Philips fails to find a buyer for its universal control line-- and shuts down the Pronto line as a result.

It’s all quiet from Eindhoven (we mean Amsterdam these days) which is unusual. Philips just shut the doors on Pronto in Leuven, Belgium and left the market upset and puzzled.

“We tried to sell it,” says the CE giant. But they didn’t try too hard. And frankly selling a peanut is just too much trouble for an elephant. Small deals make just as much paperwork as big ones.

What went wrong? The only indication was their announcement about trying to shift production to Asia last year. Some blame labour restrictions. Employees in Belgium work 12 months but get paid for 13. They also get 4 weeks vacation, so they work 11 months for 13 months pay.

We shouldn’t pick on Belgium as much of W. Europe is equally expensive, but Philips seems to be blaming the costs in the Land of Beer for closing down Pronto. But producing kit in Europe and Asia is not a new skill set for the conglomerate that has survived the CE wars in TV, audio, CD players, VCRs, portable audio and cassettes.

The pronto closure of the Pronto division leaves lots of loyal installers in a pickle. These installers were hit with a big wholesale price increase from Pronto last year and some think Pronto became too expensive versus RTI, Universal Electronics and Control4.

Consumer Lifestyle products at Philips is facing the greatest challenge of its business life...after fighting all the CE recessions, now it faces the transition from analogue to digital products. And the top management, those guys that moved the HQ from Eindhoven to Amsterdam, have no loyalty to consumer electronics. Their new love is consumer health products (including related areas, see our link).

Go Where Philips Consumer Lifestyle is Really Headed (less “remote” and more up close and personal)

Go Pronto web (let’s call it the “memorial website” as no one has bothered to put up an indication of corporate status)

UPDATE: Philips issues a letter of clarification to its Pronto dealers. Although the company will stop selling Pronto products, it will still offer product service and support.

Current Pronto Products will be available until November.

The ProntoEdit Professional3 (PEP3) will also be released as scheduled. Philips says it will provide firmware updates for all TSU and RFX devices to be fully compatible with the PEP3.

Go Philps Pronto Dealer Letter

Wowza Media Server 2 wins 2 European Readers' Choice Awards from Streaming Media magazine.

It gets best streaming server software/harder for the 3rd time running, and best innovation for the 2nd time running.

Streaming Media magazine says the 2010 awards are a real who's-who of the online media industry. More than 3400 European voters cast more than 12700 votes.

Wowza Media Server simultaneously streams H.264/AAC/MP3 audio/video from a single encode to users on any screen - desktops, mobile devices and TV sets. It is deployed by ofer 50000 licensees in 60 countries.

Go Wowza Media Server Wins 2 European Readers' Choice Awards

ABI Research's TV Set-Top Box Market Data study shows W.European digital STB shipments are on decline, following largely successful digital transitions.

The E.European market however sees significant growth.

Standard Def DVRs are a thing of the past in W. Europe but will play a minor role in E.Europe.

DTT boxes see the largest platform growth worldwide as countries move through their digital transitions towards broadcast analog shutoff.

Go Worldwide Digital Set-top Box Market Study

It's raining down iProducts and there's business in finding new ways to use the various iDevices. Sonance provide a set of in-wall iPod mounting solutions, starting with the iPort CM-IW100T. Thanks to various iPod apps, the iPort and iPod Touch transform into a touchscreen home control.

This unobtrusive mount not only houses an iPod but also delivers audio via Cat5 connection (up to 9m) to the nearest audio wall plate while keeping the deviced charged.

The mount allows wi-fi connection for the connected device.

This model is the first in an in-wall mounting series for both iPods and iPads.

Go iPort

A single digital HDMI Matrix combined with multiple converters offers a solution to managing analog and digital audio/video.

The ASP-88 HDMI Matrix has 8 HDMI inputs and 8 HDMI outputs. Instead of managing multiple matrices to deal with analog and digital audio/video sources, each device can be connected to the appropriate converter, which feeds into the matrix. Output is handled from the matrix to converter before feeding to video/audio system.

This way wiring becomes less complex, especially when involving HDMI only display devices.

Aurora offers converter solutions to all requirements.

Go Aurora Multimedia

The Dune HD Lite 53D is the first in a series of entry-level universal media players. While small in size, it supports most audio and video formats, and plays both standard and HD video.

The player has 2 USB ports, an SD card slot and an eSATA port. An internal HDD can also be installed. It has a built in ethernet port and BitTorrent client.

Video output is provided by HDMI, composite and component analog outputs, and sound via HDMI, Toslink optical interface and RCA Stereo.

It also doubles as a specialised set-top-box for Digital TV reception.

All this comes in a compact and attractive device available in 4 different colours.

Go Dune HD Lite 53D