With entertainment spending growing to $18.7 billion according to IHS Screen Digest, the entertainment industry is reaping the rewards of offering consumers more choice and options in how they consume content. TV Everywhere’s multi-channel, multi-device approach is finally complementing rather than cannibalizing. The year saw strong growth in Blu-ray discs. UltraViolet’s 7 million households and 8,500 titles now position the format to grow significantly in 2013. Video streaming or SVOD tripled in the first three quarters of the year to an estimated $1.7 billion. And studios continue to experiment with their windowing strategies for electronic sell-through. In this environment, the CE industry continues to respond and innovate. Continue reading CES 2013: Entertainment Trends Drive New Technologies

The interest in 3D entertainment and augmented reality has inspired numerous new head-mounted displays and wearable technology. Using Bluetooth technology and wireless connections to offload processing, these displays come in a variety of shapes and sizes, but all have similar aims: to create an immersive entertainment experience or overlay relevant information onto our surroundings. We expect to see some compelling new products at CES. Continue reading CES 2013: Head-Mounted Displays and Wearable Tech

Ultra HD television sets will be featured at next week’s 2013 International CES. And while the technology promises four times the resolution of current TVs, pricing for these higher-resolution models are expected to range from $8,700 to $25,000. Additionally, there is little available in terms of UHD content, other than upscaled versions of existing content. Will consumers be excited about the prospect of Ultra HD? Continue reading CES 2013: Are Consumers Ready for the Cost of Ultra HD TVs?

According to Variety, 2012 was more about what didn’t happen than what did happen when considering the intersection of TV and digital media. As the multichannel world continues “begging for disruption,” the cost of the “average pay-TV subscription has skyrocketed 68 percent over the past 10 years,” notes the article. It seems something will definitely have to give, “but despite the fragility of their delicate bond, programmers and distributors didn’t face any real challenge in 2012 from any of the expected upstarts hoping to gain rights to live TV and package it in more innovative ways.” Continue reading In a Multichannel World, Pay TV Fought its Future in 2012

Heavy-hitting music-streaming company Deezer wants into the U.S. market in order to increase its overall market share. The Paris-based Spotify competitor launched a free streaming service in late December in more than 150 countries. The service currently allows users two hours of free listening per month on desktops and laptops, marking the first time the company has offered a free service backed by advertising outside its native France. Continue reading Spotify Rival Deezer Launches Wide, Seeks U.S. Partner

HuffPost Live was voted the most innovative media product to emerge in 2012 by Mashable readers, beating out other contenders such as Dark Sky, Flipboard, Timehop and RebelMouse. HuffPost Live is a Web-only video news service that launched in mid-August. It provides twelve hours of live video every weekday. Could it be a new direction for the delivery and consumption of news? Continue reading Innovation: Will HuffPost Live Reinvent Cable News for the Web?

Google Now “brings together virtually everything Google knows about you and where you are and then turns all of this information into a useful dashboard on your phone,” according to TechCrunch. The new product is a standard feature of Android Jelly Bean and up. It shows users information about their daily commute, appointments, local weather, upcoming flight and hotel reservations and much more. Continue reading Mobile: Google Now To Become Central Hub for Android

A new motion sensor glove device is being designed to recognize pen strokes made in thin air, registering them as text. While it still needs accuracy improvement, according to developers, it’s an exciting step in the forward direction for motion sensor technology. A prototype glove being designed at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany will recognize pen strokes made in the air, registering the strokes as actual text. Continue reading Prototype Glove Recognizes Pen Strokes Formed in Thin Air

The ETCentric team is excited to kick off 2013 with a fresh redesign of its website (now part of the new ETC site) and a more streamlined Daily Bullet email alert for delivering the latest media tech news and opinion each morning.

We’ll be previewing the new functionality and design with our reporting this week and look forward to our annual live coverage of the 2013 International Consumer Electronics Show beginning next week. To get everyone in CES mode, we’ll continue publishing pre-show reports over the next several days.

We welcome you back from the holidays and hope you enjoy our new site and email alert. As always, we thank all in our community for your continued support and participation. If you have any questions, concerns, suggestions — or want to provide a tip regarding a story to be covered — please contact us at tip@etcusc.org.

In the meantime, check out the new ETCentric and let us know how we can can help meet your news and information needs.

In addition to the highly anticipated array of UHD TVs, new smartphones, Android devices, cloud developments and Internet-connected everything, next week’s CES promises interesting new products and services related to a number of sectors not yet drawing the same amount of press attention. Watch for news involving small flexible displays, green technology, home automation, home projections systems, 3D printing and more. Continue reading CES 2013: Trends Flying Somewhat Under the Radar

In the roll-up to CES it is clear that “the cloud” has become a replacement marketing buzzword for “Internet-based” or “online.” Of the 40+ exhibitors on the CES site who use the keyword “cloud” in their business description, 21 of them are either actually making use of cloud technology or, more likely, are misusing the term but are still of potential interest to ETC member companies.  These exhibitors cluster in LVCC South Hall 2 and 4, the Venetian, and off-site hospitality suites. Continue reading CES 2013: What We Expect to See in the Cloud

Advances in the production of audiovisual content — on both the consumer and professional levels — are expected to be incremental rather than revolutionary, with the general trends of technology being more powerful, less expensive, and more mobile continuing. Our coverage in this area will be focused around three main trends: new products for content capture, new tools for production and post-production workflows, and new technologies for the storage and management of digital assets. Continue reading CES 2013: On the Lookout for A/V Production Technologies

In a five-minute video report on the Wall Street Journal, Walt Mossberg discusses four personal technology topics that he believes may prove to be significant trends in the coming year, including a new era of smart TVs, more affordable smartphones and mobile plans, a new wave of more expensive music players and new health and fitness gadgets and accompanying apps. Additionally we should expect to see more tablets and more use of the cloud. Continue reading Walt Mossberg Looks Ahead to Personal Tech in 2013

The concept of TV Everywhere is simple: it’s “supposed to let you watch whatever you want, wherever you want to watch it, on any device you want — as long as you pay for TV,” writes AllThingsD. But behind the straightforward idea, cable companies have been struggling for three years to get it done — “and they still can’t really deliver,” suggests the article. But startup NimbleTV says it can do the job. Continue reading NimbleTV Launches NYC Trial Run of TV Everywhere

James Beshara, co-founder and CEO of Crowdtilt.com, anticipates five top trends for tech startups in 2013: 1) phones will become our remote controls for life; 2) crowdfunding behavior will expand; 3) we will experience a new era enabled by sensors; 4) large companies within the startup ecosystem will seek new business models; and 5) a consolidation of entrepreneurs will come together to build companies. Continue reading Crowdtilt CEO Predicts Top Tech Startup Trends for 2013