Topic: News

Who would believe a $1,000 (£625) remote control is a revolutionary product just because it runs Windows? Especially when many people spend a similar sum for an entire home theater system, with speakers, a television, a DVD player, and an included wireless remote? The ViewSonic Airpanel V110 Wireless Smart Display with remote-control software called Nevo, from Universal Electronics Inc. (UEI), may just be such a device and could become the third (maybe even second) computer in your home. This remote is a Web-surfing, e-mail–reading computer at heart. And a Smart Display may be cheaper, easier to use, and more flexible than a dedicated device.

Even as the public's love affair with the DVD blossoms, the tech world is hard at work in the lab creating the next generation of high-definition disc.

We may someday call it the shot heard 'round the world'. On February 17th, the Xbox Linux Project wrote an open letter to Microsoft discussing its desire to run somebody else's software on the company's gaming console. Microsoft hasn't been too friendly toward those efforts. Last fall, it shut down a maker of "mod chips" -- circuitry that can be soldered onto the motherboard of the Xbox to make the machine run Linux. The letter politely demanded that Microsoft stop "restricting choice" -- and rid itself of the mod market to boot -- by publishing the code required to run unapproved programs without modifications to the Xbox.

The big DVD manufacturers have managed to extract ¥3 billion from Chinese companies that exported players worldwide, the Nihon Keizai Shimbun reports today.

Taiwanese first-tier optical drive disc makers Ritek and CMC Magnetics (CMC) plan to raise prices for blank CD-R discs by around US$0.02 in the third quarter of this year, the companies said.

Epson have introduced the Stylus Photo 900, a new USB-based inkjet printer that has the ability to print directly on CD and DVD media without using adhesive labels. It's the second product in Epson's line to do so, and the first to be offered for less than $200 (£125), according to the company.

Macrovision is the latest of several in the anti-piracy business to license Windows Media Audio technology for copy-protected CDs. Microsoft sank its claws a little deeper into the music business on Wednesday, as copy-protection company Macrovision agreed to license the company's Windows digital rights management technology for CDs.

Intersil have announced that its laser diode design will be used in a new Hitachi-LG Data Storage disk drive, the GSA-4040B, which will support multiple DVD and CD recordable and rewritable formats. The Hitachi-LG drive will be available in June and will support DVD-R, DVD-RW, DVD+R, DVD+RW, DVD-RAM, CD-R and CD-RW formats.

321 Studios, a US company that sells DVD-copying software, will have its day in court this week, mounting one of the most serious challenges so far to the movie industry's anti-piracy efforts. Hollywood's movie studios will face a key test in their battle to defend their copyrights from digital pirates, when a federal court in California this Friday hears a case filed by the maker of DVD-copying software.

Sony will soon introduce what it claims to be the word's first dual-format home DVD recorder. The RDR-GX7 will be the only home DVD recorder that supports the DVD-RW, DVD+RW and DVD-R recording formats, the company claimed in a statement.

Probably the world's most popular MPEG-4 codec, DivX, has been updated. The new version, DivX v5.04, includes various bug fixes and improvements over the last (v5.03) version. You can download both the Pro and Adware-free versions here.

Hewlett packard have unveiled a new range of PC's that have all-in-one multimedia functaionality: they can mix and burn CDs, DVDs; record your favourite TV shows; and store your digital photos. unfortuneatley they have hit the market a month late and 35 per cent over its intended price.

Sanyo has unveiled a new technology that doubles the amount of data that can be stored on conventional CD-recordable discs. This development follows Plextor's announcement last week that its new CD writers can squeeze 40 percent more data into a standard CD-R.

Japanese electronics company NEC has unveiled a new all-in-one chip that can act as a digital video broadcast decoder and power next-generation entertainment devices that record to either a DVD or a hard disk.

Just a quick reminder about our monthly newsletter. Anyone who joins before the 30th of March will be entered into a prize draw to win a Pioneer A05 and 200 4 speed Datawrite DVD Discs. Details of how to join our mailing list are on the left hand side of our homepage. This competition has been sponsered by Datawrite. Producers of Datawrite "Red" DVD-R. Europes best selling 4x dvd media.

Sony has released a new firmware update for their Sony DRU-500 A/U DVD burners. The firmware version is 2.0f and here is what's new: Improvement of entry and reading efficiency as well as better burns on crap (ie mass eccentric) media and better CD Audio compatability.

You can download the firmware here.

Accesstek announced a new DVD recorder supporting both DVD-R/RW and DVD+R/RW formats. The supported DVD-R/+R writing speed is the 4x, while the Sanyo HD-BURN feature is included to offer twice recording capacity on CD-R media.

We have just had an email from Datawrite with stats which show that their 4x Datawrite DVD-R disc is the best selling 4x DVD-R in Europe. The disc which has had some rave reviews is outselling everything added together!! on a 4:1 basis.

Related Stories:
Here is Flash's review of Datawrite's budget 4x DVD-R's.
Will Bulkpaq Catch Up On Datawrite's Lead?

Plextor has announced a new CD-RW drive that can squeeze 40 percent more data into standard blank discs. The Plextor Premium can pack in 980MB of data into a 700MB (80 minute) disc and 1.2GB into an 880MB (99 minute) disc, according to Plextor.

A DVD will debut this month in an unusual dual pack: Two discs will contain the same video, but one disc is for your PC, encoded in WM9 (Windows Media Player 9), and the other is a standard DVD for your living room player. Why view the WM9 version at all? It offers higher playback quality, say Microsoft representatives. They claim the quality is more than two times better than standard DVDs.