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Shaking Up Home Entertainment

21 Nov, 2016 By: Stephanie Prange

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The business of home entertainment has always been in flux. Since the very beginning of this magazine in 1979, visionary movers and shakers have been changing entertainment. We’ve seen different physical formats, from Betamax to VHS to DVD to Blu-ray to 4K Blu-ray Disc with high dynamic range (HDR). We’ve absorbed the digital delivery revolution and incorporated it into our definition of home entertainment, bringing in Netflix, Amazon Prime and Hulu, among other home entertainment newcomers.

With our November 2016 issue, we recognize some of the leaders of this business, the “Movers and Shakers,” who are forging the future of the home entertainment industry. We’ve got top studio executives alongside digital, retail and trade group executives who are helping to make, distribute and facilitate delivery of the home entertainment we all consume.

As we publish this list of influential executives, the industry is launching a new format, 4K Ultra HD with HDR, on Blu-ray Disc and, to some extent, on digital services — though those delivery mechanisms can be hampered by bandwidth. Several of our Movers and Shakers have been instrumental in getting this format — which promises yet another leap forward in home entertainment quality — off the ground.

In addition to physical disc and digital entertainment, the industry is embarking on newer forms of entertainment that employ virtual and augmented reality, offering another potential stream of income to the industry. The Fox Innovation Lab, under the capable direction of executives on our list, this month released its first commercial virtual reality endeavor, The Martian VR Experience, at $19.99 for PlayStation VR for the PlayStation 4 system and HTC Vive on Steam. Several of our Movers and Shakers are involved in this shakeup of the very definition of home entertainment, a new frontier that allows the audience to become immersed in a story in ways that our industry is just beginning to explore.

We congratulate the Top 50 Movers and Shakers, as well as the Up and Comers who are some of the leaders of the future. They are forging the path of home entertainment. It can be a rocky path, and those that navigate its changes must be ready to meet the unexpected.

We salute them, and look forward to their future accomplishments.
 

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