The Director of the audio CD division of the biggest audio/video/IT reseller in France, FNAC, has in the last issue of "contact" magazine, deeply criticized the politic, behavior and decisions of music majors.
Music majors keep telling us via the TV/radio channels that the audio CD industry is facing a crisis and it might not survive to this thread...
This is absolutely wrong!!! Audio CD business has almost never been so strong!! Even if it decreased slightly in 2003 compare to 2002, audio CD sells for 2003 remains huge and it is simply the 4th best year since the beginning of the audio/music disc industry in France!!
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If this info is confirmed or not rejected (and for sure this guy knows what he is talking about), we will never been able to trust anymore music major’s representatives...
Thanks to Vincent for this excellent news.
[Translator notes: France2 is one of the 2biggest TV broadcast companies in France. It is a no-private company, originally founded by the State, it is now much more independent, and even though it receives always part of its budget via a state contribution (it owns France2, France3 and ARTE channels)
A brand new success for Apple: France2 just acquired 10 video editing stations based on Apple FinalCut Pro running on PMG5 2GHz Dual coupled to Xserve RAID storage capacity. FinalCut Pro, being already the reference software for freelance video editors, starts now to find its way in official TV channels.
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[update] Thanks to JP for his fully detailed info, as he reports it below he was involved in the installation of those video editing stations.
I was personally involved in the validation process with Apple France which was carried out in December 2003. We had to install and validate a test unit based on G5 2GHz Dual, xServe RAID, Blackmagic DeckLink Pro cards and preampli audio Apogee, I can confirm that this solution has been validated in situ. Those stations are designed to be installed in the different regional or international France2 offices, in order to be able to perform news and video editing directly from those locations.
If I am mentioning that AVID was not selected for this project, it is to make clear that it was mainly due to the price of the Dongle coming with XPress and XPress Pro that journalists have a tendency to loose. But AVID is usually pricing it extremely high; this was probably killing their offer for France Television officers in charge of this project.
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Thanks to Mr Jean for this info.
Deutsche Grammophon, the most prestigious label for classical music, has officially announced its collaboration with iTMS. It is for a start not less than 750 CDs which are now available, as full CD or per track.
Another reason why it becomes more and more difficult to survive here in Europe without iTMS...especially if you do not want to go to the Dark side...
