Thomson's Technicolor Is Testing Blu-ray

Nothing like buying a shiny new Blu-ray Disc movie, and discovering that its BD-Live or BD-Java feature doesn't work properly, or takes forever to load. Kinda sucks, doesn't it?

Technicolor, a division of Thomson, has opened a facility to test those features, and give a thumbs up or thumbs down. Sort of like the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval.

Approved by the Blu-ray Disc Association, the new Blu-ray Disc Testing Center will be located in Burbank, California.

Why do they need such extensive testing?

What's in a Name?

A lot of profit, if you're talking about trusted names in consumer electronics. But some of those reassuring brands we grew up with — RCA, AT&T, Westinghouse, and Polaroid — bear no relation to the American companies we associate them with. In many cases, it's Chinese companies looking to make inroads into the lucrative U.S. market, where branding is everything.

In the case of RCA, the buyer is another well-known American company, Audiovox, which this week signed a definitive agreement to buy the RCA audio/video business from France's Thomson. Thomson bought the RCA trademark in the late '80s, a year after General Electric had acquired RCA (including its broadcast business) and replaced the famous red RCA neon letters with GE atop Rockefeller Center in New York City.