Topic: News

According to Wall Street Journal, the music industry association RIAA is about to join almighty technology companies, led by Intel, HP and Microsoft, to oppose so-called Hollings' bill which is strongly supported by the movie industry association MPAA. The bill would make it absolutely, totally illegal to copy or backup copyrighted material in the United States and would require hardware and software manufacturers to implement blocks to make it reality.

Though the stand-alone DVD recording decks destined to replace VCRs are drawing understandable attention, the selection of DVD burners for PCs continues to grow. Hewlett-Packard, TDK, Samsung, Archos Technology, Philips, and Yamaha are all among the vendors who have recently unveiled rewritable DVD drives. Most were on display at the Consumer Electronics Show last week in Las Vegas.

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Sonic Solutions announced at the International CES Convention that Sonic MyDVD(R), the world's leading DVD creation software, fully supports the new Plus! Photo Story feature in Microsoft Plus! Digital Media Edition for Windows XP, the photo, music and movie enhancement pack for Windows XP. This new support enables users to create great-looking DVDs with their digital photo albums.

Marking its entry into the emerging digital home entertainment Arena, Zenith Electronics Corporation introduced its first DVD recorder and hard-disc recorder at the 2003 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

Sony is launching a new series of Camcorders that record video to rewriteable DVD discs. Pricing for the low-end model, the DCR-DVD100, will start at around $1000 (£650.00), and the devices should be available as soon as this summer.

Panasonic is once again leading the way as an innovator in the world of DVD entertainment with the introduction of the sleek VDR-M30 DVD camcorder. This innovative camcorder records high-quality digital video and still images onto removable 8cm DVD-RAM and DVD-R1 discs, offering the ability of non-linear editing of home videos right in the camcorder. The innovative DVD-RAM and DVD-R video recording technology employed in the new unit complies with the recording formats standardized by the DVD Forum. The new model VDR-M30 also features an SD Memory Card slot. It will be available in the spring of 2003 and will have a manufacturer’s suggested retail price (MSRP) of $899.95 (£599.99).

Panasonic is leading the recordable DVD industry into mainstream acceptance with the introduction of the easy-to-use DMR-E50 DVD recorder at the 2003 International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Panasonic’s fourth-generation recorder offers consumers many of the features and technology benefits they have come to expect from digital recording, combined with a user-friendly interface and an unexpected manufacturer’s suggested retail price (MSRP) of $599.95 (£399.99).

Two Major developments on the DVD+R standard have again made us reconsider the question which standard will win the DVD format war. The “+” or the “-“.
Datawite sent us an email asking us if we would like to Test review a new product: they will be distributing a 7 Writer DVD+R duplicator.
This is the first time a volume distributor of DVD products has produced such a product. Our DVD guru FLASH accepted this offer as quick as well a flash.

To read the review by flash please click here.

Bulkpaq, announced in a press release that they too would be promoting the dvd+r standard. And launching a +R format disc at a very affordable price.

"Our new “+R” Confirms our position as being the innovator in the DVD field. It is our belief that only by understanding customers' needs and exceeding their expectations can we bring customers superior value while maintaining our leading position. From now on “+” format media users will be able to enjoy not only large capacity and high quality storage but also high-speed recording performance, all at a very affordable prices."

These two developments by two of Europe’s leading brands will undoubtedly lead to an increase in DVD+R sales only time will tell what sort of increase.

Samsung Electronics Co. announced yesterday it had agreed on a strategic partnership with Matsushita Electronics Corp. in pursuing the digital versatile disc player business. Samsung decided to support Matsushita's DVD recording format (DVD-R) by producing DVD recorders based on that standard in a bid to secure a dominant position in competition among different recording standards. The decision by Samsung, the second biggest producer of DVD players, to support Matsushita's format is expected to influence other electronics manufacturers in selecting a standard for themselves.

Toshiba has announced two new portable DVD players and a high-definition projector, along with a digital media server that is part of its new collaboration with TiVo.

The Recordable DVD Council (RDVDC) rallied consumers to demand "Real DVD" (or as you may know it: DVD-R) as they launched a new DVD Recordable awareness campaign today during the RDVDC press conference at the Consumer Electronics Show. Staying one step ahead of the hottest industry in Consumer Electronics history, RDVDC is dedicating 2003 to helping consumers understand and embrace recordable DVD technology through feature-rich, easy-to-use cutting edge products from CE giants including Hitachi, Matsushita (Panasonic), Samsung, and Toshiba.

Press Release: Pioneer, a world leader in technologies for home and mobile entertainment, today introduced a broad range of new products at the 2003 International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

Primera Technology Inc., a developer and manufacturer of CD-R/DVD-R duplication and printing equipment, will announce what the company claims is "the world's first integrated CD copying and printing system with Mac compatibility" today at the Macworld Conference & Expo in San Francisco.

Verbatim® Corp. and Peripherals Group Inc., the exclusive licensor of Verbatim optical hardware products and a subsidiary of CenDyne Inc., jointly unveiled Verbatim 4x "Producer" DVD+R/RW drive at CES, Booth #18000 today.

DVD +R/W reference platform will be on show at CES this week as Taiwanese consumer electronics giant Mustek unveils its first DVD recording device, the DVD-R100A/B. Mustek is actively demonstrating the DVD-R100A/B at CES in anticipation of full production in the spring of 2003. With an entry price targeted below $500, the DVD-R100A/B will allow consumers to play DVDs and also record video content - such as broadcast television or home movies - onto DVD disc media.

Sigma Designs, Inc. (Nasdaq:SIGM), a leader in media processors for consumer appliances, along with KiSS Technology, a leading European vendor of DVD players, and Jamo, the leading European manufacturer of loudspeakers, jointly announced the development of a complete home cinema center with DivX Video(TM) compatibility. The new DVR-50 DVD receiver will be marketed in Europe by Jamo and will reach retail stores in May.

HP today introduced two new DVD writers that allow users to easily preserve, edit and share video and data faster than ever before. Twice as fast as the company's previous writers, the devices are capable of writing an entire DVD in as little as 15 minutes. Using a DVD write-speed of up to 4X, the HP DVD 300i internal DVD writer and the HP DVD 300e external DVD writer enable users to quickly preserve and edit video, store data, record music and back up and transport information on DVDs and CDs.

The entertainment lobby has failed to persuade a Norwegian court to convict a teenager for creating a utility for playing back DVDs on his own computer.

Pioneer projects shipping 700,000 DVD recorders in fiscal year 2003 (April 2003-March 2004), up from an estimated 170,000 units this fiscal year, citing its popular HDD (hard disk drive)/DVD recorders, reported the Japanese-language Business Line. Pioneer launched a new HDD/DVD recorder, the DVR-99H, featuring a built-in 120GB HDD for a maximum of 153 hours of recording, in Japan in late December. The model followed earlier DVD-77H (with an 80GB HDD) and DVR-55 and DVR-3000 recorders (both without hard drives). The DVR-99H offers 4x DVD-R and 2x DVD-RW speeds. The company claims the product can achieve 24x recording speed, dubbing a one-hour TV program in EP mode from HDD to DVD-R disc in less than three minutes without deterioration in picture or sound quality.