Filed under: Portable Audio

Man, Qtrax just can’t stop over-hyping and under-delivering, can it? The company’s trumpeting new deals today with EMI Publishing, Sony / ATV Music Publishing, and TVT Records, but of the three deals, only TVT will actually have music available for download. The deals with EMI and Sony / ATV are for publishing rights only, and since publishing companies only represent songwriters, and don’t actually own the rights to the song recordings, Qtrax still can’t offer songs to consumers. It’s confusing, but Qtrax needs both types of deals to make things work. Still, considering that the EMI and Sony agreements are extensions of existing agreements, it’s a little strange for Qtrax to hype them up — if you’re keeping score at home, this is essentially the same sort of half-truth Qtrax launched under, so it’s pretty ballsy of the company to try and pull it again. On the other hand, getting TVT on board is no small feat — TVT artists include Lil Jon, Ambulance LTD, Dude ‘N Em, The Polyphonic Spree, and The Cinematics, so it looks like Qtrax might be getting better at this whole “signing actual deals with labels” thing.

Update: We had said in an earlier version of this post that several major labels had denied having deals in place with Qtrax — while that’s still true, the information was a few weeks old. The deals announced today are for real, but until Qtrax sorts out actual content-distribution rights, nothing’s really changed.

[Via Tech Digest]

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Filed under: HDTV, Home Entertainment

Some rumors never die, and this one we heard even before the official Warner press release was issued. Now that the format war is officially over, newspapers and magazines everywhere are looking back on the events preceding Toshiba’s announcement. While no one really knows why each studio made its decision, The Globe and Mail cites “analysts” who think the payoff was a factor. Well, we asked Warner point blank about the payoff rumor and Kevin Tsujihara, president, Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Group said that it “was not a bidding war” and that it really came down to Q4 sales. This answer leaves us with the impression that while some money probably changed hands, the real reason why Warner went Blu was because during all of 2007 the Blu-ray versions of Warner’s titles always outsold the HD DVD. The bottom line is that regardless of any single payoff, since Warner owns most of the home media market, it had the most to lose if it waited too long to chose a format. [Disclosure: Engadget is part of the Time Warner family]

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Filed under: HDTV, Home Entertainment

If you want to know why Warner choose Blu-ray and why now is the time, you should head over to Engadget HD. We had the chance to have a few words with the president of Warner Home Video and he was more than happy to clear up a few questions for us.

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Filed under: HDTV, Home Entertainment

We’ve all been wondering what to make of those whispers that Warner was indeed going Blu-ray exclusive, and apparently, those rumblings are true. Based on a breaking release, Warner Bros. Entertainment will be releasing its high-definition titles “exclusively in the Blu-ray disc format beginning later this year.” According to Barry Meyer, Chairman & CEO, the move is a “strategic decision focused on the long term and the most direct way to give consumers what they want,” and he also noted that “the window of opportunity for high-definition DVD could be missed if format confusion continues to linger.” Notably, Warner will continue to release on both HD DVD and Blu-ray until May 2008, but after that, it’s BD for life for this studio. Oh, and while there’s nothing official mentioning any sort of payoff, we’re hearing that quite a sum was dished out to make this happen. Full release posted after the jump.

[Via Deadline Hollywood Daily, thanks Todd]

Continue reading Warner goes Blu-ray exclusive

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Filed under: Portable Audio, Portable Video

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Filed under: Portable Audio

The labels and XM have been fighting it out over XM + MP3 players for a while now, but it looks like Universal Music Group is finally backing down, signing a multi-year settlement agreement covering recording-capable XM radios like Pioneer’s Inno. Terms of the agreement weren’t released, but everyone sounds happy, with XM CEO Nate Davis calling the settlement “a win for everyone involved, especially for consumers.” Of course, that means XM is now in a suit with just most of the RIAA instead of all it, but the outlook’s not all bad: Reuters is reporting that Warner and XM are close to settlement as well. No word on when that might go down, but Reuters says it’ll be “soon.” Now if only the other labels would get it together, no?

Read - XM and Universal settlement press release
Read - Reuters blurb about XM and Warner settling

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: HDTV, Home Entertainment

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: HDTV, Home Entertainment

Another day, another format war rumor. Business Week has a lengthy writeup on the possibility of lone dual-format holdout Warner Brothers switching to Blu-ray exclusively, and how it could affect the outcome of the long-running feud between high-definition disc formats HD DVD and Blu-ray. The rumor gets its seed from vice-chairman of Lionsgate Michael Burns, who claims that Warner will be turning blue soon. With Warner on their side, the Blu-ray studios would hold a 70% market share for the DVD market. Of course, if Warner shifts red, then the studio market will again be split into two equal halves, and consumers are left to wait and see if one format can outsell, outspend, or outlast the other until only one format remains. The stakes are so high that top execs from both camps are banging down Warner’s door with personal meetings — and possibly even truckloads of cash — to get Warner to turn to their side. One thing you can be sure of is that Warner is going to be keeping an extra close eye on the dual-format release of Harry Potter next week for guidance.

[Thanks, Michael P.]

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Portable Audio

By now, we’re pretty certain you know how Warner Music’s head honcho feels about DRM and its necessity in the digital download space, but apparently, the man behind not one, but two CE-Oh Noes has experienced some form of epiphany. MacUser has it that Edgar Bronfman admitted that the music industry “used to fool itself” by thinking that its content was “perfect just exactly as it was” while speaking at the GSMA Mobile Asia Congress in Macau. He went on to say that it was widely believed that the business would “remain blissfully unaffected even as the world of interactivity, constant connection and file sharing was exploding.” He also noted that it essentially went to war “inadvertently” with consumers by “denying them what they wanted and could otherwise find.” The conversation was used in part to urge mobile operators to not make the same mistakes again, and while we applaud such a figure for coming forward with a bit of hard truth, it remains to be seen if these sentiments will reverberate further or simply fall on deaf ears.

[Via mocoNews]

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Portable Audio

Notice anything missing from the Nokia Music Store launched yesterday? How about Madonna? According to the Wall Street Journal, Warner Music Group — yeah, that guy — is withholding their goods due to concerns with copyright abuse at Nokia. No, not with Nokia’s Music Store but with their seemingly unrelated MOSH (MObile SHaring) file-sharing service. The other three majors — Universal, Sony BMG, and EMI — are all playing nice, however. A Nokia spokesman confirmed the absence stating, “we are hopeful that Warner will be part of Nokia Music Store in the future.” Who knew that Madonna could be used like a big stick?

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: HDTV, Home Entertainment

Don’t etch this one in stone just yet, but for those keeping a close eye on studios and which camp(s) they support, here’s the latest. Reportedly, a so-called Blu-ray Festival has been raging in Hollywood, and aside from BD backers showing up in support of upcoming / existing films, there have also been a few interesting remarks uttered along the way. Most notably, Dan Silverberg, VP of high-definition media for Warner Home Video, stated that “one thing that may be changing is [Warner’s] strategy,” and he continued by proclaiming that hardware prices had reached a point where consumers “no longer wanted to decide” which format reigned supreme. The speech actually got interesting when he mentioned that the “notion of staying in two formats for the duration is something the company was re-evaluating.” Beyond that, egos were simply inflated even more as recent BD vs. HD DVD sales figures were trumpeted about, but we think the aforementioned commentary is far more interesting that hearing about numbers we’re already familiar with.

[Thanks, AG23]

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Portable Audio

The major record labels’ ongoing fixation with physical media continues on, as Universal, EMI, and Warner have each announced plans to sell music preloaded on flash drives. Universal says the move is “aimed at the younger, 12 to 24 year olds, who no longer believe that the CD is as cool as it used to be,” but that “people still want to own a physical product.” Yeah, too bad that physical product is a DAP. Predictably, the $10 flash drives will cost twice as much as normal CD singles but contain additional content — just like that ridiculous “ringle” concept we just heard about, only with more plastic and manufacturing involved. There’s no word on what format the music will be in or what the DRM will be, but it’s not like it really matters, since no one is going to buy these anyway. No word on when we’ll see this Stateside, but UK teenagers can expect to be patronized by the record labels sometime in the next few months.

[Via Pocket-lint]

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!