Despite a 26 percent increase in Q2 global TV shipments year-over-year, to 56.2 million units, the North American market suffered a 3 percent decline, DisplaySearch said. The North American drop followed a weak 1 percent increase in unit sales Q1, the research company said. After triple-digit growth in 2009, the China market cooled to 31 percent growth year-over-year, the report said, because of holiday season sales weaker than forecast.

Netgear is announcing Tuesday video streaming and networking products designed to improve HD video streaming throughout homes. Vivek Pathela, the vice president and general manager for home/consumer products, told Consumer Electronics Daily that buffering times of 20-30 seconds, video jitter, screen freezes and audio/video sync issues are limiting consumers’ enjoyment of streaming in the connected TV world. The new Powerline AV 500 products, due out this fall, are designed to deal with the problems, he said.

Efforts by the National Center for Electronics Recycling (NCER) to harmonize various elements of state e-waste laws have the backing of the CE industry, but not all state program managers are enthusiastic, our survey found. Regulators in states with more-established e-waste laws see integration of state e-waste rules as better suited for programs that are just getting started. NCER, through the Electronics Recycling Coordination Clearinghouse, is bringing together regulators and industry players to look at areas in state laws that lend themselves to common approaches.

TPV Technology said its LCD TV-related first-half revenue soared to $1.8 billion from $866 million a year earlier. Shipments jumped to 6.3 million units from 3.4 million. LCD TVs accounted for 33.7 percent of TPV’s first-half sales, up from 28 percent, and represented 18.8 percent of shipments, an increase from 13.8 percent a year earlier, the company said. The improved revenue came despite a decline in first-half sales in North America, the company said.

Nintendo of America wouldn’t say why it decided to cut the prices of its DSi by $20 to $149.99 and DSi XL to $169.99, effective Sept. 12. Microsoft, meanwhile, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on why it decided to increase the cost of its Xbox Live Gold subscription plans “for some members” as of Nov. 1. Wedbush Morgan Securities analyst Michael Pachter downplayed the significance of both pricing moves.

In a possible break from a long alliance with Vizio, Amtran Technology said it signed a memorandum of understanding to work with JVC on LCD TVs. Amtran said it will handle TV assembly and JVC will supply technology. The companies will shares sales responsibilities, it said. The partnership will concentrate on the North American market before expanding, including to Asia, Amtran said. The products developed by the venture will be sold under JVC’s brand and hit the market in 2011, Amtran said.

The EPA’s new product qualification and verification testing rules would result in “uncertain cost and schedule impacts” that will likely deter service provider participation in the Energy Star program for set-top boxes, DirecTV said. The satellite provider was commenting on draft changes proposed by EPA to the Energy Star specification for cable, satellite and IPTV boxes. The new rules, including testing by third-party or in-house accredited labs, come after a GAO investigation found that the Energy Star program was prone to fraud and abuse.

In one of the most convincing signs yet that high-end audio and video is on an inevitable course toward Internet sales, seminal high-end New York City retailer Sound by Singer shut the doors of its 31-year-old Manhattan store and plans to re-launch as Sound by Singer Direct in the coming months. Like other high-end brick-and-mortar retailers, the company once “moaned and complained and jumped up and down” when audiophile manufacturers Balanced Audio Technology, Luxman, Thiel Audio and DPI went online, said Sound by Singer President Andy Singer. Now, facing a significant rent increase after a “horrible” two years of AV retailing, a resigned Singer is going to the other side.

DivX reached a tentative settlement of a shareholder suit, clearing one hurdle to its proposed $323 million sale to Sonic Solutions, Sonic said Thursday in documents filed with the SEC. The suit, filed by the Shareholder Foundation in California Superior Court, San Diego, accused DivX’s board of breaching its fiduciary duty in trying to sell the company at an “unfair price.” The shareholder group filed a motion Aug. 20 seeking a preliminary injunction blocking the sale and a hearing was scheduled for Sept. 3, Sonic said. Terms of the proposed settlement weren’t released. There was no comment from DivX or Shareholder Foundation officials.

TV programmers are increasingly cautious about how they approach deals with new distribution partners and are being careful not to agree to anything that might run counter to the pay-TV industry’s TV Everywhere plans, online and mobile video industry executives said. “Any new distribution outlet has become more challenging because of TV Everywhere,” said Joanne Waage, vice president of strategic media partnership and programming at MobiTV: “What you see are major media companies looking at everything through the lens of TV Everywhere."