TDK have announced that it is to begin shipping 25GB recordable and rewritable Blu-ray Disc (BD) media across Europe and will follow with 50GB media in April.

The majority of the Taiwnese-based CD-R makers are reportedly reluctant to join Philips' new licensing system for CD-R media, dubbed "Veeza".

ABC, the american broadcasting giant, is to make shows available to download free this year. The downloads will be interspersed with advertising, meaning that viewers of the downloads will get 15 minutes of content interspersed with 5 minute ad-breaks, as they currently get on the TV.

An internal memo allegedly from LG’s U.S. sales VP Bob Perry says the company is planning to ship a disk player compatible with both Blu-ray and HD DVD in the late summer or early autumn.

With a fire occurring at one of CMC Magnetics’ facilities recently, sources expect that an already tight CD-R supply will worsen and quotes may rise next quarter.

According to market research firms such as TSR, the proportion of DVD burners will exceed 40% of half-height (HH) information-use optical drive shipments this year, up from 35% in 2005, and they will replace Combo drives to become the mainstream type as their pricing falls.

Nvidia announced the immediate availability of new Nvidia PureVideo technology enabling support for high-definition video including hardware acceleration for content based on the H.264 specification.

DVD swami Flash has posted a review of the price-busting new drive from Philips - the SPD2400. He seems chuffed by when he says, "these drives represent extremely good value for money". You can read his review here.

Researchers have published a report etestimating that Microsoft will sell greater-than-anticipated amounts of its Xbox 360 console, eclipsing even the company's own sales estimates. The system looks likely sell 6 million units by the end of June 2006, and from 10 to 12 million by the end of the year.

Usenet has shifted from being a relatively obscure player to a significant content resource. The key reason for Usenet's advance into mainstream file-sharing is the growing ease in obtaining files from this medium.

The DVD Forum have created an RW PPI (Re-Writable Products Promotion Initiative) to boost volume production of 8x DVD-R DL discs and burners.

Press Release: Disc Makers, a leading manufacturer of DVD and CD duplicators, has bolstered its powerful Reflex tower duplicator lineup with the addition of two brand-new models: the versatile 2-drive Reflex2 and powerful 10-drive Reflex 10.

Verbatim have announced a new family of glossy white inkjet printable 52X CDR and 16X DVDR media.

Samsung have officialy announced its fastest dual layered DVD recorder - the new SH-W162L.

The Advanced Access Content System Licensing Authority (AACS LA), announced the availability of an interim license for the copy protection system that will be used to protect high-definition BluRay and HD DVD formats.

Sony and NEC have announce that they have signed a definitive agreement to establish a joint venture company, Optiarc, which will take over both companies optical drive businesses.

Sony Pictures Entertainment plans to roll out 20 DVD movies that support the Blu-ray standard sometime in March or April.

Apple, the makers of the iPod, yesterday revealed that 1 billion songs have been downloaded from their online music store.

The so-called fourth generation of optical storage format has been highly promoted lately, and considering that neither the Blu-Ray nor the HD DVD has become a de facto standard for HD content, holographic systems may well be the future for terrabytes of storage.

The huge Chinese market seems set to turn the computer standards system on its head.