Topic: News

The recent patent infringement lawsuit that Taiwan-based IC designer VIA Technologies filed against MediaTek is not expected to directly impact the optical storage drive industry in the near future, according to local optical drive manufacturers.

A number of Japanese magazines are reporting that Microsoft is moving ahead with plans to release a redesigned Xbox, dubbed "Xbox 1.5", which will come in a significantly smaller case than the original model.

Building upon a successful campaign in the Japanese market, Matsushita (the people behind the Panasonic brand name) is launching one of their largest-ever global campaigns, for the new DIGA DVD recorder. The campaign's aim is to promote the Panasonic DVD recorder DIGA series and DVD-RAM format as global standards.

Although demand for DVD discs is expected to continue to grow, first-tier Taiwanese optical storage disc makers said they would not consider a price jump before the end of this year, according to the companies.

All the three first-tier optical storage disc makers in Taiwan – CMC Magnetics (CMC), Ritek and Prodisc – have reported high capacity utilization rates for their DVD disc production. The companies, currently selling 4x DVD discs at prices of US$1.20-1.50, said gross margins for the discs in general have been maintained at about 40-50%.(Our Industry insider says it may be as high as 80-90%)

Demand for DVD discs has been surging over the past months thanks to the growth of the DVD drive market. Further increase is also expected as many optical storage drive makers are scheduled to launch new recordable DVD products later this year.

Both CMC and Ritek said they were satisfied with the current profit margins and would not consider a price hike on their DVD products before the year-end. Prodisc said it would follow suit on its competitors’ decisions. Further price jumps may run the risk of discouraging consumers, said the companies, which are consistently expanding their DVD disc capacities.

According to Ritek, the company expects to double its monthly DVD disc production to 20 million units by year-end. CMC and Prodisc also expect to significantly expand their monthly DVD output during the same period.

It is possible that 4x DVD disc prices may go down after 8x discs and drives are introduced in the second half of this year, according to Ritek. CMC, however, said it could not foresee any price-cut on its DVD products before year-end

It's getting crowded on DVD to DVD±R market -- we already have DVD X Copy, DVD X Copy XPRESS, DVD2One, DVD Shrink, Pinnacle Instant Copy and now Intervideo (the maker of WinDVD) has released their own product, DVD Copy. The product's main difference to its competitors is probably the support for non-DVD±R formats -- program can encode videos to DivX, VCD and SVCD formats. DVD Copy also includes an integrated burning engine (although it is not revealed from which company) and re-authoring support for DVD±Rs.

Last September Hewlett-Packard launched a new style of personal computer that added the functions of a TV, VCR and music jukebox. Now more and more PC makers are taking to Microsoft's all-in-one entertainment-focused PC. HP doesn't break out sales figures on the machine, but it seems it has been surprised with the sales performance of the machine at retail--and others want in on the action.

A US court has ruled that video games should receive the same protection - in terms of freedom of speech - as literature and works of art. The federal appeals court panel has struck down a law that restricted children's access to violent video games, giving the software the same free-speech protection as that for works of art.

Press Release: AverMedia announces affordable DVD creation with its newly released DVD EZMaker USB 2.0. At just $89.99 (£55), the palm-sized unit captures full-resolution (720 x 480) video to both CD and DVD burners in real-time through a USB 2.0 port.

Press Release: Adaptec have announced the availability of VideOh! DVD Media Center, a comprehensive solution that enables consumers to convert their existing home PC into a media center. With Adaptec VideOh! DVD Media Center, home-PC users can easily create, control, store and enjoy digital content, including TV shows, home movies and photos. Users can choose television programs they want to watch from a free online programming guide, record, pause, rewind and replay live TV and edit and burn shows to high-quality DVDs or video CDs -- using their existing PC.

Kazaa, the biggest file-swapping network, is teaming up with marketing network Altnet on a rewards-based programme that will aim to increase peer-to-peer distribution of authorised files. A year after launching its sometimes-controversial alliance with Kazaa, Brilliant Digital Entertainment subsidiary Altnet is kicking off a new, ambitious stage of its peer-to-peer marketing campaign.

The Business Software Alliance has reported that the use of pirated software has fallen, but not by much. Corporations have cracked down on pirated software last year, trimming the glut by a percentage point, an industry report says.

Benchmark software company Futuremark has dropped its allegation that graphics card maker Nvidia cheated, ending the dispute between the two firms. "Futuremark now states that Nvidia's driver design is an application-specific optimisation and not a cheat," said Futuremark in a statement.

Archos has shipped its AV300 family of personal DVD players to the US retail channel, the company said today. The AV320 and AV340 - with 20GB and 40GB hard drives, respectively - sport a 3.8in, 320x240-pixel, 24-bit colour LCD. The machine uses MPEG-4 for video for "near DVD" quality playback. It also supports AVI, DivX and XviD. Playback resolutions range from 352x288 at 30fps to 640x368 at 25fps - there's also a TV-out port.

A deal between Microsoft Corp. and Landmark Theatres Corp. to digitize all 53 of Landmark's theaters -- 10 of which are in the Bay Area of California-- will be a boon for independent filmmakers, for, although movie-goers won't notice much difference, the cost of distribution is cut dramatically.

Zoran have announced that its advanced Vaddis DVD multimedia processor powers Toshiba's latest generation of DVD-R and DVD-RAM hard disk drive recorders now shipping to retail stores in Japan. Toshiba's new RD-X3 family of recorders, including the RD-X3, RD-XS30 and RD-XS40, allows consumers to record up to six hours of content on a single DVD-R or DVD-RAM disc. These recorders can create DVD-Video format on DVD-R media, as well as DVD-VR format on DVD-RAM media. Data files stored in DVD-R and DVD-Video format can be played back on most DVD players on the market. In addition to enabling cut, assemble, and edit capabilities, the RD-X3 recorder series provides reliable, high-performance authoring of multimedia content to a DVD disc.

Quanta Storage, the largest slim-type optical storage drive maker in Taiwan, expects to launch half-height, desktop-use DVD+RW drives in June and sample slim-type, notebook-use DVD+RW drives in August, the company said.

TiVo have that it will sell limited information about the viewing habits of its subscribers to advertisers and broadcasters. The company's new service will let broadcasters and advertisers subscribe to a quarterly audience-measurement report that will track viewing habits during prime-time shows. TiVo, which provides digital video recorder (DVR) services and devices, eventually plans to use its technology to provide data on consumer patterns for any show or commercial.

Software maker Pinnacle Systems have announced the release of a new version of Pinnacle Edition, the company's collection of video editing and DVD authoring tools for video professionals and advanced hobbyists. Version 5 includes under-the-hood improvements to speed processing, an expanded menu of special effects that can be viewed in real time as they're added to video segments and more editing tools for creating DVD menus and navigational features.

Datawrite: This week reported back huge sales increases following a minor dye change and a major price drop on their 4x Red DVD-R. They also inform us that they have a 4x version of their Yellow DVD-R due to arrive in Europe. They claim that the 4x Yellow which will be sold alongside the Red 4x, at an albeit higher price, is produced for them by Princo at the same factory, using the same production line, as their best selling 1x Yellow DVD-R.

O1ne Optical Products: Plan to introduce a Lead Data sourced 4x Disc in the next few weeks. Lead Data appears to be an excellent choice for 01ne Optical Products. The (relatively) new start-up media company said in a press release yesterday

“Our initial offerings to the market were sourced through a UK based brand; they have proven to be very successful. We felt it was time we started sourcing product direct from manufacturers and Lead Data is the ideal strategic long term partner for us. This new alliance will allow us to sell high quality products at a more competitive price and allow us to bring products to market faster due to Lead Data’s focus on R&D.”

Editors note: Lead Data, although relatively unknown in Europe, are one of the big four DVD manufacturers in the world and at the moment oem for Sony.

Memorex: Have dipped their toe into the UK market with their release of the new Memorex 4x DVD disc. The disc is produced for Memorex by CMC.

Flash has come up with the goods once again: you can read the world's first Pioneer 106 review here.