Topic: News

In a run up to the next generation console war between Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, Bill Gates said that HD-DVD and Blu-ray are not important, since they represent the last generation of optical media anyway. While many people overlooked the statement, that's pretty much right on target.

The Pirate Bay, one of the world's most popular websites for the illegal downloading of films through filesharing, has said it wanted to buy its own "island" in a bid to avoid copyright laws.

It seems that, contrary to Sony's stated aims for the nascent format, porn is indeed already available on Blu-ray discs. At least in Japan, the adult film studio “Glayz” already produces and distributes content on Blu-ray Disc, HD DVD and UMD.

It is no secret that the MPAA and other anti-piracy organizations track down alleged pirates by uploading fake torrents. Up until now it was always unclear where those files came from, and how to identify them.

Warner Home Video has made a splash at CES with its announcement of the company's Total High-Def disc, a disc that will put an HD DVD-formatted movie on one side and a Blu-ray version on the other.

ADS have unveiled a usb-memory-stick-style gadget that contains a hardware-accelerated video converter for Windows which it claims creates MP4 (H.264) video footage up to 15 times faster than a computer - and be the first of its kind available.

Redford founded the Sundance festival in 1981
The Sundance Film Festival has struck a deal with Apple to allow festival films to be sold through its iTunes store.

Experts at Princeton University have said that the recent release of software that can be used to decode encrypted HD DVD and Blu-ray movies is the first step toward making the encryption standard used by these next-generation video players obsolete.

Ritek is showcasing HD DVD-R (write once) and Blu-ray Disc (BD) blank discs at the 2007 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES).

At the International Consumer Electronics Show today, Pioneer Electronics (USA) Inc. announced the new BDC-202 combination Blu-ray Disc® BD-ROM computer drive with enhanced DVD and CD writing and reading capabilities.

CMC Magnetics is exhibiting next-generation blue-laser optical discs at the 2007 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) taking place in Las Vegas. Both HD DVD and Blu-ray disc (BD) formats are on display.

Microsoft will introduce videogame content to the Zune media player within 18 months, according to a new report.

Sony just announced its newest Bravia LCD, the KD-70XBR3. This 70-inch HDTV is one of the first to support the xvYCC, or x.v.Color as Sony has named it via HDMI 1.3. It's the largest Bravia announced and features 120Hz "Motionflow" technology to reduce blurring, like many of the new LCDs we've seen so far.

Apples new foray into the consumer electronics market is amobile phone that combines the multi-touch touchscreen interface we've all heard whispers of for over a year now, with a fully fledged widescreen video iPod.

At the annual Consumer Electronics Show, Sony has presented the newest member of its Memory Stick media family – the 8GB Memory Stick PRO Duo.

The HD DVD camp announced plans for commercialization of a new triple-layer HD DVD disc for recording, offering a capacity of 51GB.

Hitachi Global Storage Technologies (HGST) today announced the so-called industry's first terabyte (TB) hard drive, the Deskstar 7K1000. Along with the Deskstar 7K1000, Hitachi also announced its CinemaStar version 1TB hard drive, which was specifically designed for digital video recording (DVR) applications.

A proposed order in a file-sharing lawsuit would force the recording industry to divulge closely-held details of their wholesale pricing arrangements.

LG Electronics jumpstarted the 2007 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) a day early with a press conference that included a demonstration of the company's highly anticipated Blu-ray Disc (BD) and HD DVD combo player that is scheduled to arrive in retail stores in March.

Toshiba is lowering the entry price to full-HD video with its new HD-A20 HD DVD player, which the company introduced on Sunday at the International Consumer Electronics Show.