TRADE NEWS HD DVD
TRADE NEWS HD DVD Announces Important New Developments at IFA In his IFA conference session, Ken Graffeo, Co-Chairman of the European HD DVD Promotional group, said 75% of Europe’s thriving independent film and TV production sector are releasing new titles on HD DVD. In total there will be around 400 by the end of 2007. “With new HD DVD releases from Pathé, Constantine, Studio Canal and our exclusive Hollywood partners Paramount and Dreamworks, we are able to offer a range of topflight tiles.” All five Harry Potter films are due out this quarter alongside the three Bourne Ultimatums, Blade Runner, Shrek, The Matrix and Oceans 11 to 13, plus popular TV series like Heroes, Battlestar Galactica and the original Star Trek. “HD DVD offers an increasingly sophisticated online element which facilitates personalization, access to discussion forums and features such as the voting system for the issues raised by Blood Diamonds. HD DVD also enables clipediting, interactive games and up to 300 extra features on any given disc,” Graffeo said. “And while we all know that there is fierce competition between HD DVD and Blu-ray I think it’s a mistake to perceive it as a format war. What it really is is a price war. There will be a sub-€300 HD DVD player by early next year that, compared to the DVD, is extremely fast. DVD players took four years to drop to that price.” Paramount Vice- President Chris Santo made a short but significant presentation: “Paramount has ended its agnostic approach and will now only release on HD DVD,” he said. “And we will be releasing Transformers on the format shortly.” Olivier Van Wynendaele, Deputy General Manager of HD DVD at Toshiba, reiterated the importance of the sub €300 player. “The new SHD 7000 player from Venturer is a welcome addition to the growing range of HD DVD players and is a perfect compliment to the new Toshiba HD-EP 30 and 35 models. I also think that it’s important to emphasise the fact that consumers who have bought earlier models will not be left behind. We have several firmware upgrades which will enhance existing players,” he said. The number of disc replication companies is growing: “There are now 28 disc replicators and authoring labs,” Van Wynendaele said. “Plus the current number of European content partners is set to grow from 25 to around 50 by the end of this year”. Jordi Ribas, General Manager of HD DVD projects at Microsoft, pointed to several areas in which he believes the HD DVD is a superior product despite the lower price: “The HDi system was developed by Microsoft in order to facilitate the addition of interactive and web-based features,” he said. A recent promotion of five free discs with the purchase of Xbox HD player had a dramatic effect on sales in the US. “We’re always looking to give more value to the consumers and this promo action increased sales by a factor of seven,” he said. “Alongside the Xbox player, the choice of CE and PC-based players available is growing with 9 CE manufacturers and 12 PC makers now making hardware. There are also now 1600+ titles available globally and the amount and variety of web-based downloads of extra content is growing rapidly.” 24 IFA International • Monday, 3 rd September 2007
TRADE NEWS LG Mobile Push into VIDEO New Mobile Markets The Mobile Communications division of LG Electronics is changing its “go to market” policy in the mobile field, launching two feature-based mobile phones at IFA, building on the success of their Chocolate, Shine and Prada models in the style phone market. As a relatively recent arrival in the mobile phone market, LG Electronics new feature-based range is intended to further increase their market share by identifying and innovating niche markets. LG Electronic’s Chang Ma, VP Strategy Planning Team Mobile Communications explains, “We are having a great year, we were 21% up in Q2 over Q1 in terms of volume and our profit structure is getting better and better. This year we are targeting a 7-8% market share and within 2-3 years we aim to hit a double digit market share. The market is still growing and we plan to keep up with market demand by aggressively creating new markets, and doing our best to serve our customers needs.” The two new feature-based products are the Viewty professional camera-phone and the KS20 Internet browsing phone. “The success of Chocolate, Shine and Prada phones clearly demonstrates our capability in the design segment, now we want to create another pillar and demonstrate our reputation of innovating for the consumer,” says Chang Ma. “The Viewty cameraphone is the first product in the LG Mobile Features segment. Our objective is more than just launching a new cameraphone. This is the starting point for what LG mobile are trying to do in the features segment and that is to convert customer insights into the technology and then to create additional benefits so the consumer realises that this technology tangibly delivers these benefits.” Viewty is the first LG mobile that is a professional 5.1 mega-pixel camera phone. “Insight research showed us that the customer desired to see the picture as well as taking the picture. So we adopted our latest high-end technology to make the picture display beautiful for people to see and share and also keep in their profile,” explains Chang Ma. The Viewty has large LCD (3.0 inch) enhancing the viewing of pictures. It also has a 120 fps capability enabling the recording of very fast motion with slow-motion playback. “This is something that is not only new for a mobile phone but also for a camcorder,” says Chang Ma. There is an image stabiliser, a TV playing capability, touchscreen operation and an embedded picture editing software developed by LG. Another unique feature is that recorded movies can be instantly uploaded with just one click to YouTube. The other feature-based model taking a bow here at IFA is the KS20 Internet phone. Chang Ma says that until now Internet browsing on mobile phones has not been very friendly with small screens and multiple key inputs for simple tasks. “We have minimised these inconvenient factors with our touch pad screen technology, larger LCD and high speed data receiving capability. All these things combined make mobile browsing much easier.” Hall 11.2 Stand 101 Expert Blows Out 40 Candles at IFA Oldest international voluntary buying group further solidifies ties with IFA This year the organisers of IFA have placed a greater emphasis on international dealers. We asked Heinz Heer, President of the Board, to tell us more about his organisation’s activities... Expert is the oldest international voluntary buying group, and we are celebrating our fortieth anniversary this year. We have had a close relationship with the IFA organizers for many years. We actually launched our IFA booth concept of a get together place eight years ago. Of course our international colleagues use the opportunity to meet their counterparts, share their experiences. Can you tell us more about the concept of your lounge where trade visitors can meet? On the basis of our international supplier policy, the country managers finetune for their countries and on this basis, buyers from international organizations and retailers can have individual discussions with suppliers. This is a get together place in the morning and in the evening where people can meet and exchange their experiences at IFA. What can you tell us about the general developments and evolutions in the CE industry? Flat TV is once again the star this year. The sales increases are tremendous for flat TVs, while the old picture tube TVs sales are dropping. But due to a price erosion of approximately 25% or 30% per year in flat TVs, the general increase is not as big as the increase in unit sales. However they are a major driving force and will remain one in the future. Everybody wants to have a flat TV, so there are still millions of households wanting to buy a flat TV. The trend is still for bigger screen sizes and as you can see here at IFA, all the major manufacturers are focussing on the 40 inch ranges. At a time, when everybody is talking about convergence, how do you manage to categorise the products? Interconnectivity is one of the important themes. We need to consult the consumers. As specialist retailers, we have many training courses in partnership with the industry to demonstrate the interconnectivity of the different products in the stores. Now, just like mobile phones, digital cameras are for everyone. All the kids want to have their digital cameras, which gives great perspectives for the future. IFA International • Monday, 3 rd September 2007 25
