Systemax, the new owner of the Circuit City brand name, has said the company will remain an online-only business for the time being, with the computer maker showing no signs of re-opening brick and mortar stores.
“It’s too soon to say whether Circuit City stores will appear,” adds Gilbert Fiorentino, chief executive of Systemax’s technology products group. “We’ve only owned it for two weeks, and we haven’t figured out what to do with it yet.”
Systemax currently has 29 CompUSA-branded brick-and-mortar stores. “We’re looking at additional real estate,” says Fiorentino however. “It’s an opportunity of a lifetime.”
The company acquired the name and branding for CompUSA and TigerDirect over the last year as the companies went bankrupt.
Result for: products group
Sonic has announced that Global Digital Media Xchange (GDMX), an Authoring facility, will be using “Sonic’s Scenarist HDMV and BD-J authoring and CineVision AVC video encoding systems” to ramp up production capabilities for Blu-ray Discs.
The new move will now make GDMX one of the biggest HD production facilities in the world and allow the company to address the huge increases in BD movie releases that will be coming thanks to the demise of HD DVD.
The Scenarist authoring system allows content creators to “automate standard authoring tasks, such as graphics output for menus, buttons, and navigation, which provides more time for implementing advanced-interactivity components in BD-Java.”
“We are delighted that another world-class authoring facility has selected Scenarist and CineVision to increase its BD Title output capabilities,” said Rolf Hartley, senior vice president and general manager of Sonic’s professional products group. “Many more movies will be released on Blu-ray Disc over the coming year and, as we have been through previous packaged media adoption cycles, Sonic will be at the forefront delivering the most advanced authoring and encoding technology available.”
Result for: products group
Texas Instruments DLP Cinema has announced that IMAX will now be using DLP Cinema projectors.
Under the new agreement, beginning in Q2 2008, any IMAX Digital projection system deployed to commercial theaters will be powered by DLP Cinema projectors.
“We are proud to work with IMAX in its development and rollout of the best digital cinema experience in the market,” said Nancy Fares, business manager for DLP Cinema Products Group. “DLP Cinema projectors are the heart of every digital 2D and 3D movie experience for traditional and now large format venues. We look forward to participating in their move to digital in the months ahead.”
Since the great box office success of The Polar Express on IMAX 3D, the format in itself has made a comeback and is resurgent revenue for the movie industry.
Heres hoping everyone moves to digital soon.
