This article needs to be updated.(July 2017) |
Type | Division |
---|---|
Industry | Electronics |
Founded | 2008 by merger |
Headquarters | Amsterdam, the Netherlands |
Key people | Frans van Houten (CEO) |
Products | Consumer electronics, small appliances |
Revenue | €10.576 billion (2006) |
€416 million (2006) | |
Parent | Philips |
Website | www.consumer.philips.com |
Philips Consumer Lifestyle is a subsidiary of the Dutch multinational electronics company Philips which produces consumer electronics and small appliances. It is the only Philips company headquartered in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. The Americas division is headquartered in Stamford, Connecticut.
Philips Consumer Lifestyle was formed in 2008 from the merger of Philips Consumer Electronics and Philips Domestic Appliances and Personal Care.
Philips receives royalties from the sale of every CD, [1] DVD [2] and Blu-ray [3] .
While Philips' first product was manufactured in 1891, the first product that would fit in the Consumer Electronics division was a television, experimentally manufactured in 1925. In 1927, Philips began producing radios. Only five years later, Philips had sold one million of them. One other major product release came in 1963, when the Compact Cassette was introduced.
After Philips Consumer Electronics acquired companies as Magnavox and Sylvania in the late-1970s, Philips managed to sell their 100-millionth TV-set in 1984. Philips still is the European television market leader, as well as the third in the world.[ when? ]
Because of the enormous growth, Philips decided to split up their company divisions during the 1990s. While Philips CE contains most of the Consumer Electronics, other products such as Philips' shavers (Philishave and Norelco) were located under the Domestic Appliances division.
As of 2012 Philips is no longer directly involved in TV manufacturing, because it has outsourced it to a joint venture with TPV Technology, called TP Vision. [4]
Philips announced in January 2013 [5] that it agreed to sell its consumer electronics division to Japan-based Funai Electric Co. for Euro 150 million (US$201.8 million). This would leave mainly consumer products for personal care and health in this division of Philips. [6] However, in October 2013, Philips announced that it would not proceed with the sale, instead initiating litigation against Funai, alleging breach of contract by Funai. [7]
In 1962 Philips invented the compact audio cassette medium for audio storage. Although there were other magnetic tape cartridge systems, the Compact Cassette became dominant as a result of Philips's decision to license the format free of charge.
Laserdisc was a 30 cm disc designed with MCA meant to compete with VHS and even replace it. While not as generally popular as VHS, due to the initial investment costs of players, somewhat higher costs of movie titles, the initial read-only format and early manufacturing issues, it eventually enjoyed extensive success among serious video collectors, like its contemporaneous rival Betamax. The technologies created for Laserdisc would later be used again for the Compact Disc.
Although Philips' and MCA's Laserdisc project never reached the VHS mass market level, Philips still thought the format should be able to succeed, and, in collaboration with Sony, launched the smaller CD in 1982.
The DVD (Digital Versatile Disc or Digital Video Disc), the eventual successor of the CD (Compact Disc), met a long road of setbacks. Philips wanted to continue with the CD in a new format called MultiMedia Compact Disc (MMCD), while another group (led by Toshiba) was developing a competing format, then named Super Density (SD) disc. Their representatives approached IBM for advice on the file system. IBM also learned of Philips' and Sony's initiative. IBM convinced a group of computer industry experts (among them Apple, Dell, etc.) to form a working group. The Technical Working Group (TWG) voted to boycott both formats unless they merged to prevent another format war (like the videotape format war). The result was the DVD specification, finalized in 1995. The DVD video format was first introduced in Japan in 1996, later in 1997 in the U.S. as limited test run, then across Europe and the other continents from late 1998 onwards.
Blu-ray Disc, yet again primarily developed by Philips and Sony, utilizes blue-violet coloured diodes to create an even shorter wavelength beam than CD or DVD. Because of this, the capacity is much more than that of CD or DVD, being 25 GB single-layered or 50 GB dual-layered.
The compact disc (CD) is a digital optical disc data storage format that was co-developed by Philips and Sony to store and play digital audio recordings. In August 1982, the first compact disc was manufactured. It was then released in October 1982 and branded as Digital Audio Compact Disc.
Koninklijke Philips N.V. is a Dutch multinational conglomerate corporation that was founded in Eindhoven in 1891. Since 1997, it has been mostly headquartered in Amsterdam, though the Benelux headquarters is still in Eindhoven. Philips was formerly one of the largest electronics companies in the world, but is currently focused on the area of health technology, having divested its other divisions.
The Compact Disc-Interactive is a digital optical disc data storage format that was mostly developed and marketed by Dutch company Philips. It was created as an extension of CDDA and CD-ROM and specified in the Green Book, co-developed by Philips and Sony, to combine audio, text and graphics. The two companies initially expected to impact the education/training, point of sale, and home entertainment industries, but CD-i eventually became best known for its video games.
Sony Group Corporation, commonly known as Sony and stylized as SONY, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Kōnan, Minato, Tokyo, Japan. As a major technology company, it operates as one of the world's largest manufacturers of consumer and professional electronic products, the largest video game console company and the largest video game publisher. Through Sony Entertainment Inc, it is one of the largest music companies and the third largest film studio, making it one of the most comprehensive media companies. It is the largest technology and media conglomerate in Japan. At the same period, it is also recognized as the most cash-rich Japanese company, with its net cash reserves of ¥2 trillion.
Walkman, stylised as WALKMAN (ウォークマン), is a brand of portable audio players manufactured and marketed by Sony since 1979. The original Walkman was a portable cassette player and its popularity made "walkman" an unofficial term for personal stereos of any producer or brand. By 2010, when production stopped, Sony had built about 200 million cassette-based Walkmans. The Walkman brand was extended to serve most of Sony's portable audio devices, including DAT players, MiniDisc players/recorders, CD players, transistor radios, mobile phones, and digital audio/media players. As of 2022 the Walkman range consists exclusively of digital players.
Magnavox is an American electronics company founded in the United States. Since 1974, it has been a subsidiary of Dutch electronics corporation Philips.
Video CD is a home video format and the first format for distributing films on standard 120 mm (4.7 in) optical discs. The format was widely adopted in Southeast Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East, superseding the VHS and Betamax systems in the regions until DVD-Video finally became affordable in the first decade of the 21st century.
Digital Audio Tape is a signal recording and playback medium developed by Sony and introduced in 1987. In appearance it is similar to a Compact Cassette, using 3.81 mm / 0.15" magnetic tape enclosed in a protective shell, but is roughly half the size at 73 mm × 54 mm × 10.5 mm. The recording is digital rather than analog. DAT can record at sampling rates equal to, as well as higher and lower than a CD at 16 bits quantization. If a comparable digital source is copied without returning to the analogue domain, then the DAT will produce an exact clone, unlike other digital media such as Digital Compact Cassette or non-Hi-MD MiniDisc, both of which use a lossy data reduction system.
Videotape is magnetic tape used for storing video and usually sound in addition. Information stored can be in the form of either an analog signal or digital signal. Videotape is used in both video tape recorders (VTRs) or, more commonly, videocassette recorders (VCRs) and camcorders. Videotapes are also used for storing scientific or medical data, such as the data produced by an electrocardiogram.
JVC is a Japanese brand owned by JVCKenwood corporation and formerly by the Victor Company of Japan, Limited. Founded in 1927, the company is best known for introducing Japan's first televisions and for developing the Video Home System (VHS) video recorder.
A CD player is an electronic device that plays audio compact discs, which are a digital optical disc data storage format. CD players were first sold to consumers in 1982. CDs typically contain recordings of audio material such as music or audiobooks. CD players may be part of home stereo systems, car audio systems, personal computers, or portable CD players such as CD boomboxes. Most CD players produce an output signal via a headphone jack or RCA jacks. To use a CD player in a home stereo system, the user connects an RCA cable from the RCA jacks to a hi-fi and loudspeakers for listening to music. To listen to music using a CD player with a headphone output jack, the user plugs headphones or earphones into the headphone jack.
The LaserDisc (LD) is a home video format and the first commercial optical disc storage medium, initially licensed, sold and marketed as MCA DiscoVision in the United States in 1978. Its diameter typically spans 30 cm (12 in). Unlike most optical disc standards, LaserDisc is not fully digital and instead requires the use of analog video signals.
Full-motion video (FMV) is a video game narration technique that relies upon pre-recorded video files to display action in the game. While many games feature FMVs as a way to present information during cutscenes, games that are primarily presented through FMVs are referred to as full-motion video games or interactive movies.
A format war is a competition between similar but mutually incompatible technical standards that compete for the same market, such as for data storage devices and recording formats for electronic media. It is often characterized by political and financial influence on content publishers by the developers of the technologies. Developing companies may be characterized as engaging in a format war if they actively oppose or avoid interoperable open-industry technical standards in favor of their own.
The videotape format war was a period of competition or "format war" of incompatible models of consumer-level analog video videocassette and video cassette recorders (VCR) in the late 1970s and the 1980s, mainly involving the Betamax and Video Home System (VHS) formats. VHS ultimately emerged as the preeminent format.
The Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA) is the industry consortium that develops and licenses Blu-ray Disc technology and is responsible for establishing format standards and promoting business opportunities for Blu-ray Disc. The BDA is divided into three levels of membership: the board of directors, contributors, and general members.
Durabrand is a private label tradename of Walmart which was introduced in early 1999. It is currently available in the UK through ASDA, where it was previously known as Pacific.
Kornelis Antonie "Kees" Schouhamer Immink is a Dutch scientist, inventor, and entrepreneur, who pioneered and advanced the era of digital audio, video, and data recording, including popular digital media such as Compact Disc, DVD and Blu-ray Disc. He has been a prolific and influential engineer, who holds more than 1100 U.S. and international patents. A large portion of the commonly used audio and video playback and recording devices use technologies based on his work. His contributions to coding systems assisted the digital video and audio revolution, by enabling reliable data storage at information densities previously unattainable.
Funai Electric Co., Ltd. is a Japanese consumer electronics company headquartered in Daitō, Osaka. Apart from producing its own branded electronic products, it is also an OEM providing assembled televisions and video players/recorders to major corporations such as Sharp, Toshiba, Denon, and others. Funai supplies inkjet printer hardware technology to Dell and Lexmark, and produces printers under the Kodak name.
A videocassette recorder (VCR) or video recorder is an electromechanical device that records analog audio and analog video from broadcast television or other source on a removable, magnetic tape videocassette, and can play back the recording. Use of a VCR to record a television program to play back at a more convenient time is commonly referred to as timeshifting. VCRs can also play back prerecorded tapes. In the 1980s and 1990s, prerecorded videotapes were widely available for purchase and rental, and blank tapes were sold to make recordings.