Topic: News

Cinema ushers across Britain go into action today with a new piece of equipment which makes their ice-cream trays and hand torches look tame. Military-style night-sights have been sent to every outlet in the UK showing the new Harry Potter film, The Prisoner of Azkaban.

Press Release: Pansonic's new DMR-E95H features a 160GB hard drive, an integrated TV guide, DV input and SD and PCMCIA slots. The DMR-E95H also features a new Direct Navigator, an on screen guide that presents content stored on a disc in easy-to-review thumbnails. Pressing the Direct Navigator button will bring up the thumbnails of all the programs on a disc for easy play selection.

Microsoft is currently researching the potential consumer appeal of hardware that would combine Xbox and PC gaming capabilities. The kit is reportedly being referred to as Xbox Next PC, with Californian market research company B/R/S Group gathering consumer feedback on the machine. The hardware is described as a console featuring a hard-drive and a 'built-in fully functional PC.'

Gamers could get a look at the successor to the GameCube in just under a year's time, Nintendo has suggested. The Japanese games giant has said it would like to showcase its next generation console at next year's E3 video game trade show in May.

A new DVD defect management study, conducted by Media Sciences, and sponsored by the RAM Promotion Group (RAMPRG), reveals that DVD-RAM drives provide the most robust, drive-based defect management among currently available recordable DVD formats. An optional protective cartridge offers even greater protection and reliability for DVD-RAM.

Having admitted this week that Apple beat it to offering the "Walkman of the 21st Century", Sony is fiercely fighting back to recapture the title. Earlier this month we reported on its first Vaio-branded colour portable music player, the VGF-AP1. Today, Sony unveiled a second machine, this time pitched even more as an adjunct to a home PC, but this time with still photography and video playback functionality.

Press Release: Maxell have introduced the world's first 5X DVD-RAM disc, the fastest rewritable, high-capacity DVD media currently available.

Iomega have introduced two dual-layer external DVD drives: the new Super DVD Writer 12x Dual-Format USB 2.0 Drive and the Super DVD QuickTouch. The two devices head up what Iomega describes as a new generation of External DVD recorders that can store up to 8.5GB on a single DVD+R double-layer disc. Iomega's Super DVD Writer 12x Dual-Format USB 2.0 Drive will support a variety of formats, including DVD+R and DVD-RW (12x write, 4x rewrite, and 16x read speeds), DVD-R and DVD-RW (8x write, 4x rewrite, and 16x read speeds), and CD-R and CD-RW (40x writer, 24x rewrite, and 40x read speeds).

Datasafe-Media have contacted us to say that they would like to publicly distance themselves from a certain unnamed UK based website that has sent out an email to their European-wide customer base declaring themselves as the winner of the Datasafe 'Number 1 reseller in Europe' award.

Oxfam is launching a music download service to help raise money to fight poverty around the world. The charity will offer 300,000 songs to download through its Big Noise Music website, which launches this Wednesday.

The first dual-layer DVD+R recording media are set to go on sale in Japan at the end of this month and overseas in June, disc maker Mitsubishi announced.

Officials from Sony's Super Audio CD Project used this week's Home Entertainment 2004 event to provide an update on the format's progress to date. Included in the update was news of some key upcoming SACD titles slated for release later this year and some new SACD hardware announcements.

Thanks to DVD wizard Flash we have a new review of the new 8x grey discs from Datawrite. Flash seems impressed, saying of them, "what can I say but repeat myself again: these are a good 8x speed disc at a budget price and I would highly recommend them". His review is here.

Dutch company Dvdstream claims it can deliver movies to customer's TV sets digitally without having to pay additional performance rights.The company charges €12.42 a month for an unlimited supply of movies in a 768 x 576 resolution format. Movies are delivered through Palmbutler, a set-top box that streams digital media to TVs and stereos in the home. The company has currently 500 movies from all the major studios, but will eventually offer more than 2000 titles.

Millions of holidaymakers going to Greece this summer have been warned they could be jailed for buying pirated CDs after a buyer was imprisoned. A man was jailed for three months by an Athens court for buying illegal CDs in the country's first case of its kind.

Sony ahve announced that it has developed a three-wavelength optical head, which is able to record and play back discs in three formats: the standards DVD and CD formats, as well as the all new Blu-ray discs.

OEM prices of mainstream 8x8 DVD Dual (+R/-R and/or +RW/-RW) burners have slipped by more than 20% to below US$100 (£56), down from their launch price of US$120-130 (£67-£73) in the first quarter, according to Taiwanese makers of optical disc drives.

Philips and major optical disc manufacturers in Taiwan are negotiating new royalty charges for using CD-R patents owned by Philips, with a consensus not being expected till the end of June at the earliest, according to the Taiwanese makers.

Three men have been questioned by police after a quarter of a million pounds worth of fake CD's and DVD's were seized in County Durham. They were taken to Durham City police station following the raids on homes in South Stanley yesterday.

Jon Johansen's iTunes decryption software PlayFair has been given a new lease of life after Apple successfully lobbied for it to be removed firstly from Sourceforge and later from SourceForge's Indian counterpart, Sarovar.