Topic: News

DVD authority Flash has been busy again with a brand new review of Verbatim's 16x DVD-R. The upshot? Flash believes, "IMO this media is equally as good as the Titanium or Philips".

DVD swami Flash has been in contact with a review of the new silver surfaced 16x media from CMC. He concludes, "The speed scans are all virtually perfect... There is no problems with playback of any of the burns in my variety of DVD players."

The better than expected demand for DVD+R/-R discs has resulted in an increase in OEM prices by 10%-15% in total for this quarter and will further push up prices in the third quarter when it will begin to climb on a monthly basis rather than per quarter as it is currently, said CMC Magnetics chairman Robert Wong.

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is said to be concerned about a growing shift in physical CD piracy production. Many small retail outlets are not relying on the high volume "commercial" pirates that produce tens and hundreds of thousands of illicit CDs. Instead, the RIAA has discovered a new, more elusive trend. Many retailers are simply creating their own pirated CD products "in house."

Nintendo, the gaming industry veteran, sought yesterday to secure its place in the next wave of game consoles -- showing a new machine, code-named Revolution, that will differ from its rivals by sticking mainly to games.

Sony has unveiled three flavors of its new PlayStation 3 video game machine in what is likely a new round of console wars with rivals Microsoft and Nintendo.

Manufacturers of DVD+R/-R discs in Taiwan, in light of growing orders and fully occupied production capacity, have increasingly been choosing the orders for more profitable 16x discs and contracting out the production of 8x discs or for relatively small volumes to second-tier or smaller makers.

Talks among Matsushita, Sony and Toshiba designed to unify competing next-generation DVD formats have failed, making it more likely the rivals will follow separate paths to the video market.

Apple has posted an update for DVD Studio Pro, Final Cut Pro, Logic Pro, Logic Express, Motion and Soundtrack. It has also posted an update to its Intermediate Codec. Both are available for download from Apple's Web site.

Creative announced Xtreme Fidelity, a new standard in audio, and the Creative X-Fi Xtreme Fidelity audio processor. According to the company, the combination of Xtreme Fidelity and the Creative X-Fi Xtreme Fidelity audio processor provides dramatic improvements to the recording and playback of MP3 music, accelerates and improves PC game play, enhances listening experiences for movies, and improves the capabilities, performance and quality of audio creation.

Yahoo's new online music service, coming at less than half the price of similar services, could shake up the sector and deal severe blows to companies like RealNetworks, Napster and Apple, analysts say.

Press Release: Motionism, a leading edge media software developer has released three DVD Menu Template Collections- DVD Designer Pro: Special Events Collection 1; Corporate Collection 1, and Sports Collection 1.

Apple has released a new update to its iTunes software this morning, which adds video support to the application.

Optodisc Technology, an optical disc maker specializing in DVD discs in Taiwan, will invest NT$1.0 billion (£17m) to expand its monthly production capacity to 50 million discs, including DVD+R/-R, DVD+RW/-RW and DVD-RAM, in the fourth quarter of this year, according to company president Jasper Chao at an institutional investor conference on May 11.

Toshiba have announced the development of a triple-layer HD DVD-ROM (read-only) disc with a data capacity of 45 gigabytes, 50% more than the 30-gigabyte dual-layer HD DVD-ROM disc already announced.

Thanks to DVD guru Flash we have a new review of Datawrite's Optima Blue. As predicted, this new product from Datawrite has lived up to the markets’ expectations and set a new precedent in terms of quality, compatibility and unbeatable performance. Utilising the widely sought after Grade AAA+ Ritek Go5 dye, the Optima Blue is a winner…they must be good because Flash concludes "I will give this media another thumbs up"!

Plextor today announces the launch of the PX-740A, an internal E-IDE, dual-layer, DVD and CD re-writer drive.

Claims that moves to unify the two key competing HD video disc formats are progressing to a successful conclusion are "unfounded and erroneous", Toshiba said today.

The specifications of Microsoft's upcoming Xbox 360 console have been leaked a couple of days before the upcoming launch event on MTV.

A group of British men prosecutors said was part of one of the world's largest software-piracy rings on the Internet was sentenced to jail Friday, the latest turn in a 3-year-old criminal probe.