The HomeGrid Forum used CES to promote powerline technology as a “robust networking backbone” for the connected home. G.hn offers a single, widely supported standard for connected networked devices over existing wired infrastructure including powerline, coax and phone line, it said. The expansion of Ultra HD TV content and multiple screens in the average household has created the need for a “high throughput home networking backbone," the forum said. Arris, Brightech, Comtrend, Sigma Designs and Wondertek showed G.hn-based devices.

Eleven Cordillera Communications local channels in eight states were blacked out on Dish Network as part of stalemated retransmission negotiations, Dish said in a news release Thursday. Dish said Cordillera is seeking "above-market rate increases double the current Dish rate" and using the blackout of the NFL Wild Card playoff games scheduled Saturday and Sunday as leverage. “With Dish willing to grant an extension and a retroactive true-up on rates, Cordillera had nothing to lose and consumers had everything to gain by leaving the channels up,” said Warren Schlichting, Dish executive vice president-programming, in a statement. In its statement, Cordillera said Dish "has refused to reach a fair, market-based agreement ... even as we offer terms similar to those of existing agreements with every other cable and satellite provider."

The FCC needs to resolve a reconsideration petition from three Class A broadcasters soon, the broadcasters said in separate meetings with staff from the offices of Chairman Tom Wheeler, Commissioners Jessica Rosenworcel, Mike O'Rielly and Ajit Pai Wednesday, according to an ex parte filing posted Friday in docket 12-268. The Fifth Street Enterprises, Videohouse and WMTM petition asks the FCC to allow their stations to participate in the incentive auction or be protected in the repacking, and the agency was ordered to resolve it quickly Dec. 30 by a U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit judge (see 1601040055). “A prompt grant of the Reconsideration Petition would obviate the need for judicial review and its attendant costs and risks,” the ex parte filing said. Granting the recon petition won't delay the auction because the Class A's owned by the petitioner are the only “similarly situated” stations entitled to relief, the broadcasters said.

U.S. consumer spending on home entertainment content jumped 0.9 percent in 2015 from a year earlier to $18.1 billion, the Digital Entertainment Group said Wednesday in its year-end report. For Q4, the rise in spending was 1.3 percent to $5.3 billion, DEG said. Subscription streaming was the year’s big winner, rising nearly 25 percent to $5.1 billion, it said. Subscription rentals of physical media was the year’s biggest loser, declining nearly 16 percent to $667 million, it said. Sell-through spending on packaged goods fell 12 percent to $6.1 billion, it said. However, with 8 percent growth in Blu-ray sales, the industry, sell-through-wise, “saw its best year over year physical retail performance since early 2014,” DEG said. “The strength of the premium experience bodes well for the introduction of Ultra HD Blu-ray in 2016.”

Phase two for the UHD Alliance will "probably include live broadcasts -- sports, news and all that," said President Hanno Basse in an interview in Las Vegas, where its Ultra HD Premium logo program was officially unveiled. On the device side, "we’re discussing to what extent we should go and look at mobile devices," he said Monday. "Those discussions have just started, because we were so focused on getting this first version out. The reason why we felt there was an urgency here is because we really thought the industry needed an answer. We needed an answer by this CES, seeing what’s going on in the consumer electronics industry.”

Audio equalization technology that Gracenote is introducing at CES to enhance music playback in the car is based on offering automated help for people who don't know how to manually adjust their music players, or don’t want to fiddle with manual controls while driving, we found in a patent search from the unit of Tribune Media. Patent filings from September 2013 (US 20150073574) and January 2014 (US 20150194151) cover the automatic adjustment of audio playback settings to suit the environment. Music players problematically provide the same listening experience, regardless of type of music. Listeners may not know what audio content is coming up next, forcing them to make changes on the fly after the next song has already begun, it said. Gracenote’s idea is to help the music player identify music or speech by its mood or style immediately when it's played and automatically optimize the player controls by embedding a fingerprint of “profile information” in the content, it said. The content can be audio or video, and come over the air from a radio or TV broadcaster, from an ISP or from a download, it said. The company didn't comment Monday.

It “seems unlikely” the FCC’s role in media transactions will be limited “in the foreseeable future,” said Georgetown Law Institute for Public Representation Senior Counselor Andrew Schwartzman in a blog post Monday about how such deals are regulated. “Industries within the FCC’s jurisdiction and their Congressional supporters frequently object to the fact that they are subject to two different enforcement schemes,” said Schwartzman, referring to review of such deals by both the FCC and either the Justice Department or the FTC. Though industry groups argue the current review process is too burdensome, that review is merited “given the important impact of these companies on the diversity of voices in the media, the pace of broadband deployment and the evolution of digital technologies,” Schwartzman said.

Streaming TV service FilmOn X and its broadcaster opponents asked Judge Rosemary Collyer of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to make it easier for FilmOn X to appeal a ruling that it isn't eligible for a compulsory copyright license (see 1512020060), according to court filings. A joint stipulation filed by FilmOn X and the broadcasters asked Collyer to enter as a final judgment her decision that FilmOn X isn't considered a cable system under copyright law, which would allow FilmOn X to move forward with an appeal on that issue to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. While the appeal moves forward the parties want to continue discovery on the amount of damages FilmOn X must pay for infringement of the broadcasters' copyright, the stipulation said. They ask the court not to reach an actual decision on those damages until the matter at the court of appeals is resolved, the stipulation says. The requests still require Collyer's final approval, but the judge granted an earlier request from the parties for more time to work out this joint plan, according to court documents.

An FCC decision on rules that would require radio stations and cable and satellite providers to keep an online public inspection file could come soon, Wilkinson Barker broadcast attorney David Oxenford said in a blog post Thursday. The proposed rule change has moved quickly in the past, transitioning from a notice of inquiry to an NPRM with unusual speed, which caused speculation last year that the commission was working to get the rules changed in time for the 2016 election, Oxenford said. The item was put on circulation Dec. 21, and that could indicate approving a change before the election is still a goal, he said. “How quickly the FCC can provide the technology to host the thousands of radio stations that may be subject to any such rule may be a limitation,” Oxenford said.

With a week to go before CES, where high dynamic range figures to be a big issue, Philips appears to be inching closer to landing Patent and Trademark Office registration of the “hdr” trademark, agency records show. According to a Dec. 5 notification, the Philips application (serial number 79162105) is due to be published Tuesday in PTO’s Official Gazette, setting in motion a 30-day comment period during which outside parties may file oppositions. Barring such oppositions, PTO under its customary procedures would grant Philips registration of the “hdr” mark a short time later. The lower-case "hdr” is included in the image accompanying the application. It remains a mystery how Philips would use the trademark if granted the registration. The Philips HDR proposal, one of two proprietary systems along with Dolby Vision to be designated as HDR options in the Ultra HD Blu-ray format, is based in the same Philips Intellectual Property and Standards office from which the trademark application emanated. But Marty Gordon, a spokesman for the Philips HDR team, said that team has no plans to use the logo in its forthcoming activities to win adoption of the Philips HDR system. Representatives of corporate Philips or the various entities like Funai and TP Vision that have licensed the Philips brand for TVs and other CE products didn’t comment.