Bruce Nazarian

First and foremost, we would like to wish you all the happiest of new years, and our best wishes for a successful and prosperous 2008.

And in keeping with this month's title, a New Year, a New DVDA, you will be seeing many new and innovative things from the DVDA in 2008. First, DVDA will be more active in co-sponsoring and presenting events this year - our first co-sponsored event of 2008 is the Storage Visions '08, http://www.storagevisions.com taking place in Las Vegas on January 5-6, just before the perennial 'Big Show' - CES, where you will find many DVDA Directors in attendance.. 2008 also showcases our very first event from the DVD Association - Europe - a day of informative DVD and Next-Gen sessions to be held on January 31st at the Broadcast Live / Video Forum event at Earl's Court, in London: http://www.broadcastvideoforum.co.uk/. Information for this event will be posted shortly.

On March 4-5, DVDA will be part of the MediaTech Expo 2008 in Miami. http://www.media-tech.net.  And on April 12th and 13th, our flagship event, the DVDA Day of Excellence and the 2008 Excellence Awards will make their Las Vegas debut at NAB 2008! We'll be posting more informiiton on this event, and entry instructions for the 2008 DVDA Excellence Awards shortly. This year, the DVDA Excellence Awards will also include the META awards event, reflecting the merger of META with the DVDA (we will announce more details of this in a few weeks).   

In 2008, we also in augurate the new DVDA page in "Mediaware", the publication from CDSA. the DVDA page each month will cover interesting issues related to developments in optical disc technology.  

In addition, in 2008 we will inaugurate our new DVDA Certification Program, which will identify digital facilities, digital producers, authors, and others, who have achieved a verifiable level of excellence in the production of DVD, HD DVD and Blu-ray discs. Our first Certifications will be for Certified Digital Facilities, and will be available to any facility working in DVD, HD, or BD. More details will be posted here once the final certification criteria have been locked in. 

We have some new sponsors and a lot of new members joining the DVDA, and we wil shortly deploy a new member directory to allow website visitors fast access to all DVDA members, and their specialties.  All in all, 2008 will be a year of new initiatives, and new benefits for members and visitors alike!  Why not join us? 

We encourage DVDA members to submit your DVD news items as well, so we can help promote your DVD activities on our site and also in our newsletters and press releases. Just send them to news@dvda.org. If you have a local chapter that would like their own area on DVDA.ORG, you have only to ask us - just email webmaster@dvda.org and ask us. It's FREE!   

You can find out more about these membership benefits at www.DVDA.org and can join online instantly . We're working hard to ensure that the DVDA is actively making your DVD efforts more rewarding. We'd appreciate your assistance, and cordially invite you to become part of our worldwide organization.

best regards - Bruce