Audio News for November 16, 2007

Latest on the DTV Countdown – In spite of the public education effort, everyone is certainly not yet aware that come February 17, 2009 their older analog TVs will be completely useless – unless they are hooked up to a cable or satellite service that converts the all-digital signals to analog for their sets. The simplest solution is just to recycle all those analog sets and buy new DTV/HDTVs, but obviously everyone isn’t able to do that. Therefore our thoughtful government has provided for us as part of their ongoing massive support of HDTV in the U.S. (never mind that one of the central purposes of the program was to revitalize the TV-manufacturing industry in the U.S…uh…How many HDTVs can you name that are actually made in the U.S.?)

Well, starting this coming January 1, 2008, households may request up to two $40 coupons which will cover much of the cost of converter boxes which are designed to convert the digital signals back to analog for your “legacy” TV.  The boxes will be advertised soon and are expected to be priced from $50 to $75. For more details on the offer, go to www.dtv.gov or call 1-888-225-5322.

D&M Holding Reports Gains – One of the several multi-brand AV  corporations reports an overall 21% gain for the first half of 2007.  D&M Holdings makes Denon, Marantz, McIntosh Laboratory and Boston Acoustics components. However, taking into account just the consumer AV segment of their business, there was a 5% drop compared to a year ago. The delay of key product introductions and additional product development expenses were cited as contributing.

Macrovision Acquires All Media Guide – Macrovision Corporation has acquired All Media Guide Holdings Inc. (AMG) – one of the largest providers of information databases and metadata for entertainment music, movies and games.  AMG is based in Ann Arbor, Michigan and its media recognition technology and music discovery software is used on numerous electronics devices. Their database includes reviews, bios, ratings, images, titles, credits, essays and descriptive categories. The metadata hold information on more than 11 million song tracks, one million albums, millions of CDs, over 500,000 cover images, eight million streaming sound files and tens of millions of relational links. AMG’s customers include retail stores, Net retailers and consumer electronics manufacturers. Macrovision, headquartered in Santa Clara, California, provides distribution, commerce and consumption solutions for entertainment, information and software content to home video, PC games, music, cable/satellite, software and information publishing industries. The acquisition of AMG extends Macrovision’s solutions for the enhancement and distribution of digital content by making it easier for consumers to discover, purchase, interact with and play back digital media. 

AMG has also announced a collaboration with Digital Fidelity, a British manufacturing and software consultancy specializing in supplying flexible and sophisticated platform solutions to international AV manufacturers for the creation of products to store, control and play back digital content. Their platform is known as DigiFiTM, and it also integrates seamlessly with most multiroom home systems.