Topic: News

Our regular contributor Flash says: "Thanks to >NIL: from the Firmware Forum we have the patched firmware for the Pioneer 107. This firmware makes the drive RPC1 region free, removes the 2x rip speed limitation for DVD-VIDEO and enables 8 speed burning to any DVD-R media. I have been involved in the testing of this firmware and I am impressed with the 8x speed results from RITEKG04 4x speed media and PRINCO 4x media. You can download it from our downloads section."

Maplin Electronics, a retailer with 80 shops across the UK, has moved to discontinue the sale of three devices capable of circumventing Macrovision copy protection technology, the company said last week. Maplin said the move was a response to the controversial European Union Copyright Directive (EUCD), a far-reaching modification of European anti-piracy law implemented in the UK last October. It is the first time a major UK company has publicised such a move.

Press Release: Lite-On have announced the availability from March of its latest half-height 8X DVD Dual ReWriter, the SOHW-812S.

Lead Data, a second-tier optical disc manufacturer in Taiwan, will expand its monthly DVD-R/+R disc production capacity to 15 million discs by year-end from five million units currently, according to company chairman Lin Lai-shun.

Ritek, one of Taiwan’s top two producers of optical discs, is well poised to expand its production capacity of blank DVD-R/+R discs this year, with the pace hinging on market conditions, according to company CEO Gordon Yeh.

NEC, the world's largest producer of DVD burners in 2003, has reduced its OEM price for 8x DVD-Dual burners from US$110-120 (£59-64) at the beginning of this year to about US$95 (£51), according to Taiwanese manufacturers.

According to a German website, Philips will present at Cebit their DVD Dual Layer burner - the snappily titled 'DVD+RW 885K'. The dual-layer DVD+R media it burn will have nearly twice the current capacity of 8.5 gigabytes at data.

Flash has kindly posted us his thoughts on the new 8x DVD+R burner from Pioneer - the 107. One of the major issues currently seems to be that although the drive supports 8x burning few media brands currently produce genuinely 8x media. There appears to be only one DVD+R 8x speed disc that will actually burn at 8x speed and that is by Verbatim.

Italy has the highest level of film piracy in the western world, according to industry publication Screen Daily. The country's anti-piracy watchdog FAPAV said the black market for videos and DVDs was worth about 30% of the total market, the magazine reported.

News magazine The Economist this week forecast that Apple's share of the emerging online music business would plummet later this year when Microsoft moves into the market. But according to a Billboard report, the two firms' love-hate relationship may be tending toward the former in order to build links between their music encoding and digital rights management technologies.

An Inquirer reader reports that when he bought a copy of the latest Dido album for his loved one, he discovered that Windows Media software wouldn't play the thing. In fact, for the CD to be played, its own media software was installed.

A Texas grocery chain has decided to stop selling disposable DVDs, a product that outraged environmentalists and apparently didn't sell too well, either.

More details on Nintendo's mysterious new DS portable system have come our way via the latest issue of Japan's Famitsu magazine. The magazine clears up some confusion regarding the system's game storage media. Rather than standard cartridges, the DS will make use of thin card-type media. Apparently, this form of media uses a new type of semiconductor whose production cost is close to that of optical disk (DVD, CD, etc.). In addition, the media allows for quicker turnover times over cartridges in case of reorders for product.

As prices for blank DVD-R/+R discs fall with increasing supply, CMC Magnetics is hiking the speed of its products to maintain its gross margin at about 50%, according to company spokesperson Andria Wong.

Currently shipping their latest 8x DVD burner, LG Electronics have announced their new DVD burner which is expected for CeBIT 2004, the GSA-4120B. As with their previous drives, this new drive will also support DVD-RAM.

A new wireless technology with enough bandwidth to carry cable television signals from a wall-mounted outlet to a TV anywhere in the home could be on the market as early as next year, an industry group have said.

Philips subsidiary Polymer Vision has unwrapped - literally - what it claims is the world's widest yet thinnest, most flexible TFT LCD panel. The monochrome 4.7in, 320 x 240 display is thin enough to be rolled into a curve with a radius of 2cm, the company said.

The European Union is set to reclassify monitors which have DVI outputs as TVs, meaning that manufacturers will have to pay 14% tariffs on these so-called "video monitors".

The release of the PSX multipurpose entertainment system in Japan last December was marred by last-minute changes to the console's specification. As Sony pushed to get the PSX on the market before Christmas, several features had to be cut due to time constraints. Today, however, Sony announced plans to return those features through a downloadable firmware upgrade, which will be available starting February 1.

The U.S. Department of Justice has started a preliminary inquiry into activities by the Blu-ray Disc Founders (BDF), a coalition of electronics vendors led Sony, Matsushita, Philips and seven other major electronics companies. The investigation is looking to determine whether the group's members potentially acted in concert to impede the technical progress of the DVD Forum, which has a competing high definition DVD format called HD-DVD.