital. Interviews from the period quoted him as saying that the sound "left him cold," and he would rather listen to an LP, thank you very much. To this day, his new CD releases also appear on vinyl, but with the advent of DVD-Audio, sampling and quantization rates have improved—enough, apparently for Mr. Young's approval.
On December 5, Warner Reprise Video will be releasing Young's Red Rocks Live, a concert performance video from two shows performed in September, 2000, at the Red Rocks…
While it's not exactly a stampede just yet, a small dust cloud is rising as several consumer-electronics manufacturers head toward the Internet to sell products. Last week, citing the need to "maintain the highest quality customer service in the new e-commerce era," Denon Electronics joined the online sales herd. In an effort to keep track of e-commerce vendors, the company has announced that it will establish a separate authorization agreement for retailers handling Denon and/or Mission products on the Internet.
Denon's Stephen Baker states that "E-commerce is an exciting new frontier…
Responding to scrutiny by federal legislators, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is backing away from the pursuit of small-scale copyright violators. After issuing more than 1000 subpoenas against alleged music pirates, the trade group announced on August 18 that it would go after only big fish in its efforts to contain the file-sharing epidemic.
The announcement was included in a response to an inquiry begun by Senator Norm Coleman (R-MN), chairman of the Senate Governmental Affairs' Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. Describing the RIAA's mass litigation as "…
Audiophiles cringe at the idea of downloading blurry, compressed representations of once-detailed recordings (even CD seems high-rez these days). But that hasn't stopped average music fans from trying online music services.
New findings from Ipsos-Insight's quarterly Tempo study of digital music behaviors reveal that in July of 2004, more than one-third (35%) of American downloaders aged 12 and older had paid a fee to download music or MP3 files off the Internet, a roughly 50% increase over levels witnessed in late 2003 (the figure was 22% in December 2003).
The researchers point out…