Deluxe Entertainment Services Group (Deluxe) announced that its compression and authoring services are now Dolby Vision approved, which will rapidly facilitate the release of more high-quality 4K UHD Blu-ray content into the market. Deluxe has already delivered more than 100 4K UHD Blu-ray SKUs in high dynamic range (HDR) – more titles than any other industry provider. With this announcement, Deluxe’s end-to-end compression and authoring workflow, including its own proprietary toolset for dynamic range and color space conversion, and that of partners Scenarist and Ateme, is now approved by Dolby to support Dolby Vision HDR in addition to HDR10 for the 4K UHD Blu-ray Disc format.
With Futuresource expecting sales of 4K UHD disc players in 2017 to grow 148% and sales of 4K UHD TVs to grow 38%, Deluxe is helping to meet the growing demand for video content featuring the leap in visual quality that HDR delivers. The company has been working with many major studios and distributors to support their 4K UHD and HDR initiatives, with Paramount Pictures’ Transformers: The Last Knight being among the first Dolby Vision 4K UHD Blu-ray titles that Deluxe delivered.
“The Transformers franchise delivers the kind of eye-popping action and state-of-the-art sound that absolutely engulfs you,” said Edward Hoxsie, SVP of worldwide product production and fulfillment for Paramount Pictures. “Watching Transformers: The Last Knight on 4K UHD with Dolby Vision HDR quite literally transforms the home viewing experience into something more immersive and more visceral than ever before.”
Deluxe Distribution president Walter Schonfeld said, “Content providers turn to Deluxe because we have a complete infrastructure to support them in delivering the highest quality entertainment experiences. We’ve collaborated closely with Dolby and leading commercial tool providers Scenarist and Ateme to develop and perfect our workflow – which is backed by the world’s top compression and authoring experts, global facilities covering four time zones, 99.9% on-time delivery and a worldwide operation that masters more than 4500UHD Blu-ray, Blu-ray and DVD SKUs per year. We’re pleased to extend that to now include approved Dolby Vision UHD Blu-ray capability.”
“Deluxe has a long track record of pioneering workflows and technologies that help drive adoption of new formats,” said Ron Geller, VP of Worldwide Content Relations, Dolby Laboratories. “They’ve been an early supporter and key partner to us in bringing Dolby Vision to consumers across the cinema, home, and mobile devices.”
Google Opens Its Defense In Antitrust Case Alleging Monopoly Over Online Ad Technology
Google opened its defense against allegations that it holds an illegal monopoly on online advertising technology Friday with witness testimony saying the industry is vastly more complex and competitive than portrayed by the federal government.
"The industry has been exceptionally fluid over the last 18 years," said Scott Sheffer, a vice president for global partnerships at Google, the company's first witness at its antitrust trial in federal court in Alexandria.
The Justice Department and a coalition of states contend that Google built and maintained an illegal monopoly over the technology that facilitates the buying and selling of online ads seen by consumers.
Google counters that the government's case improperly focuses on a narrow type of online ads — essentially the rectangular ones that appear on the top and on the right-hand side of a webpage. In its opening statement, Google's lawyers said the Supreme Court has warned judges against taking action when dealing with rapidly emerging technology like what Sheffer described because of the risk of error or unintended consequences.
Google says defining the market so narrowly ignores the competition it faces from social media companies, Amazon, streaming TV providers and others who offer advertisers the means to reach online consumers.
Justice Department lawyers called witnesses to testify for two weeks before resting their case Friday afternoon, detailing the ways that automated ad exchanges conduct auctions in a matter of milliseconds to determine which ads are placed in front of which consumers and how much they cost.
The department contends the auctions are finessed in subtle ways that benefit Google to the exclusion of would-be competitors and in ways that prevent... Read More