Topic: News

Pioneer have unveiled the DVR-S606, a high capacity optical storage system based on the Pioneer DVR-A06, the company's sixth-generation internal recordable drive. Pioneer's first external drive has a sleek industrial design and comes with standard IEEE 1394 (Firewire) and USB 2.0 ports.

Sony have introduced its VAIO RZ series desktop PCs which integrate Windows XP Media Center Edition with Sony's own Giga Pocket Engine software. Giga Pocket engine includes an MPEG2 encoder that allows users to convert old family movies on analog tape to a digital format as well as Sony's exclusive 'Click to DVD' authoring software which offers real-time encoding and variable bit capabilities.

Hollywood has implemented an anti-piracy plan banning special DVDs and videotapes for Oscar voters, angering champions of smaller movies that have taken home an increasing share of the film industry's highest honors. Mindful of the piracy that has sucked profits from the music industry, studios feared that screener copies could be used by bootleggers to mass-produce pirated DVDs and tapes.

After years of playing the nerd, the PC is hoping to land the role of the hipster in the living room--a part Microsoft desperately wants to see the computer play. As expected, Microsoft have launched Windows XP Media Center Edition 2004, an updated version of its Media Center PC. Of the new features the most notable are the ability to pause and rewind radio broadcasts, edit and print photos, and rip CDs onto a hard drive--all done via the Media Center's remote control interface.

Matsushita, best known for its Panasonic brand of consumer electronics, have announced the development of a network protocol technology that allows users to operate consumer electronics connected to the Internet in real time from remote locations using mobile devices such as mobile phones or personal computers.

A bevy of digital-media experts, led by the founder of the group that created the widespread MPEG set of media standards, launched an international forum on Tuesday that's aimed at standardising digital media and copy protection technologies. The new Switzerland-based forum, dubbed the Digital Media Project, is aimed at ending what members say has been a technological civil war that has badly hampered the spread of digital media content and technologies.

A beta version OF Xbox Media Center (XBMC) that requires a mod chip and a hacked BIOS is being made available on the Xboxmediacenter web site.The beta software can, the authors claim, play just about all video, audio and pic formats, and play files over a network from a PC using an Extream Server application.

Following in the steps of major brands like Dell and Hewlett-Packard (HP), many Taiwanese notebook makers are set to launch new wide-screen models. The products will be available by year-end, mostly in October or November, according to the companies.

Due to Germany's implementation of the EUCD law it has become illegal for German software developers to distribute software that can circumvent copy-protections found on CDs and DVDs. However, the Internet is worldwide and offers a possibility to distribute software via other countries where other laws apply. Some European backup software vendors are struggling with the new laws that are about to be taken in to action within the EU. MovieJack and CloneCD being the best known examples of the consequences of the new laws. An Austrian website jackxxl.com is offering a patch for MovieJack, re-enabling the software to copy CSS protected DVDs.

Following the example of other companies already deep into CD/DVD protection techniques, Microsoft thought they themselves should enter the scene with a copy-protection technology embedded in their media. But in order to reduce costs, the technique used will not be developed by Microsoft. A third-party company - Smarte Solutions - would provide their technology for future Microsoft releases.

The inventors of the world's first combined compact disc and DVD are considering legal action against Warner Music, one of the largest record groups, amid allegations of breach of contract and patent abuse.

K.Y. Lee the chief executive of BenQ has plans to make the brand, a former subsidiary of Taiwanese computer maker Acer, as recognized around the world as Sony is today. There are three areas seen as particularly significant for his company's growth: liquid-crystal displays for notebooks and LCD TVs; DVD drives; and mobile phones. In DVD drives, Lee is a believer in the DVD+RW format, not in the rival DVD-RW format or in combination drives that can handle both. "We see today the momentum for DVD+RW is much stronger than for DVD-RW. I cannot say (it will) win, but it will dominate," he said.

Sony have announced a new, lower price for silver and black PS2 consoles boasting a number of improvements over previous models. From October 1 the price of a standard PlayStation 2 console will fall from £169.99 to just £139.99. Also announced was the pricing for the upcoming limited edition satin silver console which, bundled with two matching controllers, will sell for just £149.99.

Well it wouldn't be Friday if we didn't have news of some white-coated boffin finding new and (kind of) interesting things to do with blank media. Last week we brought you news of some experimental things you could do with your old Britany discs and a tub of yoghurt, now we learn that genetic drool dropped to and dried on a common CD, paired with an inkjet printer may unlock the mysteries of the human genome.

DivXNetworks have revealed that the company's patent-pending DivX video compression technology will support the newly-launched AMD Athlon 64 processor. AMD has licensed a newly produced version of Dr. DivX for AMD Athlon 64 processor users as well.

According to a report from the Computex exhibition in Taipei the majority opinion is that the DVD-R format looks likely to lose the big format war in the next year or so. The logic behind this claim is that of the major drive manufacturers only Pioneer appears commited to DVD-R and even they are now hedging their bets with dual format products.

The port Custom Authority of Genoa is responsible for the biggest ever seizure of blank cd-rs in Italy. The shipment was alleged to be destined for the pirate market. The 1,500,000 Princo CD-Rs were quarantined after an electronic sweep of shipping containers shipped from China to a company located in Naples.

If Hollywood executives have learned anything watching their peers in the music business grapple with online file sharing, it is how not to handle a technological revolution. While the major labels in the music industry squabbled among themselves about how best to deal with Internet piracy and failed to develop consumer-friendly ways to buy music online, the movie industry has gone on a coordinated offensive to thwart the free downloading of films before it spins out of control.

Video Without Boundaries, Inc., manufacturer of media mixing home entertainment devices, is demonstrating its breakthrough MediaReady 4000 convergent Internet/DVD Player to OEM manufacturers at Computex Taipei 2003. The new set-top box, offers a plethora of features and popular media entertainment options including DVD/MPEG-1/MPEG-2/MPEG-4 playback, television, email, web surfing, karaoke, CD/MP3 playback, and network storage to name some of it's features. The unit also sports a penguin under the hood with an open source, Linux-based architecture that allows it to support virtually any kind of OEM configuration or upgrade.

Toshiba and Samsung have signed a memorandum of terms covering the integration of their respective optical-disk-drive businesses in a joint venture. The two companies will now finalize details of the agreement in readiness for incorporation of the joint venture.