The FVD (forward versatile disc) format – Taiwan’s self-developed red-laser high-definition DVD format – has won support from manufacturers of optical drives in China, and the first FVD players will be launched in Taiwan and China by the end of this month, according to Der-ray Huang, the chairman of Taiwan’s Advanced Optical Storage Research Alliance (AOSRA).

Boffins at Japanese tech company Pioneer have made a next-generation optical disk out of corn starch. Pioneer believes corn starch disks will be good for the environment as it is totally biodegradable when buried underground and is loved by bacteria everywhere.

Philips is planning to reduce its CD-R royalty charge from US$0.045 to US$0.035 per disc, according to the company’s web site. However, producers of optical discs have not responded favorably to the decrease in royalty charges since it is smaller than they expected.

European consumers want music not video or games on their portable gadgets. According to Jupiter Research only a lowly five per cent of people would like a music player which could also play films.

A video game fan upset over a failed disc drive in his Xbox video game console has sued Microsoft on behalf of all Xbox owners across the United States.

DVD writing speeds have approached their maximum speed of 16x, leaving little room for companies to gain a market advantage by increasing their drive speeds. Companies not burdened by excessive royalty payments will have a competitive advantage in the market. For many ODD makers, royalty payments account for as much as 20% of their total production costs.

A group of consumer electronics and semiconductor companies, including Samsung and Philips, have thrown their weight behind a scheme to develop standard hardware-independent application programming interfaces (APIs) for next-generation home entertainment devices.

Ricoh is withdrawing from the optical disk drive business, citing price competition and declining sales internationally. The company now thinks it can't make a profit in the optical disk business, according to spokesman Satoshi Aoki.

Two men have been jailed for running one of the country's biggest-ever pirate DVD racket in Walthamstow. Aircraft engineer Sidney Austin, 47, and importer Dino Simm, 30, were sentenced to four years and three years respectively at Snaresbrook Crown Court on Friday.

Although China's major vendors of EVD players reduced their retail price level from 1,500 yuan (£99) to 998 yuan (£66) at the beginning of this month, increased sales have not followed, according to Taiwan makers of optical disc drives (ODDs).

The real reason why Apple hasn't created a video iPod is a legal one, according to an analyst. Michael Gartenberg of Jupiter Research explains that: "Unlike music, it's illegal to rip a DVD to your hard drive."

Ritek will resume development of DataPlay (micro-optical) discs and begin offering matching drives, company CEO Gordon Yeh stated during the recent 2004 eMEX Suzhou show. Ritek first produced DataPlay discs a few years ago. They have a lower cost per storage unit than other media, but the company discontinued production since the corresponding devices were too expensive and were not power-efficient, Yeh pointed out.

For months, rival electronics giants Toshiba and Sony have been battling over the next generation of DVD. Now, in what amounts to the first major victory in that standards war, three Hollywood studios are expected to announce within the next week that they'll release some of their movies on the high-definition DVD format that Toshiba is promoting.

High-definition televisions (HDTVs), plasma TVs and iPods are set to become the must-have electronic Christmas gifts this year, according to a report by Forrester. Its survey of gadget lovers in the US and Europe found that digital gear is once again set to pour out of shops in the run-up to the annual shopping splurge.

NEC has launched stateside the ND-3500A, the first 16x dual layer +/- DVD Recorder to include high speed CD functionality. And at a RRP of $99 (£55). The specs are: 16x4x16x DVD+R/RW - 16x4x16x DVD-R/RW - 48x24x48x CD-R/RW.

Due to unsatisfactory sales, retail prices for DVD recorders have dropped to record low levels, with some Taiwanese entry-level models selling for NT$5,990 (£97), according to sources in the local retail channel.

High definition television (HDTV) is now set to reach 17 percent of European homes by 2009, according to Intex Management Services, a market research company. IMS forecast that around 8 million HDTVs would be sold in Europe in 2009, accounting for almost 17 percent of all TVs sold in the region.

A program has been hacked together to automatically download new MP3 files from different RSS feeds and copy them directly into Mac iTunes playlists. Connect an iPod, and the songs/files load onto the device automatically.

Microsoft Chairman and Chief Software Architect Bill Gates has been confirmed as the pre-show keynote speaker at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in January. According to media reports, Gates could bring a late Christmas gift to Las Vegas: A new Xbox.

The DVD+RW Alliance today revealed a concept of DVD+R DL media supporting up to 8x recording speeds at the World PC Expo conference in Japan.