Technicolor SA formerly Thomson SA and Thomson Multimedia, is a French international provider of solutions for the creation, management, post-production, delivery and access of video, for the Communication, Media and Entertainment industries. Technicolor’s headquarters are located in Issy les Moulineaux, near Paris. Other main office locations include Rennes (France), Edegem (Belgium), Indianapolis (Indiana, USA), Burbank (California, USA), Princeton (New Jersey, USA), London (England, UK), Rome (Italy), Madrid (Spain), Hilversum (Netherlands), Bangalore (India) and Beijing (China).

The Company’s clients include studios, broadcasters, cinema/television production and post-production companies, network operators (telcos, broadband, satellite and cable operators) and a range of professional users of videos.

On January 27, 2010, the company changed its name to Technicolor

Technicolor

Technicolor is a color motion picture process invented in 1916 and improved over several decades.It was the second major process, after Britain's Kinemacolor, and the most widely used color process in Hollywood from 1922 to 1952...

, re-branding the entire company after its American film technology subsidiary.

History

Technicolor began as Thomson, named after the electrical engineer Elihu Thomson

Elihu Thomson

Elihu Thomson was an American engineer and inventor who was instrumental in the founding of major electrical companies in the United States, the United Kingdom and France.-Early life:...

, who was born in Manchester

Manchester

Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...

, England, on March 26, 1853. Thomson moved to Philadelphia at the age of 5, with his family. Thomson formed the Thomson-Houston Electric Company

Thomson-Houston Electric Company

The Thomson-Houston Electric Company was a manufacturing company which was one of the precursors of the General Electric Company.The Thomson-Houston Electric Company was formed in 1883 in the United States when a group of Lynn, Massachusetts investors led by Charles A...

 in 1879 with Edwin Houston. The company merged with the Edison General Electric Company to become the General Electric Company in 1892. In 1893, the Compagnie Française Thomson-Houston (CFTH) was formed in Paris, a sister company to GE in the United States. It is from this company that the modern Thomson Group would evolve.

In 1966, CFTH merged with Hotchkiss-Brandt to form Thomson-Houston-Hotchkiss-Brandt (soon renamed Thomson-Brandt). In 1968 the electronics business of Thomson-Brandt merged with Compagnie Générale de Télégraphie Sans Fil (CSF) to form Thomson-CSF

Thomson-CSF

Thomson-CSF was a major electronics and defence contractor. In December 2000 it was renamed Thales Group.-History:In 1879 Elihu Thomson and Edwin Houston formed the Thomson-Houston Electric Company in the United States....

. Thomson Brandt maintained a significant shareholding in this company (approximately 40%).

Consumer electronics

In 1982, both Thomson-Brandt and Thomson-CSF saw nationalization due to the efforts of François Mitterrand

François Mitterrand

François Maurice Adrien Marie Mitterrand was the 21st President of the French Republic and ex officio Co-Prince of Andorra, serving from 1981 until 1995. He is the longest-serving President of France and, as leader of the Socialist Party, the only figure from the left so far elected President...

. Thomson-Brandt was subsequently renamed Thomson SA (Société Anonyme), and soon thereafter merged with Thomson-CSF. In 1987, the state-run Thomson bought RCA

RCA

RCA Corporation, founded as the Radio Corporation of America, was an American electronics company in existence from 1919 to 1986. The RCA trademark is currently owned by the French conglomerate Technicolor SA through RCA Trademark Management S.A., a company owned by Technicolor...

 and GE Consumer Electronics from GE

Gê

Gê are the people who spoke Ge languages of the northern South American Caribbean coast and Brazil. In Brazil the Gê were found in Rio de Janeiro, Minas Gerais, Bahia, Piaui, Mato Grosso, Goias, Tocantins, Maranhão, and as far south as Paraguay....

. In 1988 Thomson Consumer Electronics was formed, and then renamed it Thomson SA. In 1995, The French government split the consumer electronics from the defense businesses of Thomson Multimedia and Thomson-CSF prior to privatization in 1999. The company then went through a series of transactions, including with Marconi plc, before becoming Thales

Thales Group

The Thales Group is a French electronics company delivering information systems and services for the aerospace, defense, transportation and security markets...

 in 2000.
In 2005, Thomson bought Cirpack

Cirpack

Cirpack develops local exchange and transit switches for telecom operators to deliver all the primary line voice services over legacy TDM networks as well as new broadband local loops using VoIP protocols....

 and Inventel

Inventel

Inventel is a major French company involved in consumer electronics and communication systems. Founded in 1990 in Paris by Jacques Lewiner and Eric Carreel, cofounder of Withings, the company has been acquired by Thomson SA, today known as Technicolor, in 2005....

.

Exiting the consumer business

In 2004, Thomson set up a joint venture (TTE) with China's TCL

TCL Corporation

TCL Corporation is a multinational electronics company headquartered in Huizhou, Guangdong, China. In 2010 it was the world's 25th-largest consumer electronics producer and sixth-largest television producer .TCL comprises three listed companies: TCL Corporation , which is listed on the Shenzhen...

, giving to TCL all manufacturing of RCA and Thomson television and DVD products and making TCL the global leader in TV manufacturing (Thomson still controls the brands themselves and licenses them to TTE). At the time, TCL was hailed as the first Chinese company to compete on the international stage with large international corporations. Thomson initially retained all marketing of TTE's products, but transferred that to TTE in 2005. In June 2005, the Videocon Group of India announced that it would acquire the color picture tube manufacturing business from Thomson SA for €240 million. In December 2006, the European subsidiary of TTE closed its operations in France and TTE lost the right to use the Thomson brand on TVs sold in Europe

In December 2006, Thomson SA agreed to sell off its Audio/Video and Accessories businesses (the RCA and Thomson brands except communications products such as cordless phones) to Audiovox

Audiovox

Audiovox Corporation is an American consumer electronics company founded in 1965 and headquartered in Hauppauge, New York.Among the domestic brands now owned by Audiovox are: Acoustic Research, Advent, Code Alarm, Invision, Jensen, Prestige, RCA, and Terk. The international brands they own include...

. On October 2007, Thomson SA agreed to sell its consumer electronics audio video business outside Europe including the worldwide rights to the RCA Brand.

Entering the digital video business

In 2000, Thomson Multimedia purchased Technicolor from Carlton Television

Carlton Television

Carlton Television was the ITV franchise holder for London and the surrounding counties including the cities of Solihull and Coventry of the West Midlands, south Suffolk, middle and east Hampshire, Oxfordshire, south Bedfordshire, south Northamptonshire, parts of Herefordshire & Worcestershire,...

 (owned by Carlton Communications

Carlton Communications

Carlton Communications was a British media company. It was led by Michael Green and listed on the London Stock Exchange from 1983 until 2 February 2004, when it taken over by Granada plc to form ITV plc with Carlton gaining 32% of the new company....

) in the UK and began a move into the broadcast management, facilities and services market with the purchase of Corinthian Television, becoming Thomson Multimedia until 2002 and accquiring the Grass Valley Group. Thomson then purchased the Moving Picture Company

Moving Picture Company

The Moving Picture Company is a post production facility creating digital visual effects and computer animation for feature films, commercials, music videos and television...

 from ITV

ITV

ITV is the major commercial public service TV network in the United Kingdom. Launched in 1955 under the auspices of the Independent Television Authority to provide competition to the BBC, it is also the oldest commercial network in the UK...

 and the internet startup Singingfish

Singingfish

Singingfish was an audio/video search engine that powered audio video search for Windows Media Player,, WindowsMedia.com, RealOne/RealPlayer,, Real Guide, AOL Search, Dogpile, Metacrawler and Singingfish.com, among others. Launched in 2000, it was one of the earliest and longest lived search...

, but then sold it to AOL

AOL

AOL Inc. is an American global Internet services and media company. AOL is headquartered at 770 Broadway in New York. Founded in 1983 as Control Video Corporation, it has franchised its services to companies in several nations around the world or set up international versions of its services...

 in late 2004. In 2004, Thomson increased its stake in the Bangalore, India based company Celstream Technologies, which specializes in product engineering. Cirpack

Cirpack

Cirpack develops local exchange and transit switches for telecom operators to deliver all the primary line voice services over legacy TDM networks as well as new broadband local loops using VoIP protocols....

, a softswitch

Softswitch

A softswitch is a central device in a telecommunications network which connects telephone calls from one phone line to another, typically via the internet, entirely by means of software running on a general-purpose computer system...

 manufacturer, was incorporated and acquired in April 2005. In July 2005, Thomson agreed to purchase the largest in-store television network in the United States, the independently held PRN Corporation

Premier retail networks

Premier Retail Networks is a wholly owned subsidiary of Technicolor SA , founded in 1992. It specializes in digital place based media and digital out-of-home advertising, and is headquartered in San Francisco, California.-Overview:...

 for $285 million dollars. In December 2005, Thomson re-purchased the Broadcast & Multimedia part of Thales Group

Thales Group

The Thales Group is a French electronics company delivering information systems and services for the aerospace, defense, transportation and security markets...

.

(In September 2005 Thomson first showed its Infinity camcorder. At the April 2006 launch, this was described as "a new line of IT-based acquisition, recording and storage devices." It was designed to end the stranglehold of proprietary products in this market and was inspired by Grass Valley's then VP of Marketing Jeff Rosica's trip to Fry's Electronics

Fry's Electronics

Fry's Electronics is a big-box store and retailer of software, consumer electronics, computer hardware, with in store computer repair and custom computer building services and household appliances with a chain of superstores headquartered in Silicon Valley...

 in Burbank to buy a computer backup device.)

However on January 29, 2009, Thomson announced its intention to sell the PRN and Grass Valley businesses in order to focus on services business and improve its financial position. This was one of the consequences of an enormous financial crisis in 2009 which forced the company to a total financial restructuring in order to avoid bankruptcy. From 2010 to Februaury 2011, "Technicolor" (having rebranded itself) divested these sub-businesses: Grass Valley and Broadcast to the Francisco Partners in July and December along with the Transmission business to PARTER Capital Group; Head-end to the FCDE (Fonds de Consolidation et de Développement des Entreprises), and reintegration of the PRN.

Controversies

SmartVision

Thomson received the “Best IPTV platform/middleware/application” award during the 2007 IPTV World Series Awards in London for SmartVision

SmartVision

Technicolor SmartVision is the latest update of the SmartVision service platform software, intended for use for a converged media service for set-top boxes, mobileTV and PCs to access content in a time-delayed, on-demand or linear manner. The content is delivered agnostic to the network, but...

, a service management platform, which was also partially developed in India. This group of 40 best engineers in their R&D lab in India were later sacked with the term "Recession".

Executive Committee

• Frederic Rose – CEO
• Stéphane Rougeot – CFO
• David Chambeaud – HR
• Delphine Abellard – General Secretary & Legal
• Béatrix de Russé – Intellectual Property & Licensing
• Gary Donnan – Strategy, Technology & Research
• Vince Pizzica – Digital Delivery
• Lanny Raimondo – Entertainment Services
• Michel Rahier – Operations Services & Transformation

Portfolio

Main

• The company controls the patents and licensing of the mp3
  MP3
  MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III, more commonly referred to as MP3, is a patented digital audio encoding format using a form of lossy data compression...
  
   / mp3HD
  Mp3HD
  MPEG-1 Audio Layer III HD more commonly known and advertised by its abbreviation mp3HD is an audio compression codec developed by Technicolor formerly known as Thomson...
  
   audio codec
  Codec
  A codec is a device or computer program capable of encoding or decoding a digital data stream or signal. The word codec is a portmanteau of "compressor-decompressor" or, more commonly, "coder-decoder"...
  
  
• Mobile TV
• IPTV
• Home Networking
• Broadcast
• Professional Video
• Online Video
• Out-of-Home Networks
• Broadcast Networks
• Media Content Management
• Content Security

Products & Services

• Film Production
• Theatrical Distribution
• Home Entertainment (DVDs)
• Television Broadcasting
• Commercials
• Game services
• Broadcast
• Post Production
• Professional Video
• xDSL Modems & Gateways
• Business xDSL Gateways
• Home Networking & Accessories
• Set-Top Boxes
• Cable Modems & Gateways
• Telephony
• Softswitches
• SmartVision Video Service Platform
• Distribution & Transmission
• Tuners
• Content Tracking and Security
• Licensing
• Professional Services

External links

• Technicolor official site
• Company data: THOMSON Company Profile – Yahoo! Finance
  Yahoo! Finance
  Yahoo! Finance is a service from Yahoo! that provides financial information. It is the top financial news and research website in the United States, with more than 23 million visitors in February 2010, according to comScore....
  
  
• Member of the Digital Watermarking Alliance – Furthering the Adoption of Digital Watermarking
• Article: Le modem cable/VoIP Thomson THG520 sur Developpez.com