Topic: News

According to recent research worldwide unit shipments of PVR products grew from 1.5 million in 2002 to 4.6 million in 2003. More than 11 million unit shipments are projected for 2004. Despite a slow start with consumers, Personal Video Recorder (PVR) products are finally making headway, according to In-Stat/MDR. Despite an almost continuous stream of rave reviews from satisfied PVR users over the past 5 years, most consumers still failed to see why they needed to hook up yet another set top box to their TV set.

The United States Congress has taken a step toward revising the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which has attracted extensive criticism over the past six years. A House of Representatives subcommittee have convened for the first hearing devoted to a proposal to defang the DMCA, a 1998 law that broadly restricts bypassing copy-protection technologies used in DVDs, a few music CDs and some software programs.

Thanks to DVD legend Flash we have a review of the new Ritek manufactured disc from Datawrite - the Datawrite Yellow v2. As usual, Flash hasn't been taking any prisoners but Datawrite must be doing something right for Flash concludes, "This is the disc I would personally go for in wanting a quality media at a very economical price". Nice one Datawrite. You can read the full review here.

Video game giant Nintendo, facing increased competition in the market for handheld entertainment, will have a new portable out this fall with twin color screens, sharper graphics and the feel of a PDA. The Nintendo DS — short for dual-screen — will be unveiled Tuesday morning at the annual Electronic Entertainment Expo game industry gathering.

Microsoft announced today that will offer a lineup of arcade, puzzle and card games on its Xbox Live online service, targeted at casual video game players. Starting this fall, Xbox Live Arcade will offer a range of puzzle and board games and older arcade titles, with pricing roughly set at $10 apiece.

Sony yesterday unwrapped the PlayStation Portable (PSP) and pledged to put PlayStation 2 visuals in the palm of players' hands around the world by next Spring.

Set to hit the market July 1, Toshiba's RD-XS33 is a personal DVD video recorder that comes equipped with a 160GB hard disk and a DVD-RAM/-R/-RW multi drive.

A computer science professor and graduate student have been awarded a patent for a method of thwarting illegal file sharing on peer-to-peer networks by flooding the network with bogus files that look like pirated music.

DVD guru Flash has just managed to climb out from under the avalanche of correspondence he's had from readers interested in learning some of the secrets of his disc testing wizardry. Quite generously, we think, he's posted in a handy guide on the subject. You can find that review here.

In the UK an estimated 1.67 million people download illegal film or TV files, compared to 570,000 last year, the British Video Association (BVA) found.

Almost 25 per cent of Belgian PC retail shops encourage users to buy illicit software, according to research by Bare Associates. As part of its ongoing effort to stamp out the use of pirated software, Microsoft paid Bare to send secret investigators or "mystery shoppers" to 400 computer retailers in Belgium.

Court rulings have pulled the most popular software for copying DVD movies off the market, but a new program is trying to get around these rulings and still let users duplicate copy-protected discs. The new software, called 123 Copy DVD, sells for as little as $19.99 (£11).

The demand for slim DVD burners for use in notebook computers is expected to overtake slim combo drives by the fourth quarter of this year, as prices drop due to increased output, according to Taiwanese makers of optical disc drives.

Press Release: Primera have announced their Bravo II "all-in-one" disc publishing system. It combines automated robotic CD/DVD duplication along with full-color, 4800 dpi direct-to-disc printing – all in one desktop unit. Bravo II is designed to cope with jobs ranging from a single disc to up to 50 identical discs.

Top Taiwanese manufacturers of blank optical discs, including Ritek and CMC Magnetics, plan to start production of single-sided double-layer (DL) DVD+R/-R discs at the end of this quarter or early next quarter, according to the makers.

Later this month, the BBC will launch a pilot project that could lead to all television programmes being made available on the internet. Viewers will be able to scan an online guide and download any show. Programmes would be viewed on a computer screen or could be burned to a DVD and watched on a television set.

You can rip, copy, or play an MP3 file, but one thing you can't do is get more than two channels of sound out of it. Soon, you will be able to, although you may have more trouble copying the file. The Fraunhofer Institute, originator of the file format that brought the music industry to its knees, is adding surround sound and copyright protection.

Apple has released a fix for a critical flaw in QuickTime software.

The ever-diligent Flash has been in contact with us to let us know that the patched firmware version 1.13 for the Pioneer DVR-A07 has undergone a few minor changes since its initial release and he recommends that you update to the final release #4. His article on the subject plus update information is here.

Lite-On IT, Taiwan's largest manufacturer of optical disc drives, expects to ship 8 million DVD burners this year, which would make it the world's second leading producer for 2004, according to company president Danny Liao at an institutional investor conference.