News & Opinion

          VOXX International Corporation (NASDAQ: VOXX), is pleased to announce that its wholly-owned subsidiary, VOXXHirschmann, has formed a strategic partnership with Sling Media, Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of EchoStar Corporation (NASDAQ: SATS). The partnership will allow VOXXHirschmann to integrate a customized vehicle specific version of the Slingplayer app into its OEM designed rear-seat entertainment and vehicle connectivity line of products. This integration will give Slingbox owners the ability to watch live or recorded programming from their home cable or satellite TV subscription directly in the vehicle. Under the terms of the agreement, VOXXHirschmann will become the exclusive automotive supplier of the Slingbox/Slingplayer solution operating in any vehicle entertainment sub system on a worldwide basis. This exciting business partnership aims to provide consumers with their full, at home television experience in any motor vehicle. Access to live TV, on-demand services and DVR content from a consumer’s set top box has to date been limited to desktop and portable devices. This partnership is the first of its kind for the automotive market and VOXX will leverage its innovative and proprietary entertainment product offerings to deliver a TV experience like never before. The two companies will be working jointly to integrate the Slingbox technology including software and various applications into its new, Evolution Series (EVO) Rear Seat Infotainment family currently under development. The EVO system would contain the “connectivity smarts” of the entire system including the embedded Slingplayer app and will stream multiple types of media content wirelessly and/or wired to display monitors in the vehicle inclusive of BYOD. The EVO series with Slingbox integration will be available in all rear seat entertainment form factors including customized headrest systems, seat back mounted displays or overhead flip down monitors.  Additionally, consumers will have the ability to access content from any portable device brought into the vehicle and then stream directly to the installed monitors through multiple wired or wireless connectivity options. The Company expects to have the new EVO product for OEMs, integrating Slingbox technology within a 12-18 month period. Furthermore, the companies will also be working to integrate Slingbox technology into their embedded tuner modules or intelligent antenna systems, which when complete, will be integrated directly into the vehicle at the factory level as a Tier1 or Tier2 automotive OEM production offering. Pat Lavelle, VOXX International’s President and CEO stated, “We are very excited with this partnership as it represents another first-to-market for our company and holds significant potential for our Automotive OEM group. One of the most compelling factors behind our acquisition of Hirschmann was the development of new technologies within their mobile multimedia tuners and intelligent antennas combined with our advanced North American Rear Seat Infotainment systems. We are positioned to bring to market connected solutions for OEMs that will provide true competitive differentiation. This is yet another example of our leadership position in the OEM category and while revenues may be 1-2 years away, we are confident that the exclusive addition of Slingbox technology to our offering will help us grow our top-line and expand our business within the global OEM marketplace.” “Sling Media’s Slingbox technology delivers the ultimate TV Anywhere experience on the most devices with no monthly fees and our partnership with VOXX further expands our reach, this time into the back seats of automobiles,” said Michael Hawkey, senior vice president and general manager of Sling Media, Inc. “Integrating the Slingbox experience into the EVO Series Rear Seat Infotainment family will make watching live and recorded programming simple and enjoyable for customers, while providing more value for VOXX’s automotive OEM partners at the same time.”

Booming Animation Company Deploys AdderLink Infinity - IP based KVM Adder Technology, the industry leader in high performance keyboard, video and mouse (KVM) products, today announced that Illumination Entertainment has deployed the AdderLink Infinity to help address their increase in production due in part to the enormous success of the Despicable Me franchise. Illumination Entertainment needed to rapidly expand its production capacity, which created the need for shared resources at the company. Additional edit bays came online, and there was a greater need for editors to be able to quickly swap in and out of the review suite for dailies. After researching the KVM options available on the market to address their problem, Illumination Entertainment looked to Adder to address their connectivity challenges. "Using the AdderLink Infinity products, our editors are now able to setup for dailies or a review session on their Avid systems in their edit bay and then bring up that system in the review suite without interrupting any other sessions," said Joe Stevano, Illumination Entertainment, IT director. "Adding Adder’s digital KVM switching solution to our editorial infrastructure has given us increased flexibility in working on multiple productions." “The post production environment has always been an ideal environment for the deployment of our IP-based high performance KVM solutions,” said Tim Conway, vice president, Adder Corp. “We are pleased to have worked with the Illumination Entertainment team and succeeded in addressing their workflow challenges.  The AdderLink Infinity solution also positions the company for future scalability and upgradability in production capacity.”

In our office, we’re asking the question: “How free are we?” and “Which companies are doing everything they can to basically own where we live?” In other words -- what we write, what we watch and what we share. Who controls this ecosystem that each of us as consumers want to live in? We decided it was Google, Apple, Amazon, Verizon, AT&T, and yes Comcast. These companies are going to ensure that the entire entertainment, information and sharing experiences -- what we watch, what we see, what we talk about -- is through them. And that means we’re really not free are we? Or maybe we think we are because we’ll pay our monthly subscriber bill to Comcast, but we’ll do our search on Google. That’s America today. It’s also where we’re going, because these companies are going to keep this dominant position. And they will do this by acquiring lots and lots of additional companies in the years ahead. What about those other exciting tech companies we like to talk about? Companies like Facebook and Netflix. Well honestly they’re just outliers. They’re just the little companies, the little engines that are trying to get big, but will never have the heft of Amazon, Apple, Google, Verizon, AT&T and Comcast. Think about it, how important are AOL and Yahoo to your daily life? Those are the outliers! Ask the question in your office -- which companies are controlling your entertainment and information super highway. The answers may surprise you too. You can view the Office Talk video covering this topic and more here!

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Do you know which media giants control what you watch, share and communicate? Watch this short video and share your thoughts!

Post-Production Leader and Its Beijing-Based Partner to Develop 115,000-Cubic-Ft. Facility Deluxe has entered an agreement with China Film Co. Ltd. to provide mastering services for motion pictures released in the China Giant Screen (CGS) format. As part of the agreement, the companies will develop a 115,000-cubic-foot mastering facility and screening room in Los Angeles. Deluxe announced its agreement with the Beijing-based company at ShowEast 2014, the annual trade show for cinema operators from the U.S. and abroad that’s now under way in Hollywood, Fla. “The CGS format offers not just an enlarged image but an image that’s greatly enhanced to accommodate the large format,” said Joe Hart, senior vice president of Deluxe Digital Cinema. “Deluxe is thrilled to provide the state-of-the-art mastering services required. We expect the new mastering facility and screening room to act as a real showcase for the format and related technology.” The CGS format produces projected images of more than 65 feet wide and 35 feet tall. “CGS, as a premium large-format cinema system based on proprietary technology, has won wide support both from China and the international community, including most major players from Hollywood,” said Lin Minjie, chairman of China Film Digital Giant Screen (Beijing) Co. Ltd. “We are very excited to work together with Deluxe in providing mastering services for CGS screens and promoting CGS systems in the broader market. Our joint effort will undoubtedly bring even more successes to CGS and deployments of the system.” Deluxe Digital Cinema, or DDC, has a long track of service to global distributors and exhibitors. Its comprehensive menu of services includes: mastering for multiple-language 2D or 3D motion pictures; subtitling, titling and foreign titling; restoration and preservation solutions; and digital effects such as title-sequence design, motion graphics and 3D animation.

Did you know that approximately 93% of marketers use social media to bring attention to their business and drive website traffic? Social media marketing used to be a simple two-step process: write content and then post it. Today, it has evolved into an intricate process that seems more like performing brain surgery, as a variety of tactics are used to monitor, manage, measure and monetize each campaign. Underneath all of its complexities, the fundamentals of social media marketing are what ultimately determine the outcome of a campaign. Once marketers have mastered the four M’s of social marketing, this intricate process and these tactics can be refined to a simple and successful plan of action. So what are these four M’s? 1. Monitor Social media is an increasingly crowded and busy arena. The downside is that manually monitoring social-media efforts is time-consuming, if not impossible. But the upside is that when a company uses a platform that can track and analyze social media chatter, it can tap into real-time intelligence about an industry and its competitors that will sharpen its strategy. Monitor activity before you launch a campaign. Obtain a clear idea of a competitor’s strengths and weaknesses on social media. Look for market opportunities and see what consumers react to within the industry. Monitor campaigns to optimize performance. 2. Manage Once a campaign is launched in the social sphere, management can make or break the campaign’s success. Refine your campaign by tracking performance and reacting to what works and what does not. Take the workload off your social-media manager by letting him or her schedule posts and tweets. Add a new level of social-media intelligence by listening to what users are saying about the company's campaigns and brand. Management is the execution of the social strategy. And with all the emphasis on the software, analytics and strategy, execution is still what drives the success of a social-media campaign. 3. Measure Measurement is increasingly important on two fronts. Social media is fragmented across multiple platforms. Tracking and analyzing the full scope of social-media use is now more difficult than ever. Secondly, measurement is one of the most important ways to demonstrate the effectiveness of social marketing to chief marketing officers, company executives and board members. Measurement involves tracking results on earned, owned and paid media. Engagement can be gauged across all social-media platforms and how traffic is driven to a company's website. It's also possible to analyze how paid advertising on Twitter and Facebook encourages participation on social-media campaigns and a company's website. 4. Monetize The Holy Grail of social media marketing is sales. If marketers can draw a direct line between a social-media campaign and sales, all the guessing over the value of engagement ends. The return on investment is indisputable. As the use of social media advances, mastering the four M’s of social media marketing becomes an increasingly important skill set for marketers. Perfecting these skills let businesses leverage the viral and sharing nature of social media to inspire the purchasing decisions of their target audience with user-generated content or through coupons, discounts or prizes. To read the original story click here.      

State-of-the-Art Facility to Provide Big Benefits for Customers BURBANK - Oct. 9, 2014 – Deluxe Media is pleased to announce that it has a new audio post-production facility in Barcelona. Deluxe offers comprehensive post-production, distribution and asset-management solutions for media and entertainment around the world. At the highly regarded facility, Deluxe will continue its legacy of offering a full range of audio post services. Those include: Original Spanish local-production ADR, mixing, sound design and Foley stage work Dubbing films and television series into Spanish and Catalan Centralized mixing in formats such as 5.1, 7.1 and Dolby Atmos “The Deluxe localization department is excited to relocate its current Spanish operations to our new studios in Barcelona,” said Ron Horwitz, senior vice president of worldwide localization services at Deluxe. “This state-of-the-art facility allows us to expand our capacity for foreign-language dubbing and centralized mixing in order to service our customers better with their increasingly tight deadlines.” The facility is also expected to fuel regional growth for Deluxe. “Integrating this new facility into our regional infrastructure will be hugely beneficial for Deluxe and the industry,“ said Ramón Martos, managing director of Deluxe Spain. “The combination of cutting-edge technology and creative talent there will be very appealing to our clients.”

Deluxe, a global leader in comprehensive post-production solutions, is justifiably proud of its remarkable new post-production studio in Toronto. Recently, Deluxe built a state-of-the-art picture and sound facility, boasting stunning views of nearby Lake Ontario, to continue the company’s role in Canada and elsewhere as the go-to provider of post services for film, TV, commercials and digital content. The three-story, 62,000-square-foot facility is located in the city’s Liberty Village neighborhood. It features a large ADR stage, and four 5.1 and 7.1 mixing stages for feature film and TV. The facility also features a wide range of additional film, TV and commercial offerings, including a deep menu of ad services, dailies solutions, on-set and near-set services, and innovative solutions for asset management, storage and archiving. The introduction of Dolby Atmos® technology in the facility’s Mix 1—Canada’s largest film mixing stage—is considered particularly watershed. The Atmos theatre and other service upgrades figured prominently in an array of media coverage that BG&A secured for Deluxe in the U.S. and Canada.