SONICblue, the current owners of the ReplayTV, RIO and GoVideo brands, has announced it’s selling its major assets and filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
A Japanese company named D&M Holdings Inc. is buying the ReplayTV and RIO units; D&M is Denon & Marantz, makers of high-end a/v equipment. That’s a reasonably good fit for where ReplayTV is, but not for where I was hoping it was going — it’s probably good news for existing customers, but I suspect it means the end of competititon with Tivo for the mass market.
GoVideo is being sold to a company named Opta Systems LLC, a subsidiary of a Camco Investments LLC; Opta’s vice chairman is a former CEO of Sensory Science, the former owner of GoVideo.
The announcement is curiously silent on other brands SONICblue owns, such as S3, Diamond Multimedia, and Supra. None are terribly important in the marketplace these days, but they do have significant history. I’d think the “Diamond” name in particular might be worth something.
No word yet on what it means for employees; hopefully they’ll be kept on under more stable financial circumstances.
I think I’m glad they never made that job offer, though…