Tag: dvd
Global Sales Managers and Master Distributors Meeting June 2018
FALCON TECHNOLOGIES INTERNATIONAL hosts The Global Sales Managers and the Master Distributors on June 25-28
Falcon Technologies International recently hosted its Global Sales Managers and Master Distributors in its home Emirate of Ras Al Khaimah.
We were delighted to welcome our Global Sales Managers responsible for the Asia Pacific, Middle East & Africa and North-America territories together with our European Master Distributors (River Pro Audio – UK & Ireland, Media Range – Northern Continental Europe and Synoptic International – Southern Continental Europe) to discuss the latest developments, opportunities and innovations that make optical media the exciting and progressive industry that it is today.
The entire FTI extended a very warm welcome to all the guests, who enjoyed the superb hospitality and fun activities including a Karting race.
Meet all new 9.5-mm Optical Disc Drive by Silverstone
SilverStone has introduced its first ultra-slim ODD that can read and record CD, DVD, Blu-ray and BDXL media. The drive is not a technological breakthrough, but it is going to be one of a few 9.5-mm BD/BDXL-supporting ODDs on the market. The manufacturer is primarily known for its cases, PSUs and coolers, so the launch of the TOB03 ODD demonstrates that the company sees demand for such products.
Nowadays the vast majority of audiovisual content (games, music, movies, etc.) is distributed digitally via services like iTunes, Netflix, Origin and Steam. Partially due to this reason, a number of ODD makers and optical media manufacturers reduced production levels and focused on other markets. However, a lot of people still own large collections of CDs, DVDs and Blu-ray discs which need something to access the media. Moreover, Blu-ray and Ultra HD Blu-ray formats still offer the highest quality 1080p and 4K movies due to massive bitrates that streaming or digital download services do not offer, due to network restrictions for most. As a result, while demand for ODDs, in general, is not high, it exists and there are people willing to pay for such drives.
From SilverStone’s point of view, these are people who buy its SFF PC cases, SFX PSUs and coolers for home theater PCs and then go to other suppliers for optical drives. From a business perspective, it makes a lot of sense for SilverStone to offer its customers premium ODDs in addition to what it already sells them.
However, there is a problem. While SilverStone makes various products in-house, producing optical drives is not what it does and sourcing lasers, motors and other ODD components is sometimes tricky in a world where only a few companies produce them. Therefore, SilverStone had to find an OEM to manufacture the hardware.
Apparently, there are only two companies on the planet that make 9.5-mm Blu-ray/BDXL burners: one is LG and another is Panasonic. The latter is the maker of the TOB03 and this is something that SilverStone does not seem to hide: the official photos of the drive clearly reflect that this is indeed the Panasonic/Matshita UJ272. The drive has been around for a while, but given the relatively slow evolution of ODDs in general, this is hardly a problem. Moreover, when it comes to availability of ultra-slim BD/BDXL burners, the more the merrier as right now their choice and supply are very limited. SilverStone’s offering does not expand the former, but it clearly boosts the supply by making the drive available from the company’s usual channels.
The SilverStone TOB03 (aka Panasonic UJ272) uses the SATA 3.0 interface (with a Slimline SATA connector) and can read and record CD (CD, CD-R, CD-RW, HS-RW, US-RW), DVD (DVD, DVD±R, DVD±R DL, DVD±RW, DVD-RAM) and Blu-ray (BD, BD-R SL/DL/TL/QL, BD-RE SL/DL/TL) discs. The drive has a 2 MB buffer underrun protection (which is lower compared to other high-end ODDs) and supports 6x CAV burning speed for popular BD-R SL/DL (25 GB/50 GB) media as well as 4x PCAV burning speed for BR-R TL/QL (100 GB/128 GB) discs. As for supported Blu-ray formats, both SilverStone and Panasonic declare Blu-ray and Blu-ray 3D, but not UHD Blu-ray (at least for now). Since SilverStone’s TOB03 comes in retail packaging only, the ODD always comes with a 12.7 mm bezel to be compatible with cases that support slim drives as well as a slimline SATA adapter featuring a flexible braided cable for easier installation (which contrasts to OEM drives from renowned makers that come without any cables in some regions).
SilverStone’s TOB03 ODD burner will be available from the company’s partners in the coming weeks. The company does not disclose anything about pricing, but since Panasonic’s UJ272 is available for $70 to $90 depending on the retailer, expect the TOB03 to be priced in the same ballpark.
Source: AnandTech
Falcon Technologies International hosts International Customer Seminar on April 4th and 5th
Falcon Technologies International recently hosted its international customer seminar in the stunning Ritz Carlton Al Wadi Hotel, which is located in a unique desert environment within our home Emirate of Ras Al Khaimah. We were delighted to welcome approximately 50 delegates who travelled from diverse locations such as France, Germany, Japan, USA and the UK, to discuss the latest developments, opportunities and innovations that make optical media the exciting and progressive industry that it is today.
The entire FTI extended a very warm welcome to all the guests, who enjoyed the superb hospitality of the Al Wadi Hotel, complete activities including a traditional Arabian Falcon show, archery, sailing, go-karting and golf. The presentation session included an overview of the economic growth Ras Al Khaimah has been experiencing in recent years from Mr. Shahram Hashemi, Group Director of Strategy and Investments at RAK Free Trade Zone, along with presentations from the FTI management team with demonstrations of new product development initiatives.
Speaking about the event our CEO Mr. Michael Gutowski said, “We are delighted to host the global optical media community here in our home of Ras Al Khaimah. Having the opportunity to assemble so many of our partners in Ras Al Khaimah was a very positive experience for us at FTI, the optical media industry in general, and for Ras Al Khaimah as a global business hub. We very much hope that all the attendees enjoyed their stay in Ras Al Khaimah, and hope to welcome them back in 2018”.
Here are some photo and video highlights from the event:
20 Years Later: DVD format today and where will it go?
It was 20 years ago this month that consumer electronics companies Sony and Toshiba launched a new home video format called Digital Video Disc, or DVD. The format promised a four-fold increase in resolution over VHS and the permanence of music CDs, in that the video would not degrade as you played it.
The DVD had a lot of promise. It would be a new optical format for PCs, since the CD-ROM format had reached its capacity rather quickly, and it would also be used as a new format for music, called DVD-Audio. But the launch in the U.S. on March 19 was centered around home video.
It’s hard to overstate how different and primitive things were back then. We all had CRT televisions that used a 4:3 aspect ratio and watched movies using the TV’s built-in speakers. DVD used a format called Dolby Digital 5.1, a 6-speaker surround methodology that virtually no one knew anything about, and none of the stereo receivers had it built-in.
DVD rolled out in seven major US cities before its nation-wide launch. If one decided to become an early adopter, this meant a $600 investment in a Dolby Digital amp that connected to the receiver, $800 for a shiny new DVD player, and a few hundred to increase the speaker count.
The choice of movies available on the new format, however, was very limited. Fox, Paramount, Disney and Universal did not support the format at launch, so many movies were unavailable and would not be for years. The studios feared theft of the content and people stealing perfect copies of their work. Bootleg VHS was one thing, since they degraded, but a DVD copy would never degrade.
Then came a second threat to DVD: retailer Circuit City took the format and created a variant called Divx. Divx was different in that you had to connect a phone line to the player and basically get approval to watch it. You could buy the movie for $4.50 and watch it once, then pay $3.25 to watch it again, or pay $12.49 for unlimited viewing.
The introduction of Divx rubbed everyone up the wrong way. It was viewed as Circuit City and the studios trying to control viewing habits and get more money out of us for each viewing. The reaction among internet fans of DVD was incredible, with sites like The Digital Bits leading an unrelenting anti-Divx charge.
Divx came out in 1998 and crashed and burned spectacularly. In the process it also took down Circuit City. At the time of DVD’s launch, Best Buy was a modest chain, but it threw its support behind DVD fully. On every DVD board people swore they would never set foot in Circuit City again for the Divx effort. They all supported Best Buy and gave it their business. This resulted in Best Buy becoming a retail giant, while Circuit City is dead. No doubt there were many more variables, but Circuit City’s ill-fated Divx project had at least something to do with its fall.
In 1999, the holdouts were starting to come on board. Stephen Spielberg was among the last to do so, not even allowing movies he executive produced to be released on DVD, until that year.
And then it happened. A kid in Norway named Jon Johansen produced a small utility called DeCSS, which copied the video file off a DVD, removed the encryption, and wrote the video back out without the encryption. Thus perfect copies were made, realizing the fear of every studio.
Later on the investigation journalist Andy Patrizio of Wired News tracked down Jon on IRC and spoke with him. Johansen said that a PC DVD player made by a company called Xing failed to encrypt their deprotection key, so he was able to make DeCSS from that. He agreed to be interviewed and didn’t mind using his name. He was only 15 and lived in Norway.
The interview ran on Wired News and drew 400,000 views. In 1999, that was a lot.
There was a hope that since DVD was still in its early days they could do some kind of firmware upgrade to fix the security and render DeCSS useless, but they never did, and now DVD ISOs clog BitTorrent.
Nonetheless the Divx and DeCSS issues, DVD survived studio boycotts and by 2003, sales surpassed VHS. It created a collector culture that didn’t exist in VHS, since the discs didn’t degrade in quality. Also, with DVD extras, studios started adding director’s cuts, deleted scenes, behind the scenes interviews, and other interesting qualities. People built libraries in the hundreds and even thousands.
In 2006 came another problem: a format split. DVD’s resolution is 720×480, while high definition TV is 1920×1080. That’s actually six times the resolution. HDTV was coming into play and suddenly DVDs looked like VHS by comparison.
Two competing factions came out with HD-versions of DVD. Sony had Blu-ray, a completely new design with higher capacity, while Toshiba led the way with HD DVD, a derivative of DVD with a lower capacity. After a two-year fight (2006-2008), Blu-ray gained momentum and Toshiba threw in the towel. It was in some ways a Pyrrhic victory. Blu-ray won the physical media war only to have its lunch eaten by on-demand and streaming.
And so here we are 20 years later. Video stores have all but vanished from the retail landscape. Sony is no longer an electronics company beyond the PlayStation, and Toshiba is in such dire financial straits it may not survive. DVD-Audio never went anywhere despite being a massive improvement over Compact Disc audio. Circuit City and Divx are dead. DVD as a format is fading and the studios have all sharply reduced their home video efforts.
Despite this, we have a history of discarding technologies and then realizing what we’ve lost. Print books are coming back into favor, as is vinyl for music. Maybe DVD will get a boost from 4K video.
At the same time there is a number of industries out there where DVD not only maintained its positions, but also improved them over the last two decades. One of them is digital data archiving and preservation. Long term data storage becomes only possible when a storage media is able to resist the external environment challenges, such as temperature and humidity contrasts.
Falcon Technologies International continuously conducts quality assurance tests to make sure that optical media archival solutions are able to store and preserve data for at least 500 yeas. There is no other data storage solution that can guarantee such a long minimum lifespan at the moment. The closest possible technology is 5D quartz disc, but it is still in the stage of concept.
One thing’s for sure, no one could have predicted what the first 20 years of DVD would be like, so don’t even try to guess then next 20.
SOURCE: Computerworld
End of the VHS-era: How Home Video Shaped The Media Industry.
Rewind your memories and just take a moment to realize that the entire era has just ended this summer; the last-known company that was still producing video cassette recorders (also known as VCRs) has officially announced that it has finalized production of the last unit.
That’s right, on July 21 The New York Times pointed to a short announcement published earlier in the Japanese newspaper Nikkei which was essentially a press release by the Funai Corporation, stating that the company took a decision to cease the production of VCRs due to the “difficulty of acquiring parts”.
The New York Times also referenced a statement in which the company said, “We are the last manufacturer (of VCRs) in all of the world.” Further to this, it was stated that only 750,000 VCRs were sold in 2015 worldwide, significantly down from the millions sod every year decades earlier.
It is hard to imagine anyone from generations growing up with streaming technology which brings all the latest movies and television shows straight to TV’s, tablets and smartphones screens, to get a feeling of nostalgia from this news. However, virtually everyone from those in their late-20s and older will almost certainly remember the sight of VHS tapes scattered around the floor adjacent to their televisions, and boxes full of old VHS tapes dumped somewhere in the closet or the basement of their homes. These tapes were extremely popular in 80s and 90s, when VHS was one of the most popular kinds of home entertainment.
People used to record their favorite TV shows and popular movies from premium cable channels so that they could view them again later, which was sometimes a complicated procedure requiring the setting of a timer on the VCR in order to program unit to record at a certain time period. For the first time, people started having the magic feeling of freedom from the TV schedule: you didn’t have to be at home at a certain time to watch something anymore.
In some parts of the world, like mid-80s USSR, very often smuggled VHS tapes carried the valuable information about “Western culture” and “the capitalist way of life” to the younger generations who were planning to rise in rebellion against the isolation imposed by the old Soviet Union.
Many of us have important memories stored in a form of home video footages on VHS tapes: a wedding video, the birth of a child, vacations, proms and other important events. These footages are really important for us – they are like time capsules that conserve the best moments that can be always pulled out and re-lived at any moment.
VHS tapes have now been officially consigned to history – making it a good idea to transfer all the footage stored on them to some more reliable media storage, such as DVDs. Magnetic tape is more sensitive to environmental factors, and therefore the tape (and footage!) may deteriorate and result in data loss. DVDs are more long lasting, so you might consider to use them to make a backup of your precious memories.
Falcon Technologies International LLC has developed a product line specially designed for consumer market. Value Line is designed to meet the needs of cost-conscious consumer and represents a perfect balance between quality and price. The good product is complimented by entry-level price range and no failure guarantee, making Value Line a highly competitive product on the market.
Media Duplication: How to Determine Your Needs
Thousands of business organisations and enterprises both from the public and private sectors use CDs and DVDs as the primary means to distribute important content, and with good reason: CDs and DVDs are inexpensive to produce and user-friendly for even the least tech-savvy viewers and listeners — whether they’re at home, in the car or at the office.
The most common uses for media duplication include: music, movies, software, video games, reports, sales presentations.
In the past, CD or DVD duplication and printing was a long, tedious process. Each disc required special attention to burn, print and apply sticky labels, one at a time. Now, this process can be automated – CD and DVD publishers take the stress out of the duplication process, allowing you to start the job and continue going about your daily business while the machine does the work for you.
So, now that you know the basics and your company is ready to automate its media duplication process, here are a few things to consider while narrowing down your options.
The first thing you must know is the quantity of discs you will need to produce at one time. There are duplicators that are great for larger quantities, where multiple discs are duplicated simultaneously. Some fully automated CD and DVD publishing devices hold 20 to 100 discs at a time. These tools not only duplicate the content, but also print onto the discs. Because disc publishers come in various models and capacities, it is vital to understand your quantity needs in order to determine what type of machine will best fit your requirements.
Another important factor that should be taken into consideration is speed. It is essential to identify the timeframes of the duplication project. The target quantity of duplicated discs will definitely influence the deadlines of the particular project, but there are always ways to achieve fast duplication within limited timeframes – it all depends on duplication tools production capacities.
The next thing that should be taken into account is disc itself, especially its printable surface. This is something that’s something really important when it comes to professional media duplication: at the end of the day, printable surfaces are the ones that ultimately sell the end product. Optical media devices such as blank CDs and DVDs may have excellent technical benchmark testing results, but if the printable surface is of poor quality, they become literally useless pieces of pressed polycarbonate that are completely unsuitable for professional media duplication industry.
Dr. Sean Farnan, Head of FTI’s Research and Development Department commented: ‘The challenges of today’s B2B digitised data industry, demands speeds, reliability and data longevity. Duplication and Replication equipment is costly. It has to run with high yield and minimum supervision to give the best return of investment to the business, while delivering the best value for money, for the business customer. The role and the choice of optical media is crucial in delivering these business objectives. Using a cheap, sub-standard optical media product is clearly a false economy and the decision to use such products to increase margin can seriously undermine the reputation of a data processing business. The optical media MUST deliver quality to the end-user.”
FalconMEDIA Dupli Line has been specially designed to suit professional media duplication needs. It was tested by ALL the major drive makers to ensure full compatibility across the range of duplication and replication systems.This product line has three essential features that makes it a perfect choice for your media duplication projects:
- Excellent benchmark test results and 100% reliable media (proven by number of in-house and independent tests
- Low cost, yet high quality grade
- Wide range of premium printable surfaces
For over a decade, Falcon Technologies International LLC prioritised its Research and Development efforts on printable surfaces and managed to implement high-tech solutions into its production process. FTI’s wide range of printable layers are designed to meet any professional media duplication industry requirements according to highest standards.