It has taken just a year for the UK online DVD rental market to be launched, grow and consolidate and now two of the biggest proponents, Screen Select and Video Island have merged, creating a clear market leader.

Market Research firm DisplaySearch said that despite the plunge in panel prices over the last few months, the value of the LCD market in 2005 is expected to rise by 50%.

Backers of the Blu-ray DVD format are adopting Microsoft's video compression technology, giving the software giant a secure foothold in each of the two major camps battling to establish a successor to DVDs.

Sanyo has decided to adopt the HD DVD standard, developing next generation DVD players and recorders using the large capacity format, and aims to first launch in Japan HD DVD players in 2005 and recorders in 2006.

A seaside inn in Brighton, UK, is under fire for installing a DVD porn vending machine in the toilet. The Station Hotel sells titles such as Weapons Of Miss Satisfaction. Nuns at a nearby church say they are disgusted and councillors want the machine removed but the hotel says it is popular with younger visitors.

Sony has shrunk mastering units - the large factory machines used to create media - for its Blu-Ray optical discs in a bid to win over disc makers to the format. The company claims that the PTR-3000 system needs fewer processes - five rather than 11 - and only 20 per cent of the space of traditional mastering units. It can also master conventional DVD format discs as well.

Infomedia, a major producer of blank optical discs in Taiwan, on August 27 announced that it has obtained full-pass status for the Philips 8x DVD+R format.

A new website and software has hit the web with the claim to remove the DRM from your iTunes with no quality loss. Thus enabling Apple users to copy their iTunes and iPod mini music to their heart's content. The software, in beta for Windows XP or 2000 platforms and available for a free 213k download, is aptly called iFree.

Microsoft will jump into the music-downloading market this week, with the rollout of a new MSN online-music service that will compete with Apple's iTunes and RealNetworks' Rhapsody. MSN Music will launch at the same time as the beta release of Microsoft's new Windows Media Player 10.

TEAC announced the launch of its new 16X DV-W516G DVD+/-R/RW Double Layer IDE/ATAPI Dual DVD-Recorder. TEAC's new 16X Double-Layer, Dual Format DVD-Recorder writes at 16X speed to DVD+R and writes at 8X to DVD-R. The DV-W516G also writes to CD-R media at 48X speeds and rewrites to CD-RW at 24X.

An investigation in the UK by The Sunday Telegraph has highlighted the startling lapses in cinema security that is fuelling Britain's illegal trade in pirate films. Undercover reporters last week smuggled camera equipment into five of London's busiest cinemas and, unchallenged by anyone, filmed several big-screen blockbusters.

CMC Magnetics, a leading producer of optical discs in Taiwan,have announced that it has gained certification for DVD+R DL (single-sided double-layer) discs from Philips and is so far the only disc maker in Taiwan to do so.

Toshiba-Samsung Storage Technology (TSST) recently introduced its DVD burners to the Taiwan market, adding its products to an already competitive market, according to sources in the channel.

Taiwan OEM quotations for 16x DVD burners have slipped by over 10% to less than US$80 (£45) amid decreased component costs and competition from Japanese OEM makers, according to Taiwan producers of optical disc drives.

Holographic recording technology records data on discs in the form of laser interference fringes, enabling existing discs the same size as today's DVDs to store as much as one terabyte of data (200 times the capacity of a single layer DVD), with a transfer speed of one gigabyte per second (40 times the speed of DVD).

Lyra Research have surveyed more than 1,000 video renters and found the people who owned the most DVDs - that is, 50 or more - also were the heaviest renters.

Fuji Photo Film Co. Ltd., better known by its FujiFilm brand name, is planning to begin sales of 16X DVD+R media and dual-layer DVD+R media from the fourth quarter this year, the company have said. Pricing details were not announced.

A world wide ring of pirates based around five Poles has been penetrated by police. A spokesperson for the Polish cyber cops have told Reuters that it had wound up an organised group, involving more than 100 people in Poland, the United States, Australia, Britain and Slovakia.

Manufacturers are making only $1 on each DVD player they sell, as mass production and competition take their toll on prices.

Sony have introduced its seventh generation of DVD writers, cutting the burning process of a DVD to about six minutes. The drives are among the first to reach a speed which many view the physical recording limit of DVDs.