Com‘on!
Both US subsidiaries of Panasonic and Sony have being subsidized over the past 5-6 years directly from Japan. Both companies are suffering from huge annual losses. Matter of fact, each television that is being sold is subsidized directly from the factory with $8-30 pending up on the model.
So, each time a television set is sold – they pay on top. And still at the end of each year, a big Cheque arrives just in time at the US subsidiaries before closing the books for the Japanese fiscal year. With a press release, they announce every year over and over again, that they archived a breakeven.
So, finally the “24h Excel wizard” they are trying to pretend, admits to have made serious mistakes – respect ;-)

Hi Ben and Steve,
I was a bit disappointed, that you did not mention in your postcast no. 136, the possibilities of Pay Per View VoD streaming and downloading movies via BD-Live. We have developed some awesome BD-Live widgets that will brighten up the BD-Live technology and usage by end users. Get in contact with me. I am in L.A. (May 26 - 31) and SF (June 1-2).
THX,
Lothar

Re.: videociety

Dear Ben and Steve,
highly appreciate you guys for mentioning our VoD service videociety via BD-Live.
So, I finally made it on your webside and postcast, that is truly awesome!

Look forward in hearing from you,

Lothar

The service is called videociety. We believe, once the name is learned and well known, people want have any trouble. A part from that, the name videociety is exactly what the service will offer the end user. Movies to watch and a community to share their passion for films! The service is truly amazing - it is just like watching a DVD.

videociety is the Next Generation streaming broadband network for all Blu-ray BD-Live
players. The Blu-ray player has become the first CE device to enter the living room to playback all disc based media (CD, DVD and Blu-ray Disc) as well as viewing pictures and listening to music via SD card or USB-stick/HDD. With videociety the perspective of
bring the non-physical video content to the living room isn‘t a dream anymore. We call that
“Unified Entertainment”.

videociety‘s extended Blu-ray Disc and BD-Live technology, jointly paves the way for Video-on-Demand and IPTV entering the living room. It transforms every Blu-ray BD-Live player into a personalized premium video archive plus a whole lot more in the future.