Topic: News

Taiwanese DVD maker Ritek released a warning advising consumers that faked DVD-R media have appeared in Japan under the Ritek label.

The new low-budget film from director Steven Soderbergh promises to shake things up in the movie industry. In the US, Bubble opens in theatres on Friday, Jan. 27, the same day it is broadcast in HDTV. Four days later, it comes out on DVD, effectively obsoleting the traditional 'window' between a film's cinema and DVD releases.

Citing sources inside Microsoft, it has been claimed that the software giant is working on plans to develop its own portable digital media device to rival Apple's iPod.

Ritek, one of the top two makers of optical discs in Taiwan, on January 24 announced it obtained certification for 8x DVD+R DL (single-sided double-layer) discs from Royal Philips Electronics last week, becoming the only the third company to receive such certification.

It's been a fairly tough start to the year for both Sony's PS3 and Microsoft's Xbox 360, but it looks like Sony's woe may be a touch worse.

Postech, a second-tier producer of optical discs, has decided to stop production of DVD+R/-R discs in the first half of this year and shift to other products, according to industry sources. Postech declined to comment on the report.

The Motion Picture Ass. of America, the leader in the global fight against movie piracy, is being accused of unlawfully making a bootleg copy of a documentary that takes a critical look at the MPAA's film ratings system.

Consumer spending on DVDs fell last year, despite more being sold than ever, according to a report.

It seems that ZoneAlarm Security Suite has been phoning home, even when told not to. Last autumn, James Borck discovered ZA 6.0 was surreptitiously sending encrypted data back to four different servers, despite disabling all of the suite’s communications options.

Toshiba may be far from giving up its battle with Sony to establish the successor of the DVD. But just in case Blu-ray may come out on top, Toshiba has an ace in its backhand: A joint-venture the company has founded with Samsung will be producing Blu-ray drives for delivery in the second quarter.

Those in the market for a new computer probably have a checklist worked out : It has to have the right monitor size, be able to handle all the right tasks and come installed with the right software. But shoppers might want to consider one more potentially crucial sticking point : Is it Vistaready?

DVD meister Flash has recently updated his 'Battle of the Burners' pages to reflect our new way of presenting his findings in the same format as the reviews - with pop-up windows for the the wide range of drives he uses in his bleeding-edge laboratory. You'll find the Battle of the Burners here.

Sony is to bring Blu-ray the high capacity optical disc system to the UK as early as March, but only as part of a desktop PC package. The VGC-RC204, which also breaks with Sony PC tradition in that it is the first desktop from the company to run using Microsoft's Windows XP Media Center Edition operating system, features a Blu-ray recorder that can archive up to 25GB of data on one disc.

Philips new licensing system for CD-R discs, Veeza, will lower royalty charges by 44.4% for those participating in the program. Taiwanese makers - who account for 53% of global CD-R disc production - will benefit significantly from Veeza, industry sources indicated.

The update to the 802.11g wireless standard has been approved by an industry group, and the first 802.11n applications are expected next year.

Imation and Memorex have announced that they have entered into a definitive agreement under which Imation will acquire Memorex in an all cash transaction for $330 million (£190m).

Inside West Virginia's gold-domed Capitol, somebody has transformed a tucked-away basement office into a makeshift, taxpayer-funded studio to create pirate DVD videos and music CDs.

Lite-On IT is cooperating with Japanese clients to develop DVD camcorders using 8cm DVD+R/-R discs and expects to begin OEM production in small volumes next quarter and shipments in large volume in the second half of this year, according to the company.

Philips have introduced a new way of licensing its CD-R disc patents. Called Veeza, the dutch giants hope to combat unfair competition from trade in unlicensed CD-R discs.

Microsoft has crushed all rumours of development of Blu-ray disc drives for their Xbox 360 gaming system when they announced they were fully committed to HD DVD and has no plans to support other formats.