Rebecca Day

Walmart further extended its streaming media reach when D-Link announced the retailer would exclusively sell its MovieNite DSM-310 streaming media player, which delivers 1080p HD movies, TV shows and Internet radio to a TV. The $59.99 player streams video content from Vudu, Netflix and YouTube and music from Pandora, D-Link said. Users can also watch a live feed from a mydlink-enabled network camera on TV and share photos with friends via the Picasa app, it said. Regarding whether the MovieNite box might be upgradeable for access to UltraViolet content in the future, a D-Link spokeswoman said there are no updates planned at this time. MovieNite won’t compete with D-Link’s Boxee Box, which isn’t sold through Walmart, largely because Boxee offers “more options” for consumers at “varying price points to help meet a range of streaming media needs,” the D-Link spokeswoman said. The Boxee Box “rounds out” D-Link’s product line in offering a “complete Web-to-TV solution,” she said. The Boxee device provides a “much more feature-rich experience” with 250 apps, local file support and a new Live TV tuner for over-the-air and clear QAM channels, a Boxee spokeswoman said in noting that the company’s relationship with D-Link hasn’t changed. The Boxee spokeswoman declined comment on whether new products would be introduced this year. Boxee recently shipped the Live TV tuner, which is being sold through its website, she said.

BrandSource specialty division Home Entertainment Source (HES) added six members in January and February, the buying group said Monday. HES credited the signings to dealer support programs and “robust membership” that allows the group to offer “more and deeper member programs.” The new members are Sound Sensation, Marietta, Ga.; Matrix Installations, Chattanooga, Tenn.; Good Sounds, Boca Raton, Fla.; Bethesda Systems, Bethesda, Md.; Digitainment, San Carlos, Calif.; and Etech America, Englewood, N.J. The competitive AV buying group field expanded by one earlier this year with the formation of Azione Unlimited, started by Richard Glikes, who left Home Technology Specialists of America (HTSA) last summer. Glikes has said Azione will have 100 members by September and 150 members by the end of the year. HES and PRO Group members have been generally viewed as potential targets for the fledgling group, but Glikes said Monday that 75 percent of Azione members were not in a buying group prior to joining Azione. Questions to HES about any attrition in the group since the beginning of the year weren’t answered by our deadline. Sales at Azione have surpassed the $100 million volume mark in the group’s first 75 days, Glikes said Monday, the day before the spring HTSA meeting begins in San Diego. Azione will finalize plans with three additional vendor members this week, Glikes said, along with six more dealers, but he didn’t elaborate.

In the ongoing active-versus-passive 3D TV advertising war being waged through the Council of Better Business Bureaus’ National Advertising Division (NAD), NAD recommended last week that Samsung discontinue certain claims regarding the superiority of its active 3D TV over passive 3D TV models in print, online and video advertising. The recommendations follow a challenge by LG that Samsung’s advertising misrepresents the technological characteristics of 3D TV in an attempt to disparage the 3D and 2D picture quality produced by LG’s passive 3D TVs.

Consumer spending on CE products was down more than $200 per household over the last 12 months, according to a CEA study on CE ownership and spending plans conducted in January. Each average adult spent $552 on CE in the past 12 months, down $100 from the year before, according to the report. CEA attributed the dollar decline to discounting rather than sagging interest in gadgets.

Harman’s Aha Radio company is hitting New York this week for the New York International Auto Show, hoping to burn its brand into the minds of consumers and auto manufacturers as it seeks to become the go-to content-hardware platform for cloud-based mobile entertainment. Aha launched in Pioneer after-market products last year and will be offered as a feature in select Subaru and Honda vehicles this fall. A major auto maker is expected to announce a partnership with Aha Wednesday, said Chia-Lin Simmons, vice president of marketing and content for Aha Radio, although details weren’t available at our deadline.

A California appeals court has granted Kaleidescape a temporary stay on an injunction preventing sales of its DVD servers that was scheduled to go into effect April 8, a spokesman for Kaleidescape told us Friday. The temporary stay gives the court time to review the case while it decides whether to grant a stay on the injunction for the duration of the appeal process, the spokesman said. The injunction was issued as part of the ruling against Kaleidescape earlier this month in the breach of contract suit brought by DVD CCA on behalf of movie studios over the Content Scrambling System that’s part of the DVD license. Kaleidescape is “pleased” with the temporary stay and sees it as “a step in the right direction,” the spokesman told us. “But what we'd like to have is a stay for the entire duration of the appeal.” DVD CCA didn’t respond by our deadline to our request for comment.

Lack of 3D content and a working business model remain major roadblocks to the arrival of 3D broadcasts, said Chris Chinnock, president of Insight Media, last week during the company’s webcast, “Overview of 3D Broadcast Formats, Trends & Impacts.” Content in 3D remains “very limited and of differing quality,” Chinnock said, but “the good news is there’s a lot of activity on a worldwide basis to create more 3D content.” It takes time to develop enough inventory to support a 3D channel, he said, adding there’s “quite a bit of activity in this area so I'm optimistic we'll see more content going forward."

High-end lighting control company Vantage is updating its InFusion lighting control system to address changes in residential lighting for energy efficiency and aesthetics, along with the proliferation of home networks and handheld touchscreen devices, Andrew Wale, vice president of marketing, told us during a press tour in New York Thursday.

When it comes to buying “green,” 81 percent of consumers want to see a symbol or certification and 80 percent want to see a message with specific data or outcomes, according to the “Cone Green Gap Trend Tracker.” Companies are making “great strides” in setting and achieving environmental goals, but if they aren’t communicating to consumers in a highly visible way, the messages may not get through, said Jonathan Yohannan, Cone Communications’ executive vice president of corporate responsibility. Cone is a public relations and marketing agency.

Judge William Monahan’s denial of a stay of the injunction against Kaleidescape in the DVD CCA breach-of-contract lawsuit was “expected” and clears the way for Kaleidescape to take the case in the Superior Court of California to the appeals court, a Kaleidescape spokesman told Consumer Electronics Daily. “It’s good that he acted quickly because it allows us to go to the court of appeal immediately,” the spokesman said, adding “there are a lot of moving pieces” before the injunction against sales of Kaleidescape’s DVD ripping software goes into effect April 8.