Two men have been jailed for running one of the country's biggest-ever pirate DVD racket in Walthamstow. Aircraft engineer Sidney Austin, 47, and importer Dino Simm, 30, were sentenced to four years and three years respectively at Snaresbrook Crown Court on Friday.

Although China's major vendors of EVD players reduced their retail price level from 1,500 yuan (£99) to 998 yuan (£66) at the beginning of this month, increased sales have not followed, according to Taiwan makers of optical disc drives (ODDs).

The real reason why Apple hasn't created a video iPod is a legal one, according to an analyst. Michael Gartenberg of Jupiter Research explains that: "Unlike music, it's illegal to rip a DVD to your hard drive."

Ritek will resume development of DataPlay (micro-optical) discs and begin offering matching drives, company CEO Gordon Yeh stated during the recent 2004 eMEX Suzhou show. Ritek first produced DataPlay discs a few years ago. They have a lower cost per storage unit than other media, but the company discontinued production since the corresponding devices were too expensive and were not power-efficient, Yeh pointed out.

For months, rival electronics giants Toshiba and Sony have been battling over the next generation of DVD. Now, in what amounts to the first major victory in that standards war, three Hollywood studios are expected to announce within the next week that they'll release some of their movies on the high-definition DVD format that Toshiba is promoting.

High-definition televisions (HDTVs), plasma TVs and iPods are set to become the must-have electronic Christmas gifts this year, according to a report by Forrester. Its survey of gadget lovers in the US and Europe found that digital gear is once again set to pour out of shops in the run-up to the annual shopping splurge.

NEC has launched stateside the ND-3500A, the first 16x dual layer +/- DVD Recorder to include high speed CD functionality. And at a RRP of $99 (£55). The specs are: 16x4x16x DVD+R/RW - 16x4x16x DVD-R/RW - 48x24x48x CD-R/RW.

Due to unsatisfactory sales, retail prices for DVD recorders have dropped to record low levels, with some Taiwanese entry-level models selling for NT$5,990 (£97), according to sources in the local retail channel.

High definition television (HDTV) is now set to reach 17 percent of European homes by 2009, according to Intex Management Services, a market research company. IMS forecast that around 8 million HDTVs would be sold in Europe in 2009, accounting for almost 17 percent of all TVs sold in the region.

A program has been hacked together to automatically download new MP3 files from different RSS feeds and copy them directly into Mac iTunes playlists. Connect an iPod, and the songs/files load onto the device automatically.

Microsoft Chairman and Chief Software Architect Bill Gates has been confirmed as the pre-show keynote speaker at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in January. According to media reports, Gates could bring a late Christmas gift to Las Vegas: A new Xbox.

The DVD+RW Alliance today revealed a concept of DVD+R DL media supporting up to 8x recording speeds at the World PC Expo conference in Japan.

NEC plans to start selling desktop PCs equipped with HD-DVD (High Definition/High Density-DVD) drives at the end of 2005, the company says. Slimmed-down versions of the drives will be added to the company's line of notebook PCs in 2006, it says.

Intervideo has introduced a new product called DiscMaster 2 which comes in gold and platinum versions and promises an easy to use way to backup data, video and music to a CD-R or DVD recordable. It's also able to convert music to the MP3, WAV and WMA format.

The battle over HD DVD versus Blue-ray just stepped up a notch with Toshiba announcing it will be putting HD DVD drives in its Laptop range from the end of next year.

Press Release: Plextor is expanding its range with its first external Double Layer Dual Format drive. The PX-716UF writes at 16X for DVD+R, 16X for DVD-R and 4X for DVD+R DL (Double Layer). The drive rewrites 8X DVD+RW and 4X DVD-RW. The PX-716UF reads CD-ROMs at 48X and DVD-ROMs at 16X.

Notebooks capable of burning DVDs are showing strong growth as consumers integrate an increasing number of video, music and image files in their portable systems, according to a market research firm.

A new campaign to target music and video piracy is launched today. Consumer minister Gerry Sutcliffe unveiled a new television commercial which aims to stamp out DVD crime in the run-up to the festive season.

News reachs us from America of another strange tale of DVD hardware going haywire. A couple of weeks ago a man in Oregon was paid an unexpected visit from the US Air force after his Toshiba with built-in VCR, DVD and CD player starting emitting the international distress signal.

For six years, Stephen Cooper ran a song-sharing website from his modest brick home in Bellbowrie, in Brisbane's west, that attracted 190 million visitors a year and allegedly earned him up to $64,000 (£26,000) a month.