According to an analyst from Friedman Billings Ramsey & Company, the recently confirmed upgrade to Apple Inc.'s iPhone, scheduled for early 2008, has already suffered its first delay. Mehdi Hosseini cites data from recent checks that show the next gen iPhone was most likely scheduled for a release in March or April 2008, but that now the upgraded version of the one of the year's hottest gadgets may only see daylight around late summer.
This is bad news for manufacturers of NAND flash. Contrary to Samsung's predictions, Hossein expects the iPhone delay to impact demand for NAND flash memory in the first half of 2008. Contrast this with with the summer of 2007, when Apple's NAND flash memory demand was so high it caused shortages for other major electronics companies.
Alan Niebel of Web-Feet Research noted that there is in fact an oversupply of NAND flash memory at this moment. Prices may also be kept down by new low-cost Apple gadgets that use NAND memory, including possibly an ultra-mobile MacBook or a form of "iPhone Nano".
Sony Corp. has developed a battery that provides longer play time for the newer slim model of the PlayStation Portable (PSP) console. Released after being shown off at E3 this year, the slim model of the PSP already offers longer battery life than the original PSP model, but by Sony's estimates, this new battery will easily double the amount of time the PSP can be used on a full charge.
For a handheld device, the PSP console has a UMD which includes a mechanical motor for games and video content, as well as providing very decent graphics performance for a handheld device. All of this requires enough juice to run, and many gamers did originally complain about the performance of the PSP battery compared to other handheld gaming devices.
The new PSP battery pack> ships to North America in the middle of December and will cost about $45. Of course, its exactly the same size as the original but provides around 2,200mAh of power.
In an update to our article here, z4 has sued Microsoft again over what it calls "insufficient progress in complying with the terms of the ruling."
The small Michigan-based company says that Microsoft continues to infringe on the rights of its patents. z4 is again asking the courts to find Microsoft liable of patent infringement and is again looking for monetary damages.
"Microsoft's ongoing infringement of the z4 Patents is willful," z4 said in its complaint.
In October, we reported that The Pirate Bay had somehow obtained the IFPI.com domain name and was using it to create the "International Federation of Pirate Interests". The IFPI is, of course, the industry trade group the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry.
TBP obtained the domain because the IFPI neglected to renew it and an anonymous individual picked it up and donated it to TPB. After the news hit the group, they quickly filed a complaint with the WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization), requesting that the domain be returned to its previous owners. It seems that WIPO has ordered TPB to return the domain, and there is little that the admins at TPB can do about it.
"For all the foregoing reasons, in accordance with Paragraphs 4(i) of the Policy and 15 of the Rules, the Panel orders that the domain name, be transferred to the Complainant."
NetTVworld is hoping to revolutionize IPTV with a new 4u rackmount server called the netTelecaster, which they're billing as "the world's first internet TV transmitter."
The box enables webcasters to webcast IPTV streams for the low price $5,000. According to the company it's capable of delivering up to 20,000 simultaneous streams, though for $5,000 it's not really being marketed to anyone who's likely to have that kind of need.
It may, on the other hand, be a good fit for companies wanting the ability to distribute video across large distances. Instead of needing to record to some kind of media, which then still has to be shipped to the desired location, the netTelecaster could enable them to easiily stream video from location to location across the interenet.
A lower priced version of the unit, the netTelecaster Slimline, is a 1u rackmount unit designed to handle only a single stream. It also lacks some redundant systems, including power supply and RAID array, that it's big brother will be outfitted with.
On Monday Netflix, Inc. and NBC Universal announced a deal that will make Netflix"the exclusive SVOD outlet" for hit series Heroes. Since the beginning of the second season, episodes have been available on the online DVD rental leader's Watch Instantly service a day after airing on NBC.
"We are pleased to expand our relationship with NBC Universal Domestic Television Distribution and be part of their innovative distribution strategy," said Robert Kyncl, Vice President of Content Acquisition for Netflix. "We have a shared interest in granting fans expanded access to and strengthening the network's key franchises."
"We are excited to establish Netflix as a part of our off-network syndication strategy for 'Heroes', " said Frances Manfredi, Executive Vice President & General Sales Manager, NBC Universal Domestic Television Distribution. "This deal reflects the changing landscape of the entertainment marketplace and our objective of finding new buyers that complement our traditional customers."
This year has seen the introduction and steady growth of the Watch Instantly service, which makes a small, but growing, selection of movies offered for rent on DVD available for Streaming across the internet. Meanwhile competitor Blockbuster, despite backing away from a more aggresive strategy to compete with Netflix, has purchased their own online movie service called Movielink, and is also in the process of finding new ways to deliver video to consumers.
Despite an announcement on Thursday by the European Commision that the E.U.'s official standard for mobile telivision will be DVB-H, not every member state is happy about the decision. In fact some countries hope to organize a 2/3 majority to Block the standard's adoption.
In a statement, the commission said "DVB-H will be published by the Commission in the list of official EU standards," and "As a result, all EU Member States will have to support and encourage the use of DVB-H for the launch of mobile TV services, thus avoiding market fragmentation and allowing economies of scale and accordingly affordable services and devices,"
"It is premature to consider intervening in the market for mobile TV," British Minister of State for Competitiveness Stephen Timms said in a statement. "All current competing standards should be listed (by the EU), not just DVB-H." In addition to Britain, Germany and the Netherlands also opposed the decision.
Consumer rights activixts at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) have released a report detailing evidence they've amassed against Comcast over the cable provider's "network management," which apparently manages BitTorrent connections right off their network.
According to the EFF report, Comcast's network management software isn't just prioritizing traffic. It's actually spoofing network traffic in order to fool BitTorrent clients that there's something fishy about the connection - which of course there is. It just appears to be something Comcast is intentionally doing, rather than network issues that would cause the clients to legitemately close connections.
Despite Comcast's claims to the EFF that they don't target any specific application, the type of traffic being reported would be exactly that - targeted attacks on connections for specific programs. Although they couldn't confirm with 100% certainty that the forged RST (reset connection) packets are coming from Comcast's equipment, it can be confirmed that the mysterious connection resets only occur when one or more of the ends of a BitTorrent connection is through a Comcast connection.
Bloomberg is reaporting that AOL and Yahoo are both considering shutting down their Web radio operations due to a 38% spike in royalty payments over the last few months. The sharp increase is due to royalty rates that the U.S. Copyright Board approved over webcaster objections earlier this year. It was a word for word copy of a proposal from SoundExchange, the agency responsible for collecting and distributing royalties on behalf of music labels.
Besides increasing royalties to astronomical levels over the next couple of years, it also increases royalty payments retroactively, forcing online radio services to make additional payments for broadcasts they've already paid for once. "We're not going to stay in the business if cost is more than we make long term,'' Ian Rogers, general manager at Yahoo's music unit, told Bloomberg. The good news for webcasters is that their appeal is scheduled to be heard starting in February.
At least one investment analyst isn't overly concerned about Yahoo's long term plans for online radio. Capital Markets analyst Jordan Rohan laughed at the notion, saying "With the abundance of free or relatively free music available, shuttering the service won't cause that much of a disruption in the market."
According to Shinji Hatano, licensing director for Nintendo, the Wii's Virtual Console download service has become a lucrative business model and has so far generated JPY 3.5 billion, the equivalent of 33 million USD.
Hatano released the figures during a recent press conference in which he also marked a "collaboration with NTT for broadband internet access for the home console."
So far, 7.8 million items have been download through the service, which offers games from past Nintendo consoles and are usually priced between $5 and $20 USD.
LightScribe Direct Disc Labeling today announced the immediate availability of the LightScribe Template Labeler, labeling software designed to simplify and enhance customers' CD and DVD labeling. The Template Labeler complements the capability of the Lightscribe Simple Labeler, launched in February 2007. The Template Labeler allows customers to create full label designs with its easy user interface. The new labeling software is available immediately for free download on LightScribe's website.
Six LightScribe template packs of new label designs are available for the Template Labeler: LightScribe Art Pack, LightScribe Holiday Pack, LightScribe Weddings Pack, LightScribe Special Occasions Pack, LightScribe Sports Pack and LightScribe Business Pack.
The Template Labeler and the new label design packs can be downloaded at www.lightscribe.com for free and works on computers running Windows (Vista/XP/2000). In addition to English, LightScribe Template Labeler for Windows will be available beginning in December 2007 in 23 languages, including Arabic, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Czech, Danish, Dutch, German, Greek, Finnish, French, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Portuguese-Brazilian, Russian, Slovakian, Spanish, Swedish and Turkish.
ipoque, a firm which specializes in solutions for internet traffic management released a study showing that in five major regions in the world, P2P traffic generates between 49 and 84 percent of the total Bandwidth usage on the Internet. The study continued to show interesting results such as the P2P rate increases to an astounding 95 percent at night time in each region. BitTorrent protocols still bring in the highest totals and its said that every fifth Internet user shares files on the Internet.
In relation, other forms of Internet traffic showed different results at different times. 95 percent of all Internet telephony is Skype. While VoIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol) only accounts for a mere 1 percent of all Internet traffic, most of it is handled by the Skype application. Additionally, instant messaging programs vary from region to region with 60 percent being shown in the Middle East to Germany's mere 17 percent.
Flash movies embedded in Web sites like YouTube, which produced considerably more traffic. This and other forms of video Streaming generated eight percent of the Internet traffic during the measurement period.
While releasing their third-quarter earnings, DVR giant TiVo let a few details slip about what TiVo 4 will contain.
TiVo and the cable industry have come to an agreement on a blue-print for a retail TiVo DVR using the cable industry’s OpenCable Application Platform that will have full two-way cable service functionality. While the technical specifications are still being worked out, such a set-top box will mean TiVo subscribers will be able to get full access to cable video-on-demand and other two-way cable services. This could also mean that a standalone TiVo offering could fully substitute for a cable operator set-top box. This understanding was communicated yesterday to the FCC through an ex parte filing by TiVo.
"We are very excited by the emphasis that Comcast has placed on this product within its organization and their plans to aggressively market it at a $2.95 up-charge as well as through packaged bundles and win-back offers.
Rumors having begun swirling around the internet that EMI, one of the big four record labels, may be deciding to cut down or stop funding to trade groups including the RIAA and IFPI.
Currently, EMI, Warner, Sony BMG, and Universal reportedly make regular payments to groups such as the IFPI and the RIAA and it has been reported that the IFPI alone received $132 USD million a year from the four labels.
Much of these millions of dollars are used to "combat" piracy but given EMI's recent actions, like the dropping of DRM on their music, makes the rumors not all that surprising.
We will keep you updated as updates become available.
Lite-On IT and Philips have brought a new external DVD writer to the market. The DX-20A4PU integrate an updated version of the EZ-DUB technology (first its range of drive.) The drive, which is enclosed in nifty black and white casing, offers high-speed 20X DVD writing. The EZ-DUB technology offered by Lite-On drives includes two buttons on the DVD drive itself to offer common data writing functions with a one-touch effort.
The FILE button backs up files from the computer whilst the DUB button will copy disc to disc. The new "enhanced" EZ-DUB swaps the "physical" buttons with two touch sensitive buttons. Also included with the drive is SmartWrite technology. SmartWrite uses a smart writing algorithm and self-learning techniques to detect and select the best method of writing data for each type of media used, and then remember that decision for future sessions.
Samsung has announced that they will be introducing a new display, a flat panel X-ray detector (FPXD) monitor that sports a resolution higher than anything seen commercially to date, at 3072 x 3072.
The display is intended for X-ray machines but the company says the uses extend beyond medical purposes. It can also be used in traditional CAT scan machines, building inspections and airport security systems.
Samsung "attaches photodiodes to a TFT substrate it produces using a proprietary amorphous silicon technology."
The device should be available worldwide in the first quarter of 2008.
The popular software DVD player, WinDVD has recently been awareded the BD-Video Profile 1.1 certification by the Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA). This award comes by way of WinDVD being known as the primary and most popular PC software to play Blu-ray movies.
Jeff Hastings, President and General Manager, Digital Media at Corel commented, "Corel is pleased to be the first DVD playback software vendor to receive BD-Video 1.1 Certification. With the retail release of Profile 1.1-enabled Blu-ray Discs early in 2008, WinDVD users will be able to enjoy the ultimate at-home movie viewing experience, watching their favorite high-definition Blu-ray Disc movies, while enjoying the director's commentary at the same time."
WinDVD users can expect the update in their software to reflect the new Profile 1.1 in early 2008.
Medion is offering a multi-format home theater PC in the UK that will be compatible with both the Blu-ray and HD DVD optical disc formats. The high performance MD8828 is based on Intel VIIV technology and featuring a multi-format, high definition HD DVD and Blu-Ray optical drive. It utilizes Intel's 2.66GHz Core 2 Duo E6750 processor and is equipped with an NVIDIA GeForce 8600GS DirectX 10 graphics card with DVI-I connector and HDMI port.
Also pre4sent is a 500GB SATA hard disk drive, 2GB of RAM, a TV tuner, incorporating incorporating Freeview DVB-T, DVB-S Satellite and analogue TV. There is also an MCE remote. It is Wifi-capable, supporting WLAN 802.11n and includes a front connection flash memory card reader.
Iceland's largest torrent site, torrent.is has been shut down due to a coalition effort by a few European anti-piracy organizations. The organizations, however, were denied their request to seize all computer hardware associated with the site.
The tracker has received an injunction that has effectively shut down the popular site. As of last week, the site had 27,000 active users, making it without a doubt the most famous and popular private tracker in Iceland. The tracker only allowed Icelandic IPs to connect in an effort to ensure fast connectivity among its users.
Svavar Kjarrval, the lead admin of the site says he is going to fight the injunction. “I’m going to fight this as far as I possibly can. The general public seems to be on our side.”
As a result of the takedown, the head of the Icelandic equivalent of the MPAA, the SMAIS has received numerous death threats and hate mail.
MTV Networks will be giving away every second of every episode of the hit show South Park online next year. The move follows a decision earlier this year to put an extensive archive of footage from The Daily Show With Jon Stewart online.
"'The Daily Show' was the first out of the gate and it's been a big success and it's a nice little model for us to follow," said Mika Salmi, MTV Networks president of global digital media. "There's no limit to which shows we can use at this stage."
"One does not diminish the other by any stretch of the imagination. That is kind of our hat trick," MTV Networks Chairman and Chief Executive Judy McGrath said at the Reuters Media Summit in New York on Wednesday. She was referring to the question of whether the online content would compete with television for the same audience.
That would apparently be news to Viacom executives, who decided to sue YouTube over the availability of clips from their television shows from the viral video giant. The suit, for more than $1 billion, claims that these clips on YouTube threaten the "economic underpinnings of one of the most important sectors of the United States economy."
According to Blockbuster CEO Jim Keyes, the company is working on deals with Cell phone manufacturers to market its recently acquired Movielink video download service to mobile phone users.
"It’s a rare privilege to sit home with my family and watch a DVD," he told a reporter at the Reuters Media Summit in New York. "I do do it, but it is a rare treat to have the time to do that. So, I was always behind on movies."
"Today, I’m finding myself increasingly watching movies by watching them when I can in bite-sized pieces on my Blackberry," he said.
Blockbuster bought Movielink earlier this year. Before the acquisition it was considered something of a symbol of Hollywood's failure to market downloadable video to the masses. Keyes believes Blockbuster can turn Movielink's fortunes around by integrating it into the company's other operations, which currently include not just brick and mortar stores and an online rental service, but also a growing presence in the kiosk market.
He's also counting on the moves he's made in his short tenure with the company to bring their financial future into better focus by the beginning of next year. "We think we will be a in a position by the first quarter to have enough of the transition in place to get good read on what 2008 will look like," he said. "Going forward, as we continue to evolve Blockbuster, we want to bring our shareholders with us."
According to analysts at MultiMedia Intelligence, sales of mobil phones with multimedia capabilities will exceed television sales in 2008. It would be the first year this has happened.
The agency's report indicates that worldwide shipments of phones equipped with multimedia playback features will exceed 300 million units next year, exceeding predictions for television sales during the same period. It also predicts that by 2011 around 90% of all available mobile phones will include an image sensor (camera), as well as MP3 and video players. Currently around 60% of phones support all these features.
Touch screens, a relatively new innovation in mobile phones, are also expected to see phenomenal growth in the near future. MultiMedia Intelligence analysts predict that sales of phones using the technology will be have reached 200 million units by 2011.
EMI, one of the so-called "Big Four" music labels primarily responsible for funding the RIAA, as well as similar industry organizations outside the U.S, is starting to look at contributions to such groups with a critical eye and ask whether they're getting their money's worth, and apparently the answer is no.
The British music label, which was recently purchased by a private equity fund, may be prepared to drastically cut contributions to trade groups. These groups perform a number of functions, both within the industry and in the lobbying arena. In recent years they've also become infamous for bringing copyright infringement lawsuits against thousands of people on behalf of labels like EMI.
Although they wouldn't confirm the story, an IFPI official told Reuters that "as one would expect in this market, there is a focus on efficiencies and savings." He also indicated that the organization, a sort of international version of the RIAA, is currently in the process of setting their operating budget for next year.
With online and brick and mortar retailers alike calling for the recording industry to switch to more customer friendly tactics, and EMI even leading the charge to get rid of DRM in commercial music downloads, this move shouldn't be particularly surprising to anyone familiar with music industry events over the last several months.
Facing opposition from other commisioners, and vocal criticism from the cable industry, Chairman Kevin Martin has decided to drop a proposal that would give the FCC stronger regulatory control over the U.S. cable industry, which now includes not only traditional cable companies, but also AT&T's U-verse IPTV service.
Instead, cable companies will be required to provide the FCC with the most comprehensive information they ever have. In recent days Martin has indicated that he believes that cable companies now have service available to at least 70% of all U.S. residences, and that at least 70% of the people for whom the service is available are actual subscribers. These are the thresholds required for the FCC to increase regulatory control over cable TV according to 1984 cable bill.
His claims were based on the results of an independent study that he now admits might not be definitive enough to warrant FCC action. He hopes that the additional information provided by cable companies will help make his case next time around.
It's easy to side with Martin on his primary concern, which is the way cable channels are packaged, with consumers required to buy entire packages, sometimes just to get a single Channel. In the past Martin has stated a preference for requiring cable providers to offer so called ala carte channel selections, allowing customers to select individual channels for a lower price than current packages.
Nero and TiVo have signed an agreement that will finally bring the TiVo service to home PCs. The new agreement should help TiVO attract new subscribers in the growing TV-on-PC market.
By adding its services to the PC, TiVo will have its service in all major media distributions, cable, satellite, and computer.
"The partnership with TiVo extends the TV experience for the connected digital home, enabling easy access anytime, anywhere to the most extensive TV content," Nero chief Richard Lesser said.
The North American HD DVD Promotional Group has made a press release announcing their latest sales milestone, 750,000 standalones sold through last week.
Thanks to incredible November deals on ToshibaHD DVD players, the milestone has been reached with numbers continuing to grow at a steady rate. The numbers also include the Xbox 360 HD DVD add on.
"HD DVD continues to gain momentum and market share with consumers," said Ken Graffeo, executive vice president of HD strategic marketing for Universal Studios Home Entertainment, and co-president of the HD DVD Promotional Group. "With more than four weeks left for holiday shopping, HD DVD is turning out to be a perfect consumer electronics gift."
According to the The Digital Entertainment Group, Blu-ray standalone sales have not even reached 200,000 units yet. Those numbers, of course, do not include the Sony PlayStation 3.
According to a report by Consumer Reports magazine, U.S. holiday shoppers are more keen to buy LCD HDTV sets this year than Plasma models. The report said that nearly 20 percent of Americans are likely to buy a flat-screen HDTV as a gift this holiday season. Of those likely to buy a flat screen this year, 54 percent plan to pick up an LCD display, while 29 percent will opt for plasma technology instead.
Approximately 16 percent claimed they did not know which type display they would be more interested in. This year it will all come down to price more than it has before. Last year, about two thirds of all those who planned to buy a flat-screen HDTV were willing to spend up to $1500 on a set, but this year only 24 percent would go that high.
Prices of flat-panel HDTV sets have fallen about 30 percent in the past year and it would seem that the average consumer is noticing the falling prices. Consumer Reports said that 47 percent of buyers will aim for a set that is 42 inches or larger while 15 percent will aim for a screen that is over 50 inches.
Security-Assessment.com security consultant Nick Breese has presented a new report to the Kiwicon hacker conference in which he claims the Sony PlayStation 3, with its powerful Cell processors, can be a great asset to hackers.
He claims that the console can crack passwords at speeds 300 times faster than Intel hardware can.
Speed is the most important factor in "brute force" password cracking, and Breese says the PS3 helps cut down speed considerably.
"Suddenly we have a massive increase in terms of . . . cryptography cracking," he said. "Eight-character 'strong' passwords can be broken in a couple of days whereas before it would take weeks."
Breese does note howevwer, that other password types are handled more securely and remain unaffected by Breese's findings.
"They're still safe. However, the gap has shrunk a hell of a lot," he added. "If you had access to a thousand PlayStations you could (still) crack an eight-character Linux password in a few days."
The PS3 can also be used to "break basic encryption schemes" added Breese, although "ciphers such as the 128-bit Secure Sockets Layer (SSL)" are safe for the time being. "It'll speed up the attacks but I can't see that it's broken, (It) is still safe because the people implementing the ciphers foresaw CPU power rapidly increasing."
DivX Inc.'s wholly owned subsidiary, MainConcept AG, has announced that Professional Systems AV B.U. of Panasonic AVC Networks company (Panasonic) will distribute a pair of custom-developed transcoding solutions for IT-based production systems supporting the latest HD codecs for the popular P2HD broadcast and video production platform AVC-Intra and for newly developed professional and consumer video production platform AVCHD.
The two transcoding applications offer convenient transcoding of the AVC-Intra and AVCHD formats into the ever-popular DVCPRO format and are the result of close technical collaboration between Panasonic and MainConcept. The new applications give Panasonic Broadcast's customers a ready-made, cost effective transcoding solution with time-to-market advantages of not having to develop the applications in-house.
"We are proud to expand our partnership with Panasonic and to provide them with high quality, custom developed transcoder applications for AVCHD and AVC-Intra," said Masashi Nemoto, President of MainConcept Japan. "The continued evolution of camcorder technology and the ongoing introduction of new HD video formats has greatly increased the demand for highly specialized, customer-specific video encoding, decoding, and transcoding solutions. We are looking forward to powering Panasonic's continued success by offering customized solutions for broadcast and professional users supporting the P2 based camcorder platform."
Seeing the recent success of DVD kiosk provider Redbook, Blockbuster has announced plans to provide DVD rental kiosks at Family Dollar and Papa John's pizza locations as part of a trial run for the new service.
In recent months Blockbuster's new CEO, James Keyes, has them focusing more on their traditional (brick and mortar) rental business, rather than trying to combat Internet DVD rental service Netflix on their own turf. However, the rental kiosk business has seen massive growth this year, in part because of Blockbuster rival Redbox getting kiosks positioned at McDonald's restaraunts around the U.S.
Just yesterday Redbox announced that their kiosks now give them a presence in more locations than Blockbuster, whose business is still conducted primarily at dedicated rental stores. No doubt Blockbuster executitves are going to be make a point of becoming a major player in the early stages of the kiosk market to avoid the problems they faced when Netflix became a serious competitor.
According to Blockbuster CEO James Keyes, “The next, bigger trend is for vending, and we are well positioned to be able to play through an electronic kiosk.”
It looks like the first shipments of HD VMD set-top players to hit the U.S. will be courtesy of online retailer PC Rush. They've apparently ordered 10,000 units that they'll start selling in December.
HD VMD (Versatile Multilayer Disc) players are intended as an alternative to expensive next-generation formats like HD DVD and Blu-ray. Unlike those formats it's built entirely around red laser media similar to DVDs. Despite not having any market presence at all in the U.S., HD VMD has already carved out a significant niche for itself in countries like India. In fact India's highly successful studio Bollywood has plans to release at least 50 movies in the format.
So far no major studio has any plans to release movies in HD VMD format, which isn't surprising since they've all thrown their support behind one of the two major players, HD DVD and Blu-ray. There are a few major studio movies available in other countries, most notably Australia, in the format. This is due to production deals that give companies outside the U.S. distribution rights in some countries.
Nero is offering a 10 percent discount for AfterDawn users on their flagship product, Nero 8 Ultra Edition.
In addition to the discount, they'll throw in freebies to the deal as well -- users who buy the Ultra Edition before 2nd of January, 2008 will also receive a 10-pack of DVD-R media and Nero Photoshow Deluxe 5 for free. Please note that the offer is provided by Nero USA and therefor is limited to U.S. and Canada only.
The Pirate Bay has announced that it has canceled its plans to launch BOiNK, a replacement to the recently shut down OiNK. The Pirate Bay will be leaving the revival of thousands of music albums to more specialized private BitTorrent trackers instead.
TBP canceled its plans because several new sites sprung up to replace OiNK just days after it was taken down. As Brokep , and admin at TBP said, “There are so many people opening up new music trackers right now so there’s no need for us to go and do that as well.”
"It’s simply better for us not to interfere with the music lovers that want their special ratio trackers for only scene releases and so forth. That’s not our specialty! Each to do what they’re best at and what they love the most,” he added.
Some other music trackers, including what.CD, waffles.fm, and STmusic have seen a huge traffic jump since the fall of OiNK, with triple digit increases.
Warner has announced that its upcoming HD DVD release of 'Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix' will bring HD interconnectivity to a new level with the introduction of the "Live Community Screening" feature.
The new feature will allow "multiple owners of the 'Order of the Phoenix' HD DVD to simultaneously watch the film via their own individual web-connected players." The playback is controlled by one user who is host and can invite the other users to the viewing. There will even be a virtual "live chat" where participants can text between their remote devices.
The release date for the movie is December 11th and although Warner is releasing a Blu-ray version as well, it will not include any web-enabled content.
IBM has patented a new concept that will place commercials during the movie you are watching on your legally purchased or rented DVD.
The scheme, which is a terrible abuse of consumers, will allow purchasers to either purchase or rent the movie at the current standard rate with commercial interruption or pay extra money to have it commercial-free.
When the new DVDs are inserted, the DVD player will automatically check to see what type of disc you are inserting and if it is the commercial-infused version, it " will either play embedded ads on the disc over the course of the movie, or connect to the internet to download new ads to embed in real-time into the film."
If the patent is granted, one of only two situations is possible. Either the consumer will see the movie industry as even greedier than they are and sales will fall. There is the possibility however that the consumers will not mind so much and the movie industry will get added revenue from the ads.
BBC officials are coming to the realization that they've greatly underestimated the income potential from Web based services. BBC Worldwide chief executive John Smith said on Tuesday that until recently the company has been operating under the assumption that they might be able to derive at least 10% of total income from the Web. As it turns out that figure apears to be more than a little pessimistic.
"We think we will be able to beat it. It has gone from one percent to nearly four percent in just 18 months. So already we are starting to see that probably we have under-egged the extent to which we will see more of our revenues coming from the Internet," Smith told a media leaders conference in London.
Smith also indicated that as the broadcaster's commercial arm,BBC Worldwide will be putting an emphasis on purchasing companies in order to shore up weak spots in current Web offerings. "You have got to fill gaps through M&A activity and there are all sorts of gaps for us," he said, noting Channel distribution, magazine portfolios and intellectual property.
Earlier this year, under Smith's leadership, BBC Worldwide purchased travel publisher Lonely Planet for nearly $100 million. Since the purchase they've been hard at work both updating the publisher's web presence and folding it into the BBC website. They hope to leverage the company to provide content for a number of other BBC ventures, including on-demand viewing and social networking.
Microsoft and Autodesk have lost their patent appeal against the company z4 over patents surrounding anti-piracy technologies. The companies will need to pay $160 million USD in total penalties for the infringements.
z4's patents relate to technology that provide a "method for software to be activated once it is installed. The same technology could also be used to deactivate the software in an effort to deter piracy."
z4 sued both companies in 2004 and a federal jury found both companies liable for patent infringement in 2006. Microsoft has to pay $115 million in fines and $25 million for willful patent infringement. Autodesk must pay $18 million.
Microsoft did make it clear however that the decision would not affect XP, Vista, or Office 2003 or 07.
Since the introduction of the stripped down, $399 40 GB model on November 2nd, sales of the Sony PlayStation 3 have tripled. The numbers however, also take into account Black Friday specials such as the one seen at Wal-Mart.
The news comes on the heels of similar news from Japan, where the PS3 outsold the Nintendo Wii for the week for the first time since they were both launched.
In an ironic twist, the Wii's breakthrough success could actually aid the PS3 for the holidays. Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime has been quoted as saying that he spent Black Friday morning searching for Wiis and could not find any available. There were however, PS3s everywhere.
Sony had more good news as well when the data figures came in and sale of their aging PS2 console rose 275 percent as well for the last few weeks of November.
Redbox, the leading DVD rental kiosk operator in the U.S. announced that they now has a presence at more locations than Blockbuster.
Blockbuster operates more than 4,800 stores in the U.S., as well as 10 Blockbuster Express vending machines at Papa John's and Family Dollar locations in Lexington, KY, and an undisclosed number of vending machines in other cities. By comparison, Redbox kiosks have spread to 46 states, thanks largely to their presence outside McDonald's restaurants.
Despite not knowing Blockbuster's exact numbers Redbox spokeswoman Kristin Zanini said "we feel confident that we have surpassed them nationwide." Zanini wouldn't discuss how many rentals the kiosks have in a given month, but did indicate that in the 12 month period starting in June of last year they rented out 11 million movies. Each kiosk carries 500 new release DVDs, including between 100 and 150 different titles at a given time.
“Redbox offers a level of service and convenience that our competitors simply can’t provide,” said Gregg Kaplan, Redbox CEO. “Customers continue to embrace the Redbox service, and our proven technology and production timeline have allowed us to expand rapidly in the competitive home entertainment industry. We expect this growth to continue at a rapid pace through 2007 and beyond, as Redbox expands its leadership position and becomes a household name in communities nationwide.”
A company out of Sydney by the name of 22Moo has unveiled something of interest. They claim they're launching the world's first wireless video glasses with support for DivX and other formats with its built in media player. Their subsidiary company, YelloMosquito has announced the arrival of the Qingbar Gp300, the world's first wireless LCOS (Liquid Crystal on Silicon) display glasses.
This state-of-the-art device combined with LCOS display and media player, allows you to enjoy a big cinema screen experience through a pair of sleek and funky video glasses with hi-fi audio through high quality earphones in one tiny device eliminating the distraction of wires. It is totally hands free, mobile and private. The Qingbar GP300 features a sleek, light weight design with LCOS micro displays, which deliver crisp, vivid-color, QVGA video image simulates the image of a 50" display from a distance of 2M away. You just insert a mini SD card into the slot, and then you can entertain yourself with your favorite movies / videos, MP3 music, JPEG photos, or e-book text.
Japan's HDTV innovations in the 1980's and the 1990's have helped the country to tout the higher number of HDTV viewers in the world. According to research firm, SNL Kagan, the number of HDTV viewers in the world continues to increase at a healthy rate, helped by falling prices for the technology. Its new study, "Global High Definition Television Trends", named Japan as the world leader in HDTV viewsership currently.
Japanese broadcasters offer low-cost HDTV services to consumers, while some offer HDTV content completely free, helping to drive demand. The United States sits in second placer currently but is predicted to overtake Japan by the end of 2008, when the number of HDTV-households in the U.S. jumps from 6 million (currently) to the expected 12 million.
HDTV markets in Canada, France and the United States have become better suited to pay-HDTV content, and in the United States, cable and satellite broadcast services are offering a growing number of HDTV channels to subscribers. SNL Kagan estimates that the HDTV service provider market will turn revenues of $1 billion in 2007 and will grow to $12 billion by 2016.
To follow up on previous coverage of this case, Apple Inc. and Burst.com agreed to settle the patent infringement dispute last week that had been on-going for almost two years. Apple agreed to pay Burst a one-time payment of $10 million cash in exchange for a non-exclusive license to Burst's patent portfolio, not including one issued U.S. patent and 3 pending U.S. patent applications related to new DVR technology.
Burst agreed not to sue Apple for any future infringement of the DVR patent and any patents that might issue from the pending DVR-related applications. The $10 million patent license provides Apple with the right to use Burst's intellectual property in its own technology and products, without further consideration. Burst, however, retains the right to enforce its patent portfolio against others.
Burst continues to seek companies who represent licensing opportunities and intends to diligently pursue those likely to yield suitable returns. The company will not announce specific names of suspected infringing products or companies in advance of negotiating with them or filing litigation to enforce its patent rights.
Looking at the success of social networking sites such as MySpace, the fall update for Microsoft's Xbox Live dashboard will contain a few features that bring you and your friends closer together. Launching on December 4th, the update will soon allow Xbox Live customers to browse the friends list of your friends so you can see who else your friends play, in an effort to gain more playable online friends.
By default, this update will make your friends list available for browsing by default to only your friends, but also will let you custom tailor how you'd like to appear online. If you are 18 or older, you can set your profile to Everyone, which will allow anyone in the community to browse your profile, Friends Only, which if you're 13 or older can allow only your immediate friends to browse your categories, or Blocked, which of course will not allow anyone to browse your friends list.
No word on how the gamers will take this approach. There are some that feel they would like their gaming experiences to remain as private as possible and don't like the idea of anyone and everyone keeping tabs on their video game prowess. It remains to be seen if Microsoft will make a clear indication that the default settings can be altered or even blocked to help keep those people who would like to remain private just that.
In the constant struggle to become the new dominant format in the ongoing battle between Blu-ray and HD-DVD, it appears that the Blu-ray camp just might have scored another point on their side. According to studies in Europe, Blu-ray has broken the 1 million sales mark this year and now accounts for 73 percent of all high definition movie discs sold.
The Blu-ray Disc Association announced Tuesday that they had officially sold their 1 millionth unit in Europe and when that total is combined with total game Blu-ray discs produced for sale in Europe, the total exceeds 21 million units.
According to data provided by Media Control Gfk International, the total percentage of Blu-ray discs sold in Europe amounts to 73 percent, while HD-DVD sales come in at a scant 27 percent overall. To the same token, Home Media Research said that in October Blu-ray titles had outsold rival HD-DVD titles by almost two-to-one in the first nine months of the year in the United States.
Details are sketchy at this point but the BBC, ITV, and Channel 4 are set to launch a new on-demand video service which is expected to bring together hundreds of hours of television in one convenient place.
Currently, all three companies offer their own on-demand service, but this joint venture is set to launch early in 2008 and has yet to be named or approved by BBC Trust. What they plan on launching is all current programs offered by each station as well as archived media. This new service will not impede with the each company's individual on-demand services.
As of launch, all of the three company's programs will be available for free download, Streaming or purchase via the Internet. They are currently looking into ways to bring the media to other outlets and devices. "The new service will contain some of the very best of the UK's content for consumers to view in one place, which will be both easy to use and great fun," said John Smith, the chief executive of BBC Worldwide.
According to a Nintendo spokesperson, the company has lost the battle against unauthorized third-party modification devices for their DS handheld.
"We cannot smash them all", read the spokesperson's quote.
The R4 and M3, just two of the more popular mod devices are microSD readers that fit in the DS's Slot-1 port and allows for the playing of downloaded Roms, as well as music and movies. Both cards retail for the very cheap price of $45 USD and require no drivers.
Unfortunately for Nintendo, these products are technically legal although most if not all are used illegally.
Toshiba and CBS Home Entertainment are running a promotion for the new HD DVD box set for the first season of "Star Trek: The Original Series." The deal, called "A Stunning Offer," allows purchasers of the TV series box set and Toshiba HD DVD player a coupon to get a remote control shaped like a phaser from the popular series.
Besides the promotion with Toshiba, the box set is also somewhat revolutionary in that it's a set of hybrid HD DVDs, which also includes a standard definition (DVD-Video) version of each Title.
“HD DVD is taking ‘The Original Series’ where no ‘Trek’ episode has gone before,” said Louis Masses, Toshiba digital A/V group business development director. “The leading-edge technologies in HD DVD players are taking ‘Star Trek: The Original Series’ to a truly new dimension for fans. Partnering with CBS, we are excited to be bringing this landmark TV series into the homes of fans and to be developing a promotion that appealed specifically to the ‘Trek’ fan.”
Thomson, owner of companies including RCA and Technicolor, is working ot develop a Blu-rayAuthoring environment that allows DVD authors to take advantage of the format's advanced programmabillity without learning Java first. They're calling their authoring product BD-JIVE, which stands for Blu-ray Disc-Java Interpreted Visual Expression.
Unlike HD DVD, which uses a much simple scripting language (ECMA Script) to replace DVD's relatively crude selection of virtual machine (VM) commands, Blu-ray features a version of Java known as BD-Java. While this opens up a nearly unlimited range of potential features for a BD-MV (Blu-ray Movie) disc, it also presents a challenge for authoring houses, which typically aren't staffed with a large number of (or any) Java developers.
Arguably what this software really does is use Java to produce a framework that resemble's ECMA Script, which is essentially an implementation of Javascript. While ECMA Script is more complex than DVD-VM language, the learning curve is certainly not as steep as Java. On the other hand, as authoring tools continue to be written vendors may take advantage of BD-Java to add an arry of features that just aren't possible with any other standalone player format.
Goodmans has launched the GMP34G6, a small MP3 player with video playback capabilities. The model offers 4GB storage capacity, which the company claims is enough to accomodate 1000 MP3 or 2000 WMA tracks and three hours of video playback. It is MP3/WMA/MTV/JPEG compatible and offers a voice recorder (recorded as ADPCM format).
Text documents (.txt extension) can also be stored and viewed on the player's 1.8-inch color screen. The slim, black player also has a microSD Card slot, added to allow users to move music from their phones to the player and vice versa. For video content, video conversion software is included in the package.
The player is available now, priced at £44.99 at Argos.
Toshiba is offering free HD DVD movie titles in the UK to consumers that purchase laptops that are equipped with a HD DVD drive. The company is giving away five free HD DVD titles with purchases of laptops, such as models from the Qosmio and Satellite ranges. The option allows customers to start building a HD DVD collection immediately without having to spend extra cash.
Such promotions have become common in the format war between HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc. The fourth quarter is set to be another show down between the two, with both hoping it will show some new gaps in hardware and disc sales performance that each can tout in press releases we will no doubt all receive in early January before the Consumer Electronics Show (CES).
Toshiba is committed to pushing the HD DVD format with sales of its laptops. On the other side, the Blu-ray camp has the PlayStation 3 (PS3) console equipped with a BD-ROM drive, and given recent price cuts and the introduction of the "40GB model", it appears to be looking forward to great performance this month.
The band My Bloody Valentine is planning to promote their upcoming reunion by releasing new material on the internet, bypassing the use of a music label.
"The plan is that they will release the album themselves via the Internet, but there will also probably be a vinyl release," the band's London-based manager, Vinita Joshi, said. He added that they don't have any plans to use the "pay what you want" model being used by Radiohead to promote their new album.
Although no official numbers have been released for the Radiohead downloads, at least one market analysis firm estimates the revenue has been less than what the band would have made in royalties per CD. Of course that doesn't take into account how many consumers downloading the album would also have purchased it.
"At the moment, all I can say is that Kevin is getting the band back together and they will go into the studio next month to work on the new record," Joshi said, referring to notoriously reclusive singer/guitarist and bandleader Kevin Shields.
According to a new study performed by Gfk NOP, the Apple iPhone is perceived to be too expensive in the UK, and that most will not purchase due to the high price.
The research, a poll of 500 UK citizens suggested that outside of the "Apple cult" fans, the regular consumer will not be buying the device. Actually, according to the survey, a remarkable 72% said they would not be buying the device because of the price.
Brand awareness, as could be expected, was very strong, with 75% saying they've heard of the brand. 30% said the one and only deterrent from buying the device was the price.
"Apple’s history proves that it has the magic touch when it comes to product development and marketing, however the iPhone has yet to Capture the imagination of the UK public. iPhone hype is in full-force, but our data shows that it is very much a considered purchase, with its high price turning many consumers off. We must take into account that the UK mobile market’s success has been down to subsidised handsets, therefore the iPhone’s price really stands out and consumers are not used to paying in excess of £200 for a phone”, Richard Jameson of GfK NOP commented.
Security analysts are warning that a bug in Apple's QuickTime threatens to allow hackers to install malware on computers running Windows XP or Vista or even get a list of passwords from the target computer.
According to Symantec analyst Anthony Roe, the flaw is more easily exploited in Vista than it would be under normal circumstances because Apple developers failed to take advantage of a Vista feature called Address Space Layout Randomization (ASLR). ASLR allows Windows Vista to load binaries (like quicktime) into memory in random locations, making it harder for an attacker to identify a particualar piece of code among all the other data stored in memory.
Another Symantec researcher, Patrick Jungles, added that QuickTime vulnerabilities usually draw attackers quickly. "In the past, we have seen a very short period of time between the release of proof-of-concept exploits for QuickTime vulnerabilities and the development of working exploits by attackers," said Jungles in a note to customers of his company's DeepSight threat network. "Popular applications such as QuickTime are strong candidates for exploitation in the wild."
According to the magazine MCV, Sony has once again squashed the rumors that it will be launching a PSP phone with Sony Ericsson intended for gamers.
A Sony Europe spokesperson is quoted in the magazine as saying the following; “We can categorically state that we are not currently working with Sony Ericsson on any form of PlayStation phone."
“We feel that [SCE co-chief operating officer] Jim Ryan has been misquoted [in saying the idea is 'definitely plausible']."
“We hold constant dialogue with Sony partners – Sony Pictures, the hardware team and Sony Ericsson – but there are no collaborations happening between us on a PSP or PlayStation phone."
"That’s totally untrue – and goes for now and the foreseeable future.”
The rumors have been floating around for months after patents surfaced earlier this year for a "PlayStation themed gaming-enabled mobile phone." Sony Ericsson games boss Peter Ahnegard further fueled the rumors when he stated that consumers would "see a PSP phone before Christmas".
Canon has introduced a new portable DVD recorder dubbed the DW-100, that allows for the easy transfer of camcorder footage direct to DVD without the need for a PC.
The DW-100, available in Asia starting in March 2008 can work with MPEG2 video in standard definition as well as HD content recorded using the AVCHDCodec.
The recorder can also be hooked up to a PC or Mac using a USB connection and used as an external DVD writer.
Creative has begun offering two new, higher capacity models of its tiny Zen Stone PlusMP3 player.
The new models, in 4GB and 8GB,will cost £69.99 and £99.99 respectively.
Although meant to compete with the iPod Shuffle, the new players offer up to eight times the capacity and have built in tiny LCD screens and built-in FM radio, all features the Shuffle lacks.
You can also use the built in microphone to record voice notes as well as record from line-in direct to WMA without a PC.
A slur of recent rumors and "possible" confirmations have spread across the blogosphere and several well-known tech resources claiming that Creative will soon offer a 32GB Zen player to the market. The rumors appear to stem from a mistake on the Creative Singapore site, which displayed information on a 32GB Zen MP3 player for a time.
The site showed a line-up for the flash memory-based player offering storage capacities of 4GB, 8GB, 16GB and a world's first (flash-based) 32GB. Creative was already the first to offer up a 16GB flash-based player, beating the market leader Apple Inc. in a flash capacity race, and now may be looking to take another step ahead of the iPod maker.
Flash-based players can offer better access times, lower power consumption and also lose the mechanical failure risk that has to be taken with constantly-rotating HDD's. However, achieving the same storage capacity of a HDD in a solid state storage system is no easy task, and could be considered the (current) holy grail for many tech companies.
Vizio is continuing to enjoy its growing success in the market for LCD flat-panel televisions. According to a report issued by research firm, iSuppli, Vizio managed to stay just ahead of its main competitor in the United States during the third quarter. The company's 13 percent share of the LCD market just beats Samsung Electronics's share by a mere 0.2 percent, but Samsung's share of the market did show some healthy growth during the third quarter.
The South Korean Electronics giant boosted its share of the U.S. LCD market from 10.8 percent in the second quarter to its current 12.8. It is not as impressive as the growth of Vizio's market share recently but it still puts Samsung in second place, ahead of Sharp and Sony, ranked second and third respectively.
According to analyst Riddhi Patel, Vizio's success in the LCD market stems from low-cost LCD models, a trait that can be evasive when shopping for HDTV-capable displays, and the presence of the models inside Circuit City and other retail stores. The company has also put a lot of effort into marketing its brand to the consumer.
Mere weeks after he was quoted all over the internet as saying Blu-ray could possibly lose the high-def format war and that it is currently at a "stalemate" with HD DVD, Sony CEO Howard Stringer has reaffirmed the company's full commitment to the format.
According to the Hollywood Reporter, Stringer is quoted as saying that Blu-ray has "the momentum and the scale" to beat HD DVD in the long run.
"I think Blu-ray is just a better format," Stringer said. "Our partners are with Blu-ray Disc because, first of all, we have greater security, which Fox is particularly good at. Disney thinks it's a better picture. And the sheer amount of bandwidth on the disc gives directors and beyond all kinds of future opportunity, including director's cuts and who knows what 3-D capabilities will be down the road."
"I think that's why Steven Spielberg held out his own product from going to HD DVD," he added. "Ultimately, if you're passionate about movies, which these DVD collectors are, Blu-ray is the best answer. I think that is true, and we see that in the blogging environment."
A new AT&T-exclusive Samsung mobile phone will be the first to offer the Napster Mobile service on the AT&T network. The SLM phone will be available this holiday season. Users of the phone will be able to browser through the five-million-strong Napster catalog and play previews of the tracks before possibly buying them. A five-track-pack option for $7.49 allows a user to download five tracks per month, or buy individually for $1.99.
AT&T Vice President Carlton Hill said that the SLM, "represents the best collection thus far of our music, multimedia, and messaging services." Besides the support for the Napster Mobile service, the phone is also compatible with XM Radio Mobile, Pandora, and the MusicID song-recognition service. It features a 2.0 megapixel camera with video-capture abilities and download speeds of up to 1,400 Kbps through AT&T's HSDPA network.
It is also the first phone to have AT&T's mobile banking application, a recently announced offering that allows customers of Wachovia and SunTrust Banks to view their bank account balances and manage their funds.
Earlier this month, CyberLink Corp. accepted the prestigious CES Innovations 2008 Design and Engineering Award in the Home Networking product category for CyberLink Live. Available for free on the CyberLink website, CyberLink Live is home server software that allows users to remotely access different types of media files in their home PCs from any web-browsing device.
By placeshifting user's media content from their home servers, users can remotely access live TV shows, music, photos, videos, documents and webcam videos on any web-enabled device outside their homes. It also allows users to share videos and photos to family members without the need to upload files. The newly introduced CyberLink Live Photo Frame Gadget allows users to stream their pictures and music to their Vista Sidebar Gadget, Google Desktop or Yahoo Widget.
"We are honored and excited to be recognized by the CES Innovations Design and Engineering Award," said Alice H. Chang, CEO of CyberLink. "CyberLink Live is our vision of a ubiquitous digital media lifestyle. It lets people be able to access all kinds of digital media anytime, anywhere."
ARC International, based in the UK, announced an optimized MP3 decoder for its ARC Sound Subsystem which operates at an impressively low 7 MHz and dissipates less than 0.46 mW of power in a TSMC 90 G process. The next best competitive product required over 20% more power when performing MP3 decode than the new MP3 decoder. "ARC's ongoing investment in software technologies has allowed us to move aggressively to offer highly optimized media codecs including this latest MP3 decoder," said Derek Meyer, chief operating officer of ARC International.
He added: "This advanced level of software optimization and resulting power reduction is a result of our acquisition of Alarity Corporation: the multimedia company with a reputation for leading edge codec software, firmware, and advanced multimedia technologies. This new MP3 decoder for the ARC Sound Subsystem is an example of their world class expertise."
In a recently published research report, Informa Plc estimated that the number of handsets sold with music capabilities would increase 69 percent from 154 million in 2006 to 260 million in 2007. The London-based firm predicted that by 2012, the music phone segment would grow to more than one billion new unit sales.
RealNetworks is working with Analog Devices (ADI) to provide the latest generation of Personal Media Players featuring full D1 broadcast resolution playback of RealVideo and RealAudio media files. This fall Chinese market leader Aigo introduced two models, the Aigo E898 and F965R, that feature support of RealVideo, RealAudio and the RMVB formats running on a Blackfin processor.
Aigo credits the Blackfin with shortening time to market and reducing the risk in product design, since the inherent programmability of Blackfin allows for rapid development cycles. The combined efficiency of the RealVideo format and the performance of the Blackfin processor deliver a high-quality level of video playback traditionally not found in personal media players.
"RealPlayer is the leading media player in the Chinese market and the RealVideo format is the preferred digital media format. We are excited that the Blackfin embedded processor supports high quality and stable decoding of RealVideo and RMVB media at a full D1 broadcast resolution and 16M colors. We are pleased that Aigo has continued to extend its line of PMP devices to support RealVideo and RMVB files by leveraging the Blackfin processor from ADI,"Martin Schwarz, assistant vice president of format for RealNetworks, commented.
Finnish authorities have targeted the operators of so called "top sites" in Oulu. The Finnish National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) carried out raids which led to the arrests of three individuals and the seizure of computer servers carrying over ten terabytes of pirated software, music and games. The police raids follow a joint cross-industry operation by anti-piracy investigators.
The actions, launched on Friday 16th November, came as a result of criminal complaints that were originally filed by Finland's Copyright Information and Anti-Piracy Centre (CIAPC). Top sites are considered to be the very top of the piracy chain on the Internet by anti-piracy and law enforcement authorities.
"These top sites have been sharing movies, music and computer games as well as software. Each site was also specialized in sharing particular material, such as animation, Finnish movies or the newest videogames."Antti Kotilainen, CIAPC Director, said. "Top sites are the absolute top of internet piracy and their activity enables sharing of millions of illegal files."
"The Business Software Alliance applauds the efforts of the Finnish police for taking this strong and visible action against internet top sites." said John Wolfe, Director of Internet Enforcement at BSA. "Individuals like the ones operating the sites raided last Friday contribute to the staggering losses that Internet piracy causes the software industry."
With the demand for the iPhone soaring worldwide, Apple's business strategy seems to be paying off, yet games guru John Carmack would not approve of the company's mobile gaming strategy. Carmack's id Software and Fountainhead Entertainment recently formed id Mobile to provide superior quality games to the mobile market. Carmack believes that Steve Jobs' strategy in the market may negatively affect the iPod and iPhone's future in gaming.
He pointed out that there are between ten and twenty times the number of mobile phones in use in the world today than computers, and more than 100 times more mobile phones in use than gaming consoles. Carmack believes that mobile gaming could eclipse conventional gaming platforms, but admits it would be no easy task.
"We've certainly been looking at it but Steve Jobs and I have not been seeing really eye to eye on a lot of important issues," Carmack told GameDaily BIZ in an interview. "We were in a fairly heated argument at the last WWDC and we've had a few follow-ups. I have an iPhone right now and it's a platform I would enjoy developing for but Apple is not taking progressive steps in regards to [gaming]. Their strategy seems to be working just fine from a business standpoint, so I'm not going to second guess them and tell them they're being fools or idiots for not focusing on this."
An indie rock band called Arcade Fire has found a unique promotion for their second album. The group has released a video online for the disc's TitleTrack - something many bands do. What makes it unique is that the viewer can use their mouse to control the action in the video. It's the latest development in what's being called reactive video.
"Traditional videos are mostly viewed on YouTube now," says creator Vincent Morisset, who also develops the band's Web sites. "I thought, 'Why spend $200,000 on a production and finish with this tiny pixilated thing? Since it will end up on a computer, let's take advantage of the possibilities that medium offers.'"
"Videos made specifically for the Internet are catching on, because they really get fans engaged," says Londoner Marc Connor, who manages Canadian opera crossover act RyanDan.
A recent RyanDan web video produced in association with interactive multimedia firm Coull features a different type of interactivity. The video for their Like The Sun single featured information and hyperlinks directing viewers to other online resources from a forum to online shopping for band merchandise.
U.S. consumers looking for good deals on an HDTV or Blu-ray player started finding Christmas savings a day early this year. That's because many retailers posted holiday deals on their websites on Thursday, a day before the traditional Black Friday sales "officially" kick of the buying season.
While there have been some experiments in the past that had brick and mortar stores open on Thanksgiving, a day when almost every retailer in the U.S. closes their doors, but those events have never captured enough attention to become annual events.
The big difference in this case is that shoppers didn't have to leave their homes to purchase a 47" Magnavox HDTV for $1,298 from Wal-Mart or a $400 Sony Blu-ray player from Circuit City.
According to the CEO of Walmart.com, Raul Vazquez, the company's Web page has been on the rise leading up to the Christmas season. Vazquez was expecting around 10 million visitors to the site for the Thanksgiving deals.
Sony, Fuji and Maxell have been handed hefty fines by the European Commission for their part in a price-fixing cartel. Specifically, the three companies engaged in price-fixing for videotapes, a crime which has now cost them fines accumulating to €75 million, which is about USD$111 million.
"Between 1999 and 2002, Sony, Fuji and Maxell managed to raise or otherwise control prices through a series of regular meetings and other illicit contacts," the European Union executive said in a statement. "This decision sends two warnings to companies engaging in cartel activities."
The three controlled 85% of the market in the professional videotape formats of the day, Betacam SP and Digital Betacam. Sony received a 30% higher fine than its counterparts combined, about €47 million, for trying to cover up the investigation. Fuji was fined €13.2 million and Maxell must pay up €14.4 million.
Nintendo has announced that its ever-popular Wii console has sold 200,000 units in Australia in just under 50 weeks of release, making it the fastest-selling console in the country's history.
The console sold almost 60,000 units in its first week of sale last December and the console has helped Nintendo of Australia double its sales revenue for the financial year, to AUD 138.8 million.
The Wii continues to sell heavily worldwide, with some countries still having supply issues due to such high demand for the console.
Responding to declining U.K. music sales, the Entertainment Retailers Association - an organization representing music retailers, is blaming digital copy protection for the slow pace at which consumers have embraced downloaded music.
ERA director Kim Bayley told the Financial Times this week that the copy protection mechanisms are "stifling growth and working against the consumer interest." Citing a recent study conducted in the UK which indicated that consumers overwhelmingly prefer music without copy protection mechanisms, Bayley says that DRM "puts consumers off."
According to an article in the Financial Times the music industry counts on fourth quarter sales for 40% of its annual revenue, but so far the slower than usual period leading up to the Christmas buying season have many retailers concerned that sales will be lower than anticipated this year.
Although it's questionable at how much DRM affects online music sales, it's clear that consumers have had an overwhelmingly positive reaction to DRM-free downloads, such as those pioneered by EMI. Maybe now it's time to ask why we have to settle for losslessly encoded files.
JVC Victor, the Japanese division of JVC, has developed a new D-ILA projector that is capable of displaying ultra-high resolutions images. The DLA-SH4K can produce images up to a large resolution of 4096x2400. This size is currently referred to simply as "4K", and is already in use with some special video recording equipment. It is likely it may also eventually replace the current standard of full HDTV, 1080p.
Along with the insanely high resolution of the JVC DLA-SH4K, the projector can also produce an impressive 3,500 lumens of brightness with a 10:000:1 contrast ratio. It sports 4 dual-link DVI-D inputs allowing for simultaneous displays from separate video sources at the same time. It does not have a HDMI input.
However, if you are already contemplating Googling up details on how you can buy one of these projectors when they are released in January, don't even bother unless you are filthy rich. The projector reportedly has a ridiculously high price of 15 million yen ($136,293). It also consumes just below 1.5kW of power.
Iiyama has announced that it is launching a new lineup of touchscreen LCD monitors for desktop PCs.
The lineup will include the ProLite T1530SR, the T1730SR, and the T1930SR, at 15, 17 and 19 inches respectively. All of the monitors connect through either VGA or DVI and support RS-232 and USB for the touchscreen interface.
The ProLites, which are compatible with Windows and Mac systems use a full screen 4:3Aspect ratio and and come in either a black or white bezel.
The smaller model has a slow 16ms response time and a relatively low 1024x768 Resolution but the 17- and 19-inch versions have 5ms response, and a resolution of 1280x1024.
The 15-inch model will sell for £330 ($700 USD), £350 ($750 USD) for the 17-inch model, and £400 ($850 USD) for the 19-inch unit.
For those that are interested, the large internet retailer Amazon has dropped the price on the Samsung BD-P1400 Blu-ray Player to $339.99 USD, making the player the lowest priced Blu-ray standalone ever.
Although, there was no word on how long the price drop will last, but for now at least its good to see any price drop on Blu-ray standalones. Toshiba's recent price drops on the HD-A2 and HD-A3 players have proved that lower prices guarantee greater sales and maybe the Blu-ray camp is taking notice.
As DVD sales continue to fall and Hollywood executives struggle to find new ways to sell more discs, they've started repackaging TV show discs in box sets that contain every episode of a particular series. It's expected that there should be 40 of these mega TV series collections available from retailers.
Although somewhat new in terms of TV show discs, this is hardly a groundbreaking development for DVD. Since DVD sales took off several years ago studios have released version after version of some movies, with multiple versions sometimes only differing in the packaging used.
Buyers for retail outlets aren't sold on these box sets yet. “A problem is that most saw the success of Sex and the City, and studios said, 'We can do that,'”Newbury Comics buyer Ian Leshin said. “That was a cult show that people really wanted to own. This time, it seems there are a lot of releases that are coming out just because they happened to finish the whole series.”
“Last year, we had to make sure we had a bunch of [20th Century Fox Home Entertainment’s] Buffy the Vampire complete sets and a bunch of Sex and the City, but this time, I’m not as worried about shelf space, because we won’t need to carry as many copies,” said Leshin. In fact he says the chain will only be purchasing a single set of each title per store pending actual sales data.
If you were expecting to get one of the new Sony OLED TV sets this holiday season, your chances just got much slimmer. Engadget is reporting that there are only 2,000 Sony XEL-1 TVs available worldwide, with all of them being in Japan.
Sony announced its super slim 3mm set two months ago and since then other HDTV makers have followed suit in promising OLED TVs. Toshiba claims it will have a 30-inch set available commercially, and globally by 2009 and Samsung has recently announced that it will have a 42-inch model on the global market by 2010.
Sony Electronics President Stan Glasgow has said however, that the XEL-1 could possibly make it to North America if not all of the Japanese sets sell. But considering there are only 2000 available in Japan, I'd say the chances are slim to none that America will be seeing the XEL-1 this year.
Earlier this week, Nintendo offered up two new bundles of the Nintendo DS Lite handheld console. The DS Lite is one of the hottest selling gadgets across the world, and is sure to sell out during the holiday season. To entice buyers and keep sales as high as possible, Nintendo is offering a Gold model that comes with The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass and so sports a Triforce logo from the game on the outer lid.
The Metallic Rose model comes with a copy of Nintendogs and so sports a paw on the outer lid. These traits are the only things that separate the models from the normal DS Lite models. The bundles have not come with a new suggested price from Nintendo, but the DS Lite itself sells usually for $130.
So far in 2007, the Nintendo DS has moved millions of units across the world, and NPD U.S. figures showed more than 458,000 were sold there in October alone.
Due to the lax intellectual property restrictions in China, a company called ECNokia is peddling a generic MP4 player that is designed and operates remarkably like Apple Inc.'s third-generation iPod Nano player. The player includes the clickwheel used for navigation with an iPod as well as the same type menu design. It also is designed like the Nano, with the rounded edges.
Under hood of course it does not provide the exact same functionality as an iPod Nano, although it will play MP3, WAV, WMA and MIDI audio. As for video, the device requires video in the ASF format. It also does not have any built-in flash memory, but instead relies on SD cards for storage, supporting up to 2GB.
The display is larger than the Nano screen at 2.4-inches, and interestingly it is a touch-screen-display, making the addition of the clickwheel almost completely irrelevant. It offers a 1.3 megapixel camera, a voice recorder and supports FM radio.
Sony's upcoming "DualShock 3" controller, which brings the rumble technology to the PlayStation 3 (PS3) console, has been approved for use by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in the United States. The PS3's SIXAXIS controller lacked the rumble technology from the beginning, a fact that wasn't welcomed by gamers or game developers.
While the company kept quiet about the reasons in the beginning, it became obvious that it was due to the unsettled dispute with Immersion Corp., which had sued Sony over the DualShock technology. However, when the legal battle between the two companies ended, Sony revealed it would consider changing the SIXAXIS controller to offer rumble.
When rumors of the PS3 rumble controller emerged, Microsoft Corp. sued Immersion for breach of contract for allowing Sony to use the technology. Sony made the official announcement about the controller on September 20th, and a recent firmware update for the PS3 console added support for it.
The model number is CECHZC2U and operates at a clock frequency of 26MHz and 4MHz. It measures in at 93.7 x 157 x 62.3 mm and weighs 193 grams. Sony has not indicated when the controller will become available.
After updating the PlayStation 3 (PS3) console's firmware to v2.0 less than three weeks ago, Sony pushed out another update earlier this week (v2.01). This time, the update attacks stability issues according to the company. Reported crashed and freezing during gameplay has been targeted by the second update to the system's software, and improved stability is offered now when users access the internet or information boards.
The update also improves backwards compatibility with older PlayStation 2 (PS2) titles for the units with emulation support for those games. The newer 40GB model does not support the older game titles. Firmware 2.0 also introduced a feature to remotely start up a PS3 over the internet via a PlayStation Portable (PSP) handheld console.
The update has made changes to this feature after many users reported that it was not reliable.
AfterDawn's sister site Blasteroids.com has added a new feature through which you can enjoy game trailers, videos, and dev diaries easily without downloading numerous media players or large files. The videos are available in Flash format on each of the file details page, e.g. Transformers: The Game HD Intro Trailer.
The viewing only requires a web browser and the latest version of Adobe Flash Player. All the media files are fully viewable without interrupting ads, and for the higher resolution version you can still use the "Download now!" link.
Roughly one thousand files have been converted so if you find any problems, or have other feedback and/or ideas please contact us through Blasteroids feedback form.
Thanks to a ground-breaking industry agreement backed by French President Nicolas Sarkozy, internet users in France that download unauthorized music and movies could find their internet access cut off by the government.
The plan, which Sarkozy will talk about more in depth tomorrow, will be a three strikes you're out policy in which you lose internet access after the third strike. Repeat offenders will receive two warnings before being shut down. ISP's will be forced to give information to the proposed enforcement body on "high volume users", basically users that use large amounts of bandwidth per month.
The proposal has been written up by an independent review led by heads of the entertainment and retail industries. If it goes through, the music and film industries, internet service providers and the government are all likely to sign up.
There is however, a bright side to this deal. In exchange for the clamp down on unauthorized downloading, the French music industry has agreed to remove DRM from archive French material. The film industry also agreed to release DVDs quicker after its cinematic release, reducing the delay from 7½ months to 6 months.
The DVD Forum Steering Committee has finally approved amended specifications for the 51 GB three layer HD DVD disc, meaning the disc, dubbed Version 2.0, can possibly begin to move into production.
It is not completely clear whether the decision officially opens the door for production to begin but those details should be available soon. The new, larger capacity HD DVD should help the format gain even more ground in its war against Blu-ray as the Blu-ray camp has long advocated its superiority due to the ability to generate 50 GB titles.
South Korea's Samsung Electronics will be investing over $2 billion dollars to expand its line of LCD displays next year. This isn't exactly revolutionary as Samsung is the number one LCD manufacturer in the world. More interesting is the fact that the move will be made independently of their current LCD manufacturing partner Sony.
The investment will go toward development of LCD displays between 40 and 50 inches. Over the last several months there has been a noticeable shift among flat panel manufacturers toward concentrating on larger displays, which typically have a higher margin for manufacturers than smaller screens.
Competition between LCD and plasma displays has also reached an all time high. With the inroads made by LCD manufacturers, especially Vizio, plasma technology has seen a lot of high profile innovation intended to maintain enough distinction between it and LCD to stimulate sales.
Also in the last few months Samsung's sales lead has withstood at least a minor threat from upstart manufacturer Vizio. During the second quarter Vizio shipped more flat panel televisions than any other company, including Samsung, however the prevailing wisdom in the electronics industry is that Vizio's meteoric rise wasn't quite as impressive as originally reported. Once retailers established new stock levels for Vizio displays, Samsung regained their place as the number one flat panel TV supplier in the third quarter.
Jeboo, China's largest online cinema, has had a series of lawsuits filed against it by five Hollywood giants, namely Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation, The Walt Disney Company, Paramount Pictures Corporation, Columbia Pictures Corporation, and Universal.
The studios claim that the company "transmitted movies they produced without their permission" and demanded an injunction to stop the transmissions immediately. The studios are also asking for an official apology and 3.2 million yuan ($433,000 USD).
Jeboo, established 3 years ago, has network copyrights for almost 30,000 films and television programs and is the first provider of its kind in China.
Nintendo has recently announced that Japanese DS owners will be soon be recieving a TV tuner attachment dubbed the DS-TV.
The DS-TV will be a cartridge with an attached antenna which will allow owners to watch TV on the go.
After the announcement last week, the company began taking pre-orders for the device and the Japanese site actually crashed due to the intense inbound traffic from would-be buyers.
The device carries a 6,800 yen (approximately $63 USD) price tag and an estimated battery life of 3 to 5 hours depending on how bright you keep your DS screen.
When asked whether the DS-TV could work in foreign companies, Nintendo made it clear that they had no plans to launch it anywhere outside Japan and that the cartridge would not work on European or North American DS's.
Starting next year it may be possible for cable internet providers to offer speeds as high as 100Mbps in some areas thanks to new cable modem technology. CableLabs is currently testing modems from five manufacturers that are intended to meet the DOCSIS 3.0 specifications.
Data Over Cable Service Interface Specifications, or DOCSIS, is an ever evolving set of standards developed by a number of cable modem manufacturers, as well as certification authority CableLabs. Although DOCSIS 2.0 has been around since 2001, most cable internet providers haven't gotten past adopting v1.1. The primary difference between the two is a higher upload capacity for DOCSIS 2.0. Since most cable companies only offer plans with relatively low upload speeds - as little as 10% of download speed in some cases, the only time this becomes an issue currently is when VOIP capabilities are added.
Certainly Bandwidth limitations are becoming a problem for broadband internet providers, who increasingly see customers looking to use the Internet for Streaming and downloading video, sometimes in high definition, and often during peak internet usage hours. At the same time companies like Verizon and AT&T are building data networks from the ground up which offer some consumers speeds slightly higher than what the DOCSIS 1.1 or 2.0 standards allow. DOCSIS 3.0 allows for much higher speeds, as well as IPv6 network management support.
Of course speed doesn't exist in a vacuum. Accordig to Gartner analyst Patti Reali "Cable's got to be ready with a [comparable] product that's not going to break the bank."
The very popular torrent site Mininova has posted that they have hit a new milestone, 1 million uploaded torrents, just weeks after announcing they had surpassed the 3 billion torrent download mark.
An anonymous user uploaded the torrent yesterday but it unfortunately has no seeds, not even the original uploader.
The number is very large considering that Mininova only allows user uploads and does not scrape torrents from other sites. The site hit 500,000 uploads in early November 2006, meaning that the growth of downloading is much larger than that of uploading.
On a side note, according to Alexa ratings, Mininova has become one of the top 70 most visited websites on the whole internet.
According to Home Media Magazine, Warner Home Video President Ron Sanders has made a statement that his company's ambitious Total HD project would most likely be scrapped for good. He did not however, completely shut the door on the idea.
Total HD was supposed to be premiered at CES 2007 but production delays and executive decisions on the format have so far killed the project. In June, the company said that consumers should expect to see Total HD in "early 2008" getting many to assume that it would be premiered at CES 2008.
The new comments seem to throw that out the window however. "Total HD only makes sense for studios supporting both formats, and since Paramount went the other way and retail didn't push the issue, one studio isn't enough for us to pull the trigger," said Sanders to the magazine, so for now, "it’s on hold.”
Only a month after they began offering a symmetrical 20 Mpbs download and upload speed option for their FiOS internet service, Verizon has announced that for double the price of the current service, users can get download speeds of maximum 50 Mbps along with 20 Mbps uploads.
Although just the thought of those speeds must excite file sharers, the prices may not. The fastest option will cost you $139.95 USD per month while the slower connection will run you $69.99 USD per month.
FiOS is currently available in only 16 states and so far the fastest option is only confirmed in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut.
According to head of online marketing for Sony Europe Darren Cairns, the new PlayStation Store for PC will not kill of the Sony-created Universal Media Disc (UMD) format.
"The UMD business is still good for us and our publishers. It's still a burgeoning market, and we're still selling a large number of PSPs on a weekly basis, so there are a large number of new people coming into the market."
By using the PC store and cutting out production and retail costs, Sony has the potential to offer their game titles at a lower price, but it does not seem the company has any plans for that anytime soon.
"I don't think that this would give us any cause for concern over UMD, I think they sit very well together. When you talk about the more casual games, pick-up-and-play games, you would definitely want to put them through the Store rather than have disc production, in to retail, and so on," Cairns added.
When asked if the Store could possibly begin offering video and music tracks for download, Cairns argued that the focus was on games not on general entertainment media.
"The PC Store is very much targeted at getting lots of really good game content at the start for the millions of PSP users that we've got. Longer term, the PlayStation Store is predominantly for game content for day one and we're working on the plans to build that out after.
Electronics superstore chain Circuit City is hoping to convince some of the workers they fired earlier this year because they were "overpaid" to return to work at locations around the country. Letters were sent to many of these former employees to fill positions opened by normal employee turnover and new store openings.
In March of this year Circuit City made the move to get rid of 3,400 employees. They determined that these employees were paid too well for their positions and could be replaced with lower paid personnel. The workers were given no advance notice of the decision, although they did receive a severance package. At that time analysts were sceptical of the move's merit. "It's definitely going to have some cost-savings, but I think the bigger impact could be seen in weaker, poor service," said Timothy Allen, an analyst with Jefferies & Co."I have a feeling the people they're letting go have probably been there longer, have more experience, more product knowledge."
As the number two U.S. electronics retailer, Circuit City has struggled to keep costs down to remain competitive and profitable at the same time. The firings were intended to cut costs within the company by $100 million this year, and $140 million annually starting next year. So far company executives haven't commented on the letters, which were first reported by the Wall Street Journal.
Users of fourteen month old video service BrightSpot.TV have been informed that the service is shutting down. The site, run by BrightSpot Media, asked users to watch commercials in exchange for credit towards various subscription services.
The following notice replaced the service's normal website:
BrightSpot Media CEO Aaron Martens blames advertisers who aren't interested in adopting new business models for the Internet age for the service's failure. In an email he said "Advertisers have been relatively slow to adopt new models when it's so clear they absolutely need to change their thinking."
BrightSpot Media's backers include Phoenix Suns president Jerry Colangelo and Chicago Bulls and White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf, and has been advised in the past by McDonald's Chief Marketing Officer Paul Schrage. Former advertisers include Ford Motor Company and McDonald's.
According to sources within the company, BrightSpot Media is nearly out of money and hasn't been able to line up any additional venture capital. They're reportedly hoping to license their technology to a third party instead of relaunching the service themselves. However one has to wonder whether the problem is that advertisers aren't interested in the technology, or whether it's consumers who don't consider the payoff to be worth the time invested watching ads.
MPAA Washington general Counsel Fritz Attaway doesn't see anything wrong with a proposed law that would require universities to provide students with some kind of alternative to illegal P2P downloads in order to reduce piracy on college campuses. While university officials and consumer rights groups have been critical of the bill's wording, proponents say that if universities are unable or unwilling to implement such a plan there would be no repercussions under the law.
While participating in a panel on Monday organized by the Federal Communications Bar Association Attaway said "When the government is subsidizing universities...and it discovers that those universities are spending a lot of taxpayers' money to build digital networks that are being used primarily to allow college students to traffic in infringing content, I think it's perfectly legitimate for Congress to say, wait a minute, if we're giving you money, we don't want it to be used to help college kids infringe copyright."
Another panel member, Gigi Sohn, president of the digital-rights advocacy group Public Knowledge disagreed, asking "Why do you put things in bills that you don't want to enforce at some point?." She added "Even if I agree, and I don't, that it's toothless, I don't want that language in there for some other Congress to give it some teeth."
Calling P2P users "freeloaders" he urged internet service providers to charge commercial rates to users Seeding or relaying P2P traffic. He said "The last thing I want slowing my internet service down are P2P freeloaders. Thats right, P2P content distributors are nothing more than freeloaders. The only person/organization that benefits from P2P usage are those that are trying to distribute content and want to distribute it on someone else's Bandwidth dime."
The outspoken billionaire arguably has an interest in freeing up bandwidth currently being used for P2P traffic. His 2929 Entertainment venture is working to implement a distribution plan that includes simultaneously releasing movies theatrically at the same time they're available in home video formats. No doubt he'd benefit from reduced P2P traffic as it would free up bandwidth that could be used to deliver quality hi-def content. However, rival content providers are testing P2P technology, most notably BitTorrent, for their own content delivery. Even the music industry is looking at the potential of a P2P distribution model. No doubt they're less than thrilled with his proposal.
A letter from Washington D.C. based lobbying organization the Copyright Alliance to 17 Democratic and Republican U.S. Presidential candidates asks them to support "meaningful copyright protection." The letter, sent on Tuesday, also includes a short questionnaire that the lobbyists ask each candidate to fill out and return to them.
As you would expect from a group that lobbies on behalf of both RIAA and MPAA members, as well as major software and related companies such as Microsoft and the Business Software Alliance, the Copyright Alliance wants candidates to place greater emphasis on copyright enforcement both domestically and abroad. One question asks "How would you protect the incentive to create by committing sufficient resources to support effective civil and criminal enforcement of copyright laws domestically and internationally?"
Another question posed by the group is "How would you promote the progress of science and creativity, as enumerated in the U.S. Constitution, by upholding and strengthening copyright law and preventing its diminishment?" As it happens this is one of the areas where consumer groups and copyright holders often disagree. Extensions to copyright terms, including those from the Copyright Term Extension Act enacted nearly a decade ago, have sparked criticism that they have the opposite effect the framers of the U.S. Constitution intended when they gave Congress the responsibility "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for Limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries." This passage, commonly known as the Copyright Clause, is the legal basis for all U.S. intellectual property law, including the rules for copyrights and patents.
In a move that stems from a recent German court challenge by rival Vodafone, T-Mobile will begin offering the Apple iPhone to German customers without the need to sign an exclusive contract with the company. Much like O2 in the UK and AT&T in the US, T-Mobile had inked an exclusive deal with Apple to provide service for the iPhone. Vodafone went to court to challenge the competition clause in this an in light of it, T-Mobile has decided to take preemptive measures.
T-Mobile will now sell the iPhone to any consumer that wishes to own one with no contract for a stifling 999 euros ($1,477, £719). This is obviously in effort make up costs they would have been guaranteed if the customer would sign the required contract. With a two year contract, consumers would only have to pay 399 euros.
T-Mobile stated that it will do whatever it can to assist consumers "until the legal situation is resolved". Such actions include unlocking the SIM card within the phone. This would allow consumers to use any network they wish. They also stated they are willing to do this for consumers who have already purchased the phone.
Now fans who have been holding off on buying Sony's PS3 can still garner some of the benefits of the device by downloading content directly from the newly launched Playstation Store. This web based store currently features a few PSP titles available for download and some classic PSX titles as well. On the website as of this posting, Wipeout Pure is available for download at a curiously low file size of 156Mb for $14.99 along with an even smaller 67Mb Syphon Filter:Combat Ops multi-player shooter for $9.99.
The PSX games available seem to be of the classic variety. Several titles from the system's early years appear on the download list. Several demos are also available for your downloading pleasure.
Sony does require Firmware 3.70 or greater to utilize this feature and also requires you use their PSP Network Downloader to put the systems on your memory card. What this will do to the Homebrew scene is still unknown.
The RIAA's power to issue subpoenas identifying college students in file sharing cases may have been dealt a major setback when a Federal judge ruled that the Cable Communications Policy Act (CCPA), which RIAA lawyers rely on to subpoena network user identities, doesn't apply to universities.
Now Judge Kollar-Kotelly in Washington D.C. has ordered RIAA lawyers to explain why subpoenas gotten under the authority of the CCPA shouldn't be thrown out. The order comes after one of the George Washington University students the RIAA is suing filed a motion arguing that there is no law that authorizes the type of subpoenas used by the RIAA.
While the judge who made the original ruling suggested that the DMCA might be another option for suits against students, but since the universities don't qualify as content providers for purposes of DMCA takedown requests, they don't carry any legal liability under that law, and can't be issued takedown requests for P2P traffic moving through their networks.
Mark Waldrep, Ph.D. is the man behind the first and only all HD audio label AIX Records has announced he is launching a new site, iTrax.com. The site is being touted as the world’s first digital music download service to offer REAL HD Audio in multiple mixing perspectives.
According to Waldrep, "iTrax.com is a sort of an iTunes for people that care about sound quality, surround music and don’t want to be restricted in the use of the music they download. This new web site allows music lovers, home theater owners and surround music fans to access music that has actually been recorded, mixed and mastered in high-definition – most 'so-called' HD Audio downloads are really standard definition tracks delivered through the web. iTrax.com delivers better than CD quality digital downloads for the first time, without copying restrictions…and in 5.1 surround."
Each Track on the site is offered in a variety of formats and include up to three different mixes. Consumers will be able to choose from MP3, Dolby Digital, DTS, WMA Pro, WMA Lossless and even uncompressed PCM at 96 kHz/24-bits. They can also select what sort of mix they want, an exclusive feature of the new site. iTrax offers 2.0 stereo, 5.1 “stage” and 5.1 “audience” perspective mixes, making it the first and only download service to provide users real choice.
Yesterday the BBC Trust announced plans for a high definition Channel to be available on the Sky satellite service. Despite calls from some for the BBC to broadcast 4 hours of Freeview hi-def content per day, the governing body decided against that course because it would require equipment that would likely be obsolete after the official Freeview HDTV standard is complete.
Diane Coyle, BBC Trustee and Chair of the Public Value Test Steering Group said "The Trust is pleased to approve the new HD television channel on all platforms. After considering all the evidence we are satisfied that the public value generated is sufficiently high and there is unlikely to be a negative impact on the market.
"High Definition will eventually become a significant broadcasting standard and, as with all BBC services for which everyone pays, it is essential that this is universally available as soon as possible. This means the Trust will consider in spring 2008 the timing of the launch on Freeview, when there should be greater clarity on HD broadcast standards and the spectrum capacity available for the channel."
In a recent investigation put on by the Federal Communications Commission, they've found that an old statute set in 1984 which regulated the business model of cable companies in the US has just about reached fruition. This statute claimed that should cable companies which provide more than 36 channels is available to 70% of American households and reach a 70% penetration rate, the FCC would re-evaluate the business model to keep competition among cable companies fair. A new meeting which will take place on November 27th will discuss forcing cable companies to change to a more "a la carte" business model in which subscribers are offered a pay-per-channel lineup as opposed to bundled packages.
This proposal doesn't sit well with religious group, The Faith and Family Broadcasting Coalition. The group claims that this type of business model will "have a devastating effect on religious broadcasters and their mission to share the saving love of Christ to all nations."
"Though its proponents may be well-intentioned, the fact is a la carte would threaten the very existence of religious broadcasting and the myriad of social and public service ministries it supports by reducing its distribution in the marketplace," according to Colby May, of the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ), which represents the Faith & Family Broadcasting Coalition.
Despite reports that the 747 page College Opportunity and Affordability Act of 2007 includes provisions that would force universities to provide alternative methods to P2P for downloading music, and claims from officials representing a variety of schools, apparently no such provision exists.
It's true that the bill does have language asking universities to "develop a plan for offering alternatives to illegal downloading or peer-to-peer distribution of intellectual property as well as a plan to explore technology-based deterrents to prevent such illegal activity." However, no tests for compliance or penalties for failure to develop such a plan is included, and it does only suggest they do this "to the extent practicable."
If university officials are overreacting, it's certainly understandable why they would assume the worst of the bill. Just this year an amendment was added to a financial aid bill that would have created a list of the campuses deemed the worst copyright "offenders." It was later withdrawn, but only after a very public outcry from educators.
Still, the attention generated over this bill may help ensure that the sort of measures educators are already worried about don't get added at the last minute. Even if the situation isn't as dire as critics claim, one thing politicians have shown is a willingness to quietly add copyright enforcement clauses into education related legislation. It can't hurt to keep paying attention.
Retailer Hastings Entertainment is reporting a third quarter profit for the first time since becoming a publicly traded company nearly a decade ago in 1998.
Like many retailers, Hastings' third quarter revenue was boosted by the release of Halo 3 for the Xbox 360. This also spurred increased sales of the Xbox 360 console.
Another good sign for the company was an increase in DVD revenue, with sales of both new and used titles improving. At the same time rentals took a hit, which Hastings executives blame partially on the titles being released and partially on consumer preferences shifting away from rental in favor of purchasing DVDs.
Not surprisingly, music revenue was down due to declining CD sales.
“For the first time in Hastings’ history as a public company, we earned a profit in the third quarter,”Hastings CEO John Marmaduke said. “In what continues to be a challenging retail environment in music and rental, we were able to improve pre-tax profits by $3.7 million from the third quarter of last year. Our merchandising and buying teams have produced greater margin rates in new and used products for the third consecutive quarter. We will continue our focus on margin and inventory management. This, coupled with a continued focus on cost controls, has positioned us for continued revenue and income growth in the fourth quarter.”
Under a licensing deal announced Today, Yahoo will be allowed to enable users of their services to include recordings owned by Sony BMG Music Entertainment in their own original content. In exchange, Sony BMG will be receiving a cut of ad revenue from the clips.
With the success of viral video sites like YouTube and social networking portals like MySpace and Facebook, content owners are scrambling to find ways they can collect royalties for user generated content. There are two basic approaches in play right now. Some current deals are similar to this one, with content owners taking a relatively hands-off approach to exactly what content will be provided to consumers. Others involve content owners licensing limited media clips which consumers can use for free, and then offering extra services like sending them to someone's mobile phone, for a small fee.
Perhaps due to the many markets Sony competes in, they haven't been very successful at leveraging their content for internet distribution. Even the PS3, which the company has always seen as a home entertainment platform, lags behind competition from Microsoft. While Xbox Live has been able to both sell and rent content to a growing number of console owners, Sony so far hasn't managed to leverage the vast amount of content they own to create a revenue stream for console customers.
Ending December 14th, Microsoft has started an Xbox Live Arcade based promotion in which new UK customers receive 10 free Xbox Live arcade titles.
Some of the notable hits included in the offer include Sonic the Hedgehog, Every Extended Extra Extreme, Street Fighter II Hyper Fighting and Zuma Deluxe.
"Going into this holiday period with one of the greatest line ups in video game history is certainly a compelling reason for a friend to jump into the world of Xbox 360," added Stephen McGill, head of gaming and entertainment for Microsoft UK.
"However, this incredible offer also enforces the fact we've got an exceptional online service in Xbox Live, which truly does bring everyone together."
Cryptography Research, Inc. has agreed in principle to sell the BD+ copy protection to Macrovision for $45 million USD in cash and stock.
Macrovision, for the money, is getting all of CRI's BD+ patents, its ciphers, as well as its customer partnerships. That being said, CRI is getting out of the Blu-ray encryption business for good and passing it on to a company that cares more about it.
To date, Macrovision has contributed to the protection schemes ACP for DVD and AACS. In 2004, the company tried to buy its way into a different area of the digital content protection realm by purchasing InstallShield.
Starting next week, the giant retailer Wal-Mart will be starting a PlayStation 3 and Blu-ray "Special Sale" that should rival the recent secret sale of the Toshiba HD-A2 HD DVD player.
Beginning on the 24th at 8 am and ending at midnight, the retailer will be giving 10 free Blu-ray titles to any purchaser of the $499 USD 80GB model of the Sony PlayStation 3. This promotion is stackable on the Blu-ray "five free" promotion meaning any customer will walk away with 15 free movies with their purchase.
The only catch is that the 10 movies you get to pick at the store must be under $30 USD to qualify for the promotion. Here is to hoping Wal-Mart doesn't mark up their entire Blu-ray collection to $30.01 USD.
Release your inner AVI. Break free from the chains of the OGMContainer and do it all with free software.
Often times a lot of guides focus on going for the end product of DVD, yet never really focus on simply converting one format to another. OGM had made some strides within the video Streaming community for its ability to have multiple audio files and a subtitle file located in one easy to use video container. However, there has been some trepidation over whether people actually like the container as a viable format for viewing and converting movie files. Some people love the OGM container while others despise it like the Black Plague. This guide will take your OGM file, release the desired audio Track and subtitle file and convert the whole thing to an AVI with no loss in audio or video.
To see for yourself, you can access the new guide here or click on over to our Guides section and check out any number of our great guides.
The Free Software Foundation (FSF) has created an expert witness fund to help the targets of RIAA lawsuits defend themselves. While the RIAA's filings include expert witness testimony, their witnesses haven't held up well to scrutiny.
If defense lawyers can effectively cast doubt on the plaintiffs' experts' claims, presumably access to experts of their own would be even more helpful in many cases. The FSF is asking for donations for the fund to "provide computer expert witnesses to combat RIAA's ongoing lawsuits, and to defend against the RIAA's attempt to redefine copyright law."
The guidelines to receive money from the fund take three primary factors into account:
The importance of the case to critical legal issues. The demonstrated commitment of the defendant, and/or of the defendant's attorney if the defendant has an attorney, to seeing his or her case through to conclusion, and to fighting for important legal issues. The facts and circumstances of the particular case.
The level of investment made by the defendant, and/or by the defendant's attorney if the defendant has an attorney, in time, money, and labor, in defending the case. The legal posture of the case. The need for assistance. The need for technical expertise in the case.
The quality and commitment of technical expertise which may have been contributed to the case. The competing needs of other cases.
"It's a way the tech community can help these RIAA victims," said New York Lawyer Ray Beckerman. Beckerman, who operates the blog Recording Industry vs The People, will help decide who will receive money.
Warner Bros. Intl. Television Distribution is trying to create an entire network of on-demand channels, ranging from cable and satellite to broadband delivery. The channels will all be marketed under the new brand of Warner TV.
Warner TV channels will give viewers access to a selection of movies and TV shows, but unlike standard cable television on-demand services the selection will change regularly throughout the day. Another apparent benefit over traditional programming is the flexibility to customize each Channel to user preferences.
"It's a brand new revenue stream," said Jeff Schlesinger, president of Warner Bros. International TV. "The costs here are much lower than creating a linear channel. You don't have as much on-air promotion that you have to do. You don't have as much scheduling or advertising sales infrastructure. You don't have to worry about commercial insertion."
"We're not looking to undermine our broadcasters in any way, and frankly, if you don't have your shows on the big channels, no one will be interested in finding them in an on-demand zone," Schlesinger said. "For TV product and features, this is all a secondary window. It's complementary."
TitleMatch Entertainment Group, an on-demand DVD manufacturing company will be testing a service that delivers DVDs along with grocery deliveries.
"The customer orders their groceries and a movie online. The movie is burned and shipped with the grocery order within 24 hours," said Mary Litchhult, VP of business development for TitleMatch. The service is slated to enter testing in the Chicago area near the beginning of next year.
Litchhult also indicated that TitleMatch is working with a major retailer to put DVD burning kiosks in 200 stores, but she wasn't able to name their partner. She did say that the kiosks will be able to offer up to 1,000 movies.
Carl Icahn, the major Blockbuster Video investor who led the charge to get rid of former CEO John Antioco and replace him with current head James Keyes, increased his ownership in the top U.S. brick and mortar video rental chain by 1.7 million shares. He paid $6.2 million for the shares. Even before the purchase Icahn was Blockbuster's largest single shareholder.
Over the last several years Blockbuster has struggled to establish a new identity to allow them to compete with online rental service Netflix. Antioco was responsible for returning Blockbuster to profitibility while apparently competing with Netflix for their customer base for the first time ever. However Netflix has made repeated moves to stay competitive, and Keyes was brought in to refocus Blockbuster on its core business of brick and mortar stores. Despite being number 2 in online rentals, they're dominance in traditional rentals is as strong as ever.
Perhaps Icahn's increased interest in the company is related to Keyes' recent statements regarding future plans. According to Keyes there will be kiosks of some kind in the near future, which could eventually include capabilities for downloading content to mobile devices. Blockbuster also purchased failing online movie service Movielink this year, which they're expected to retool to work with their services at some point in the not to distant future.
According to a special report from Adweek Media, businesses are finally starting to analyze viewer reactions to ads that play prior to Streaming video. With ad support looking like the model of the moment at least, major corporations are trying to ensure they make the most of their opportunities to reach consumers.
Arguably the most critical question being analyzed is how long is too long? Not surprisingly, the answer boils down to "it depends." The first thing that seems to matter is the actual content. If viewers find an ad entertaining they're apparently willing to watch more of it before their video clip. Unlike television ads which are typically 30 or 60 seconds long, pre-rolls - the industry name for video ads that "roll" or play prior to streaming video - are 15 or 30 seconds long. One thing that was clear from their study was an unwillingness to watch longer pre-rolls before video clips that are only a few minutes long themselves.
The second major question, and one that really defines the nature of pre-rolls, is whether it's best to develop original content for the Web or simply recycle television advertising campaigns. The answer here seems a little more predictable. While some ads from television work just as well on the internet, there are some fundamental differences between web and TV interfaces that can reduce the effectiveness of an ad, or even make a good TV ad just plain annoying. A computer monitor is typically smaller, but closer to the viewer. Arguably the viewer is also paying more attention to a pre-roll than a TV spot since it's almost part of the video rather than a break between program segments.
Sony seems to has made a habit out of slashing its prices. Earlier this season, Sony brought out the 40Gb PS3 which brought a much needed surge in sales for the struggling console. Now, Sony wishes to lure more third party game developers into their midst by slashing the price of their development kits in half.
Although the predecessor of the PS3 was a dominant force in the console gaming market, its no secret that the PS3 has had a hard time moving units. It wasn't until it slashed the prices on its console that it saw successful sales numbers. In fact, in the week beginning November 5, Sony actually outsold this generation's juggernaut, the Nintendo Wii by some 20,000 units.
With lowering the price of the developer's kit for the PS3, Sony now hopes to expand on its library of games by hoping third-party developers will have an easier time making quality titles for their flagship console.
Adding another company to the list of people who wish to topple the success of Apple, Pioneer will soon launch a subscription based television service similar to iTunes dubbed SyncTV. For a monthly fee, subscribers will be able to download as many television shows as they desire for personal consumption.
The product will soon be rolling out for beta testing, but expect it to have a monthly fee in the range of $2 (£1/€1.50) and $4 (£2/€3) per month per television Channel. So subscribing to BBC1, BBC2 and BBC3 for instance could net you anywhere from 3 to 6 quid, if you live in that part of the world. The product is in testing right now and will begin its closed beta testing in January.
SyncTV president John Gildred stated that the service will deliver home theater quality television episodes with picture as good as DVD and possibly high definition.
Currently the format is an open one and doesn't have a particular piece of hardware in mind, like Apple's iPod, but Pioneer is currently attempting to court several hardware manufacturers to develop a device specifically for this service. Devices are expected to begin appearing sometime in 2008.
The infamous Dutch anti-piracy group BREIN has now gotten the web host LeaseWeb to take down several more torrent trackers, and this time the names are very recognizable.
The ISP has said it is determined to fight BREIN in court but for now they have no other option than to take the sites down when they are ordered to do so.
Working off their successful court case against LeaseWeb in an Amsterdam court where the ISP was forced to shut down everlasting.nu and hand over the owner's personal details, BREIN seems intent on taking down every torrent site hosted by Leaseweb.
In an email written by Leasweb to one of the sites, the host says this, “In a recent case at the Amsterdam District Court, LeaseWeb was ordered to take down such sites. Although LeaseWeb has filed an appeal and will keep fighting for its client’s rights up to the highest court, LeaseWeb regrettably has no choice but to obey the court order and take down sites that list (bittorrent/edonkey) files.”
For those interested in what sites are hosted by LeaseWeb, here is a list, with some very noticeable names. btjunkie.org, seedpeer.com, torrentleech.org, mybittorrent.com, btmon.com, sumotorrent.com, what.CD, waffles.fm, hdbits.org, bitenova.nl, torrentportal.com, monova.org, not to mention dozens more smaller sites.
LG Electronics is to take a step in the right direction when it launches a 52-inch LCD HDTV set with built in support for a home wireless network. The new TV will be shown at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas in January 2008. It will be the world's first TV set to offer full high definition (HD) 1080p video support while also incorporating an 802.11 link.
This TV (52LG71) will enable consumers to stream HD material over a home wireless network without the need for media extenders or some separate media hub. The company revealed no specs on the TV so far, except that it would support 120Hz refresh rate and other technologies that "represent the best of LG's technology".
We will have to wait until CES to see what else this TV set will be capable of.
An analyst with Pacific Crest Securities claims that Nintendo already has a new enhanced version of its DS handheld device manufactured and is keeping it aside until it needs a boost in sales. Researcher Evan Wilson told Gamespot about contracts the gaming company has signed which hint that it is going to move its design away from the cartridge slot to built-in flash memory.
The device also apparently would be thinner and would sport larger dual-screens. Right now, the DS Lite is one of the hottest selling gadgets there is, so there is no need for any major revamp. When sales start to slow down, Nintendo would see it as an opportunity for such a newer system to provide a needed boost.
Nintendo neither confirmed nor denied the analyst's predictions. A spokesman for Nintendo said the report consists of "rumors and speculation" and declined to comment further.
In January 2008, EchoStar plans to make big Sling announcements in Las Vegas at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES). The company only agreed to buy SlingMedia a matter of weeks ago but last week in New York, EchoStar showed Sling's gear at its booths at both a pre-CES product expo and a press event in Pepcom's "Digital Experience" series. The deal between EchoStar and SlingMedia is worth $380 million.
EchoStar's plans for CES include the announcement of Sling Mobility Package, a bundle that will bring together an EchoStar HD-DVR receiver and Slingbox SOLO. Both are HDTV capable devices. The company may also use CES as a launch pad for Wi-Fi-enabled edition of the EchoStar Pocket Disk media player.
EchoStar Pocket Disk media player provides handheld access to video content. "It's possible that the bundle might include the WiFi Pocket Disk player, too, but that hasn't been decided yet,"Francie Bauer, EchoStar's corporate communications manager, told BetaNews.
Microsoft's J Allard was recently speaking about Apple Inc.'s first mobile phone offered on the market, the iPhone, and had both criticism and praise for the gadget. As Microsoft prepares to compete more effectively with its own software, Allard argues that it's Apple's attention to the design of the cellphone as a whole rather than its connection to the iPod that is pushing sales.
"It's a lousy iPod," Allard explains. "You can’t skip a track without looking at it. You can't go running with the thing." In the same interview however, Allard described the phone as both "beautiful" and "simple" compared to most other phones. It also benefits Windows Mobile as it will make carriers give more control to the manufacturers over the final output rather than limiting hardware and software.
As a response to the iPhone, Microsoft will add Zune features to the Windows Mobile OS, but a Zune phone is apparently unlikely. "If we can put the customer first, we prefer to do it with partners. We didn't create the Zune because we were dying to get into the hardware business and take inventory risk. We felt we had to do it," he says. "Windows was incredible. We got to create most of the magic and take none of the financial risk. History isn’t going to repeat that with consumer goods."
Caroline Grondin, spokesman for the Industry Canada ministry made music and movie executives happy when she announced that Canada should soon have new legislation in place to dramatically reduce the amount of internet piracy in the country. Even aside from Canadian entertainment figures, the country has been getting a lot of pressure from other countries to make substantial changes to copyright law in order to protect content owners' rights.
"Canada's Copyright Act needs to be reformed to respond to the challenges of the digital age," she said. "New protections proposed for the benefit of rights holders will seek to address online infringement as well as create a legal framework that encourages the rollout, by rights holders, of new business models."
Graham Henderson, president of labels body the Canadian Recording Industry Assn. (CRIA), said the legislation will demonstrate the country's commitment to protecting its songwriters and musicians.
"Is it going to replace our lost revenue every year? Of course not," Henderson said. "But it is a start. Right now, our big problem is that digital sales aren't replacing lost physical sales. A new Copyright Act would help foster new digital business models that haven't appeared in Canada because of piracy."
On Friday NBC announced that Quarterlife, a show that originated on MySpace, will be moving to broadcast television next year. It will be the first time a show has made the move from the internet to television.
Although this may be an experiment in adapting talent from the web to traditional media outlets, it's not exactly an amateur production. The show's creators already have many years of experience between them, as well as Emmy awards. However, that doesn't mean it's a Hollywood project. Marshall Herskovitz and Ed Zwick have invested a great deal of money and time into making it successful.
"If there were more people with the (courage) of Marshall who are willing to bet on their own creative vision and finance themselves, then the (business) model becomes something they define," said Ben Silverman, co-chairman of NBC Entertainment.
Interestingly, it seems that the show's producers may have seen this coming. Although the show is written as a series of 8 minute webisodes, they're constructed with the intention that several could be combined into a single hour long (standard television) episode.
According to anonymous industry sources it seems Samsung looks to be turning to smaller sized plasma TVs in the face of "persistent" LCD panel shortages.
Earlier this year LG made a similar move and created the 32-inch 32PC5RV PDP. Plasma displays are generally over 37 inches.
However, the company will not launch any 32-inch PDP TVs in the near term due to capacity constraints. Sources say the PDP capacity is still tight due to increased demand from Philips and Chinese customers.
Blockbuster CEO James Keyes is hoping to bring profit back to the company he took over earlier this year by returning to a strategy focusing on their brick and mortar stores.
While this isn't exactly a reveletion given the heavy losses incurred while trying to compete with online DVD rental leader Netflix, Keyes isn't really trying to move the company in a different direction so much as to a different path that leads to the same place.
"This is an industry in transition and a company that hasn't been able to keep up with that change," said Keyes, named CEO in July. "But Blockbuster is one of the best-known brands in the world. We've just got to find ways to use technology to make the company more relevant."
One of the most important technologies Keyes sees in Blockbuster's future is the kiosk. Recently, with the success of DVD rental kiosks at McDonalds restaraunts and recent changes to DVD copy protection standards that allow burning encrypted DVDs, kiosks are generally expected to see heavy growth in the next few years. A company like Blockbuster could conceivably leverage branded kiosks to bring their products into a wide variety of retail spaces that have traditionally either avoided DVD rentals or had Limited operations.
Chuck Berger, chairman and CEO of number 3 DVD rental kiosk operator DVDPlay, believes that within 3 years kiosks will have captured 25% of the rental market. He says right now kiosks have around a 2% share, although Blockbuster estimates indicate the figure is more than 3%.
Redbox, the leading kiosk rental company, currently has units in more than 4,000 locations. Their success is largely due to getting prominent placement outside McDonald's restaraunts.
And that's the realy appeal of kiosks to many retailers. While a DVD rental operation might be prohibitively expensive in terms of inventory, store space, and payroll, a kiosk has none of those issues. It takes up little space, can hold hundreds of DVDs, and doesn't require an employee to operate.
Berger expects kiosks to chip away at brick and mortar business, which has already been hit hard by competition from online rental pioneer Netflix. He said “The person we’re going to attract is the person who is not motivated to go out of their way to rent a DVD—or to take back a DVD.”
With the Writers Guild of America (WGA) on strike, studios are being forced to rethink what will be included in box sets for television series being affected. Despite the fact many shows may have shorter seasons that usual, and there may not even be as many special features to include, studios have no intention of changing release schedules.
The reasoning is simple. Most TV show releases happen in the summer, timed for maximum marketing effect, and intended partly as a warmup for the upcoming season to be broadcast. This period is also typically when TV ratings are low as people spend more time outside the house, and re-runs rule the U.S. television landscape.
“We are in the process of figuring out our options right now,” said one studio source. “I don’t think it would be a surprise to see us release truncated seasons. It would still [represent] a full season but just shorter than what was originally planned.”
Some retailers are even taking this as good news. Virgin Megastores senior category manager Chris Anstey said. “Many TV shows could easily stand to have its seasons broken out into two parts, particularly network shows that [normally] have over 20 episodes. It’s not the perfect scenario, particularly with serialized shows that work better as complete series sets, but it’s a short-term remedy in keeping sales strong if the strike persists.”
LG.Philips is showing off a prototype of a 15.4-inch LCD display that will be interesting for anyone who can't stand how flat panel televisions and monitors act as magnets to dust and smudges. It is resistant to many different kinds of dirt that usually accumulate on LCD screens, forcing the owner to clean it up regularly. Coating on most screen's anti-glare layers have a tendency to hold onto oils but this prototype has beaten the problem.
Using a method described vaguely as, "similar to that used on non-stick frying pans," by the company's head of advanced technology development, LG.Philips was able to avoid having to add an extra screen layer, which would have been a more expensive solution to develop.
The prototype is resistant to dirt, dust and fingerprints. Even permanent ink can be wiped off the screen easily. Mass production of 15.4-inch screens for notebooks will begin in 2008 and the technology will be added to larger LCD screens later on in the year.
Apple Inc. has released Final Cut Express 4, a significant upgrade to its powerful video editing software based on Apple's award-winning Final Cut Pro 6. The upgrade adds support for the latest AVCHD camcorders and allows mixing of standard and high definition content on a single timeline, includes the ability to import iMovie '08 projects.
"Almost a million digital filmmakers have made Final Cut their editing application of choice," said Rob Schoeben, Apple's vice president of Applications Product Marketing. "With the introduction of Final Cut Express 4, Apple makes it easy for anyone to join the rapidly growing community of Final Cut editors worldwide."
Supporting both 720p HD resolutions, Final Cut Express 4 automatically performs the necessary scaling, cropping and frame rate adjustments. When starting projects from scratch, the new simplified setup automatically configures everything based on the first clip dropped on the
Timeline.
Following five months of a public-beta period, RealNetworks has announced that its latest RealPlayer version, v.11, has just gotten its final release in the UK. This new version of the mega-popular multimedia software adds the ability to download content from the web and transfer it directly to video-capable iPods without the need to use extra tools. The features is available by upgrading to RealPlayer Plus for £20.
The software supports 1000's of websites that offers DRM-free video content, allowing the user to easily download the video using a one-click method. The company claims that RealPlayer is the first major media player to offer this experience, freeing iPod owners from the limited supply of video content on iTunes.
Support for the iPhone is apparently in the works and should be available in early 2008.
XstreamHD has announced a major shift in the distribution of high-definition (HD) content to and throughout consumers' homes. The company will challenge the market paradigm by offering consumers unprecedented quality combined with convenience with the first transport network to deliver Full 1080p HD video and 7.1 channels of lossless audio directly to the home.
XstreamHD's network utilizes existing geosynchronous satellites to transport HD content to its proprietary media server via a small Aperture DTH satellite antenna for distribution to multiple media receivers throughout the home. This new cost effective solution will be unveiled, along with key celebrity and leading industry partnerships, at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in January 2008.
"As the HD revolution continues, transport networks are the limiting factor. Their inability to deliver Full HD robs consumers of the ideal home theater experience," said George Gonzalez, Founder and President of XstreamHD. "XstreamHD's proprietary technology powers a network, independent of existing infrastructure, which xstreams Full HD video and lossless audio to the home more efficiently than any other existing network."
To the delight of Microsoft Corp., online retailers are running short on supplies of the 80GB Zune model launched by the Redmond-based company on Tuesday. At Amazon, some customers who had preordered Zunes have been told they wont receive their order for an additional 10 days. The retailers do have the 4GB and 8GB versions of the Zunes in stock, but the 80GB model is sold out at the Amazon, Best Buy and Circuit City web stores.
The software giant said that it had prioritized the manufacture of the 4GB and 8GB Zune models, but that many more 80GB units would be on the shelves (physical and virtual) within the next 10 to 14 days. Earlier this week, blogs started reporting a rumor that the new Zunes have been hit by manufacturing delays.
"I think they were already probably a little later than they would like to be, given Apple's iPod announcement of a new line of the market-leading devices in September," said Matt Rosoff, an analyst at the independent research group Directions on Microsoft. "They probably wanted to get anything out the door as soon as they could."
We have added a new article to our Guide section in the past few days, coving SecurDisc, a data protection technology for optical media developed by Nero AG and Hitachi-LG Data Storage. For the article we used Nero 7 with a LG GSA-H55NSuper Multi drive, one of the first to support SecurDisc's features. Here is what SecurDisc offers...
Data Reliability
SecurDisc improves your chances of recovering data from damaged or worn discs. When you create and burn a disc using SecurDisc features, it will utilize the free space left on the disc to store information that will help with the recovery process. Data reliability is very important now that blank DVD and CD media costs a lot less than it used to, but some cheaper discs are very poor in quality.
Even though retailers are planning big deals on HDTVs for next Thursday's annual "Black Friday" sales. Even though it looks like digital televisions will be in more than half of all U.S. households by the time Christmas comes this year, that's not necessarily a sign that manufacturers or programmers are getting their message out to consumers.
Despite ever increasing hi-def programming available from cable and satellite providers, according to the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) most HDTV purchases are actually intended for watching SD content in the form of DVDs.
While many industry experts have speculated that the disconnect between manufacturers/content providers and consumers is all about fine distinctions between several formats, others believe the issue is a general lack of understanding about what hi-def actually is.
For many consumers, the improved picture quality of DVD equates to a higher definition signal. That's easy to understand given that most people adopted DVD after many years of experience with VHS and similar formats that don't even take advantage of the quality available in standard analog televisions.
According to a Billboard Magazine interview, it appears that Gene Simmons, the founding member and front man of KISS, hates music pirates as well as the new ideals of Radiohead and Trent Reznor.
As quoted from the article, Simmons had this to say about anyone who downloads unauthorized music from the internet. "Every little college kid ... should have been sued off the face of the earth. They should have taken their houses and cars and nipped it right there in the beginning."
But Simmons wasn't done yet. When asked how he felt about the band Radiohead and Trent Reznor, the front man of Nine Inch Nails, who are offering new, interesting purchasing models for their music and removing the record labels completely from the equation, he added this, "I open a store and say 'Come on in and pay whatever you want.' Are you on f---ing crack? Do you really believe that's a business model that works?"
According to a comScore report however, Radiohead made $2.7 million USD on its first day of sales, a day anyone would hope for especially considering the record label wasn't there to take 90 percent of all profits.
Gene however, in his most hypocritical statement of the whole article, said it was not about the money. "The most important part is the music. Without that, why would you care?" You must be reminded however that Gene has a reality show, a cartoon show, and had been branding KISS merchandise for at least 20 years. About the music indeed Mr. Simmons.
In January 2006, Apple Inc. launched legal action to have patents held by Burst.com declared invalid. Burst approached Apple in 2004 in an attempt to agree licenses for the use of its technology. The company's legal team informed Apple that it is infringing its patents, and that it would launch action. Apple denied that it is infringing patents held by Burst and sued it in the US District Court in San Francisco requesting declaratory relief to determine the patents invalid.
Burst went on to file a countersuit against Apple, claiming that the companies products were infringing several of Burst's patents. The last publicized issue of the ongoing case was whether or not Apple should be granted summary judgment on the grounds that Burst.com's patents were "obvious." Apple offered up several previous patents, claiming that those held by Burst were obvious extensions of these patents, while Burst maintained that its patents were novel.
A 41-page ruling on Apple's motion for summary judgment was issued last week, showing that Apple won dismissal of 14 of the claims, leaving another 22 claims that have yet to be decided. The remaining 22 have a "genuine issue for trial" meaning that they cannot be summarily ruled on. Now a jury trial is looking likely and is scheduled to begin in February 2008.
The College Opportunity and Affordability Act of 2007, which has been unanimously passed by the House Education and Labor Committee, includes provisions that plunge Universities into the front lines of the war on file sharing. The provisions force the educational facilities to adopt strict anti-piracy policies and even offer an alternative to illegal downloading, like a deal with Napster.
On Wednesday, the bill went through a mark-up sesison, but Section 494, which includes the copyright-related provisions, was not addressed despite pressure from higher education groups like the American Council on Education. As part of the financial aid process, the shcools would have to inform students about their official policies about copyright infringement and explain civil and crimional penalties.
They would also be required to, "develop a plan for offering alternatives to illegal downloading or peer-to-peer distribution of intellectual property as well as a plan to explore technology-based deterrents to prevent such illegal activity." The press release about COAA issued by the House Education and Labor Committee interestingly completely leaves the copyright-related provisions out.
A new Hollywood venture called Blowtorch has raised $50 million to supply eight movies, either original or purchased, that will include elements requiring viewers to have their mobile phones on.
The first feature produced for Blowtorch will be produced by the company's chief executive, Paul Schiff. Schiff is an established producer with credits on films including Rushmore, Date Movie, and PCU. The company is aiming for a release date in April of next year. "What we do contemplate is to give our audience the ability to be involved," Schiff told Reuters. "Our audience is fragmented and less reliable, harder to find."
Digital advertising executive Kelly Rodriqes, co-founder of the company, said "We want to create a hybrid of a content distribution or media business with ... a place where opinions are valued." He added "We ask you to turn your phone on. We want to encourage you to potentially communicate with people in the theater."
Rodriquez mentioned possibilities for interaction with the audience before and during production, as well as directly in the theater where viewers could offer feedback without leaving the theater.
According to NPD sales data, US videogame hardware and software sales rose 73 percent for the month of October as compared to the same month last year.
Total sales rose over $450 million USD to $1.1 billion USD.
After a brief drop to number two, the Wii returned to lead in hardware sales with 519,000 units sold. 366,000 Xbox 360 consoles were sold for the month finishing out the list was the PlayStation 3 with 121,000 consoles sold.
Software sales were up to $513.9 million USD, an almost 40 percent rise from October 2006.
Halo 3 continued to sell excellently, topping out the software list. Guitar Hero III, the latest installment of the hugely popular game, came in second, third and fourth place for sales with the 360 version being the most popular.
Previously, we reported that Comcast was being sued by a customer for blocking peer-to-peer traffic on their network. It was believed that the person bringing up the lawsuit was using his internet connection for illegitimate means and speculation arose on whether or not his case might gain any ground. Well, it seems that the customers aren't the only people upset with Comcast's traffic blocking practices.
Vuze a company which offers legal movie downloads to paying customers via the BitTorrent protocol has recently filed a complaint with the Federal Communications Commission stating that Comcast is hindering their potential customer base by limiting said customer's bandwidth due to P2P traffic. In the official complaint filed, Vuze is asking that the FCC institute new rules which govern network management by ISPs.
The main complaint is that ISPs advertise that consumers need their service if they wish to watch movies and such online, yet throttle their bandwidth in the process. Vuze VP of Marketing, John Fernandes says, "They say that they're engaging in reasonable network management, but what they're doing is slowing down some traffic."
Walgreens drug stores in Columbus, Ohio and the Phoenix, Arizona metropolitan area will have RedboxDVD rental kiosks installed. This follows limited market testing in the Chicago and Houston areas which began in the last half of 2006.
"Walgreens has a proud history of offering some of the most innovative products and services in the drugstore industry, and our Chicago and Houston-area customers have embraced Redbox's $1 per night price point and quick, self-service transaction,"Walgreens divisional merchandise manager for electronics Robin Randolph said. "We're excited to provide our Columbus and Phoenix customers with this added convenience and look forward to their feedback on the service."
For retailers like Walgreens the kiosks make it possible to provide a movie rental service without the cost of inventory, floor space, and additional employees. While Redbox kiosks don't contain the selection of a traditional rental outlet, for people who are only looking for popular new releases they can be a convenient substitute. They've already proven successful at McDonald's restaraunts across the United U.S..
As an expanded version of his latest album and new DVD are hitting the shelves, Paul McCartney has been talking to Billboard about the possibility of Beatles' music making its way to digital download services like iTunes. "It's all happening soon," McCartney told Billboard.com. "Most of us are all sort of ready. The whole thing is primed, ready to go -- there's just maybe one little sticking point left, and I think it's being cleared up as we speak, so it shouldn't be too long."
He added: "It's down to fine-tuning, but I'm pretty sure it'll be happening next year, 2008." The Beatles are among the most famous artists in the world without a legal digital presence on the Internet. As a court case between Apple Inc. and Apple Corps. (Beatles' music company) was settled, it seemed to open the doors to the music potentially becoming available on the iTunes service.
"You've got to get these things right," McCartney said. "You don't want to do something that's as cool as that and in three years' time you think, 'Oh God, why did we do that?!" The solo catalogs of all four Beatles have been available online since October.
Even just a few years ago, the idea of a company offering anti virus software for a games console would have been laughable. Nowadays however, the Internet's role in consoles (even handhelds like the PSP) is growing, and so too is the risk of getting malware infections or exposing sensitive data. At least that is the assertion of Trend Micro Inc., which has launched such software for the PlayStation 3 (PS3).
Not only does this software protect users form malicious web sites, it also has a password-protected service to keep websites depicting illegal activity, pornography or similar content away from children's eyes. It makes sense to offer such a service, as many parents who do monitor and take a roll in the PC use of their children are just too happy to let them sit in front of a games console alone and be quiet for a few hours.
However, some industry experts are wondering if this sort of protection is needed for consoles right now, and whether there is significant demand for it. "I think the jury's still out," said Daniel Ives, an analyst at Friedman Billings Ramsey. "Over the coming years, as the console becomes more common in terms of Web browsing, that's when you can really try to gauge what type of opportunity it is for the antivirus vendors."
Reuters has an interesting report online about the consumption of entertainment content by the young people of South Korea. As an example, the report talks to University student student Seong-sun (last name withheld), who uses his laptop and mobile phone to watch all of his content. The Internet is his channel of choice to receive TV shows, movies and other entertainment content, and the source on the Internet is of course, peer-to-peer.
Seong-sun a low subscription fee to an Internet-based service in the country that provides him with access to thousands of Hollywood movies - often before their theatrical release in the country - and TV shows such as American Idol and Prison Break. While the local cable companies compete for the rights to show these huge TV hits, the Internet services post them, complete with subtitles, shortly after they originally air in the United States.
Such a service could not be based in most Western countries due to copyright law, but in South Korea, there is lax enforcement of the existing laws. Take that into account, and then add that South Korea has a high broadband penetration rate, and the logical outcome is a rise in the use of file-sharing services.
Even though Writer's Guild of America (WGA) members don't have access to the major media outlets many work for they're still finding an audience for their message on YouTube.
A video starring a striking writer for the Daily Show pokes fun at Viacom, the company which owns the Daily Show and is currently suing YouTube for $1 billion because the claim the site didn't do enough to stop piracy of their content.
In the video Daily Show writer Jason Ross presents the dispute between the WGA and studios in a satirical form familiar to the show's viewers. However, there are serious issues being raised. The central point is the disconnect between studio claims to investors, and in Viacom's case to the court, about the value of delivering their content online. It appears that when trying to fire up shareholders or sue viral video sites studios claim the property is already valued in the billions, but when it comes time to pay royalties it's worth nothing because they're operating at a loss.
Included in the video was a clip of Viacom CEO Sumner Redstone arguing that if a company filed a suit against YouTube they might "expect a deal that reflected the value of their content." His comments made no mention of factoring in the studio's current ability to turn a profit from it.
Sony Computer Entertainment America (SCEA) is delighted with the boost in unit sales of the PlayStation 3 (PS3) console since the company cut the price of the 80GB model and offered up a 40GB model. In the week of October 29th, the company sold 75,000 PS3 units, and then the following week sold 100,000 more units. Compare that performance to previous weekly sales between 30,000 and 40,000 units.
The boost is a result of cutting the 80GB model by 17%, to $499 in mid-October, and then going on to sell a 40GB model on November 2nd for $399. Also assisting in sales is the shortage of Nintendo's hot-selling Wii console. This indeed is good news for the PS3, which has suffered under-performance all year long, and comes just ahead of the holiday season.
A high price tag and scarcity of titles led a lot of potential PS3 buyers to Microsoft's Xbox 360 or the Wii console. The PlayStation brand is a very strong brand across the world, but the name alone did not drive gamers to purchase the console in adequate numbers while it was the most expensive console and offered the least alluring software line-up.
Now with the new price points and more promises for the game line-up, the company is hoping that the dark times for the PS3 are coming to a close. This holiday season, the PS3 will take aim at both the Xbox 360 and the Wii, and it will be interesting to see what the numbers will be in January after a bad year in the United States for the console.
Up and coming music label Downtown Records has teamed with Engadget co-founder Peter Rojas to launch an new online label called RCRD LBL that will offer free MP3's. Each release will be paid for by corporate sponsors.
The online venture is affiliated with a number of independent labels including not only Downtown Records, but also Warp Records, Ghostly Intl., Modular Records, and Drowned in Sound. While some recordings will be promotional offerings from those labels, others will be recorded specifically for RCRD LBL. So far Puma, the Virgin America airline, and Nikon have been signed as sponsors.
In order to enable integration of sponsor content directly with their own, the RCRD LBL website is built from a number of widgets. Each widget can be customized with a sort of miniature banner ad.
Artists are given advances ranging from $500 to $5,000, depending on how well established they are.
Sony has started a new promotion in which it is offering a free Blu-ray movie with the proof of purchase of two others.
The deal however, is not as good as it seems from the outside. First, Sony is only offering the free movie from a list of 12 and the other two movies you actually purchase must be from that same list. You may also not even get the free movie you like, as the rebate form asks for your top three picks. On top of that all, you must enclose $2.99 USD for shipping on each order.
The offer is good for disc purchases made between October 28 and December 15, 2007 and is stackable on other offers such as Amazon's "Buy One, Get One Free" sale on Sony discs, and DVD Empire's $17.95 Sony Blu-ray sale.
Sony Pictures Television and NBC Universal both plan to have a major presence at next January's Consumer Electronics Show (CES).
Gary Shapirso, President and CEO of the Consumer Electronics Association which produces the show annually, was joined by Sony Pictures Television President Steve Mosko at the press preview of the show. He said Sony “is excited to come to CES as a technology company and as a content company. It fits in with our corporate theme of ‘Sony United.’”Sony, of course, is best known for their consumer electronics products, and are the most visible and vocal Blu-ray proponent among hardware manufacturers.
Over the last few years CES has become a crucial place for content owners to meet with electronics manufacturers to discuss issues relevant to both sides, ranging from new technology for content delivery to DRM for that content.
Next year's event will feature NBC as the "Official Broadcast Partner" of the show, and will broadcast several shows from the event. They'll also be covering some CES events during those broadcasts. Several addresses and workshops at the show will focus on how existing and future technology can be used to deliver media to customers.
A new Russian movie download site has appeared, found at ZML.com, that appears to be following in the footsteps of AllofMP3.
The site is offering 1500 different movies for download without any DRM, in the same fashion in which AllofMP3 offered music. The site also offers a large selection ranging from classics such as Apocalypse Now and Aliens to the newly released Transformers.
Each of the movie files are encoded with the Xvid or DivXcodec and start at $1.99 USD. There are higher resolution versions available for $2.99 and $4.99 respectively.
Just like AllofMP3, ZML says it is doing nothing illegal and is following the policies of the Russian Organization for Multimedia and Digital Systems (ROMS).
"All materials presented on this site are available for the distribution over the Internet in accordance with the license of the Russian Organization for multimedia and Digital Systems (ROMS) and intended for personal use only. Further distribution, resale or broadcasting is strictly prohibited," it adds.
Vudu, a video download service that uses a combination of P2P software and a proprietary settop box, announced that hi-def movies are going to be available soon. According to a company representative, this will make Vudu one of only two services (Xbox Live is the other) to make major studio releases available in hi-def via download.
"We're pleased to expand our partnership with Vudu to include digital distribution of our films in [high-def]," said Thomas Lesinski, president of Paramount Pictures Digital Entertainment. "Vudu is rewriting the rules with its superb user interface and ease of use. Consumers will find watching our movies in [high-def] on Vudu to be a great experience."
Besides its content, which currently includes more than 5,000 titles from both major and indpendent studios, Vudu is notable for the way files are distributed. Unlike a traditional client/server system where all files would be downloaded from a central server operated by the provider, Vudu uses P2P technology to distribute files that are rented or purchased from their site.
Lionsgate president and chief operating officer Steve Beeks called the partnership with Vudu "another opportunity to monetize our content in the digital marketplace of the future."
After previously pushing back its launch plans for Total HD discs, Warner Home Entertainment has shelved the project entirely for now, according a Warner Exec who spoke with HighDefDigest. Total HD discs were touted as the answer to the on-going format war, storing Blu-ray data on one side of the disc and HD DVD data on the other. At the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in January, the studio showed off its new disc, saying it would retail for little more than single-format title.
Originally, the plan was to make the first discs available on the market in the second half of 2007. However, earlier this year, the company revealed that it was pushing back plans to sell movies on Total HD discs until early 2008. Now, a Warner Exec has told HighDefDigest that the project has been shelved due to a perceived shift in retailer needs after Paramount chose the HD DVD format exclusively.
"The short answer is, for the moment, it [Total HD] is on hold," explained Jim Noonan, SVP of Strategic Promotion and Communication for Warner Home Entertainment Group. "We're the only studio producing content in both formats. If we were to put out Total HD with just our titles, it wouldn't really provide the solution to our retail partners that it was intended to provide. If anything, at this point, it would further complicate their life, because there would be another product looking for shelf space. Our job is not to further complicate the lives of our retailers."
The Blu-ray Disc Association European Promotions Committee has dismissed a press release sent out a couple of days ago by the European HD DVD Promotional Group that claimed HD DVD has a higher attach rate in Europe. The Blu-ray camp said the HD DVD camp is "distorting the facts and presenting information that is intended to portray a misleading message to consumers and the industry".
Quoting the same figures from the same independent research firm, Gfk, the Blu-ray camp claims of all HD discs bought by consumers year-to-date in Europe, 73% were in the Blu-ray Disc format and 27% were HD DVD. When we reported on the HD DVD press release showing the attach rate figures, we commented that it was strange to see the HD DVD camp factor in the PlayStation 3 (and gaming hardware in general) in this particular case.
Typically, the HD DVD group has dismissed the idea that a PS3 console can be accepted as a stand-alone Blu-ray player. However, in this particular case, leaving the PS3 in the figures benefited the HD DVD group, as most European PS3 owners bought it for games and not Blu-ray, and so would not buy movies, dramatically lowering the overall attach rate.
YouTube co-founder Steve Chen has confirmed that higher-quality video content will be available to YouTube viewers soon. He made the comments while speaking at he NewTeeVee Live conference. He said that YouTube's goal remains to ensure all of its content is viewable for all users, which requires a lower-bitrate solution, but that it was working on a player that could determine the connection speed of the user and offer higher quality video.
Chen commented that the current resolution in use on YouTube has been good enough for the site until now. He believes that high-quality YouTube videos will be available to everyone within three months. The company needs to offer quality improvements or it risks sending viewers to competing video-sharing sites, or even creators of amateur content which it values.
Chen said that all the original videos uploaded by users are still stored on YouTube's servers in their native quality. However, he warned that quite a lot of the original videos stored on the servers are 320x240, which means quality improvements may not even be noticeable with some videos.
DivX Inc. has announced that it has acquired MainConcept AG, a leading provider of H.264 and other high-quality video technologies, in a stock and cash transaction valued at approximately $22 million. A further $6 million may be paid if certain goals for MainConcept development are met. MainConcept designs, manufactures and markets a wide range of high-quality video and audio technology based on industry standards.
"This is a great partnership that we believe will prove beneficial to both MainConcept and DivX," said Markus Moenig, CEO and Founder of MainConcept AG. "Our product suites and business models are highly complementary, and our combined companies offer a rich solution for the creation, distribution and playback of high-quality video across virtually any platform or device. We look forward to bringing these two great teams together."
"We are extremely pleased to add MainConcept to the DivX family," said Kevin Hell, CEO of DivX. "Company founder Markus Moenig, our new Senior Vice President, has worked with a talented team of engineers to build a successful company with award winning next-generation codec technology that is highly complementary to the core DivX licensing business. MainConcept's H.264 technology is expected to increase our market opportunity and speed our penetration of key emerging product categories, including mobile, HDTV, set-top boxes and digital still cameras. With this combination, we are executing on our strategy to deliver a seamless and simple digital media experience where any piece of content plays back on any kind of device, and formats and codecs are completely transparent to the end-user."
ShareConnector.com has closed its doors again following threats from Dutch anti-piracy foundation BREIN made directly to the administrator, Adi. The site offered ed2k links, which aided in finding files (or parts of files) on the eDonkey2000 network with software such as eMule. The site was first taken offline in December 2004 by law enforcement and Adi was arrested.
It was brought back online in December 2006. In August 2007 the criminal court ruled that linking can amount to complicity to criminal copyright infringement, but nevertheless acquitted Adi stating the prosecution had not provided sufficient evidence to reach a conviction. The prosecution appealed but it is not clear when this appeal will be heard.
A statistical sample taken by BREIN showed that 95% of the links offered on ShareConnector provided access to illegal content. BREIN claimed an injunction against Adi under forfeiture of a penalty sum of €5,000 per day as well as damages for past activities. When Adi did not respond to the claim, BREIN visited his home. Now ShareConnector.com reads..
"Last Monday the guys from BREIN visited me at home to convince me to close ShareConnector or else they will start a civil proceeding with a claim. Of course, this does not mean I agree with their point of view, it's just that I can't afford taking any risks. As of today, November 12, 2007 I decided to close down. If there is anything new to report, you will be informed. Thank you for all your support and understanding."
However, it is unclear whether BREIN is finished with Adi just yet. "We still have an interest in getting an injunction. The site owner is not acknowledging that his activities were unlawful and is only stopping to avoid financial exposure. There is still too large a risk that he will come back for a third time,"Tim Kuik, director of BREIN, said.
Thew heads of the global recording industry have traveled to Brussels to meet with EU Trade Commissioner, Peter Mandelson, to emphasize the piracy and market access problems faced by the music companies in China. The meeting comes ahead of the EU-China Summit in Beijing on 28th November, where online piracy will be on the agenda. European record companies see potential in China, but its market was worth only €56 million in trade revenues last year.
The delegation meeting with the trade commissioner blame China's internet piracy, estimated at over 99 per cent of the overall digital market. "When the recording industry tries to defend its copyrights against online piracy in China, it is blocked by a combination of heavy procedural rules, woefully low levels of damages and injunctions too narrow to prevent ongoing infringement. Chinese law has simply not kept pace with the explosion of online piracy,"John Kennedy, CEO and Chairman of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI).
The delegation includes Mike Batt, Chairman of Dramatico Entertainment; Tim Bowen, Chief Operating Officer, Sony BMG Music Entertainment; JF Cecillon, Chairman & CEO, EMI Music International; Max Hole, President, Asian Pacific Executive VP Marketing and A&R, Universal Music Group International; and John Kennedy, Chairman & CEO of IFPI.
A California man has filed suit against the cable giant Comcast claiming that they have engaged in unfair business practices by limiting download speeds for peer-to-peer traffic across their networks.
Jon Hart bases his lawsuit on an investigation by the Associated Press that reported, "Comcast actively interferes with attempts some high-speed Internet subscribers (make) to share files online." Additionally, he brought up claims by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a radical activist group that rallies against things from DRM to anti-piracy movements, of Comcast engaging in practices similar to that of the Chinese government censoring the Internet.
Hart argues that Comcast's own marketing states lightning fast speeds and unfettered access to all the Internet has to offer. He claims that they have not lived up to their part of their own marketing by intentionally throttling "certain Internet applications" that he regularly uses.
The lawsuit seeks class action status and brings up the fact that Comcast's actions, in light of its marketing claims, constitute an unfair and fraudulent business practice under California consumer laws.
The CEO of Warner Music who as many know usually for being one of the forefathers of current DRM practices, Edgar Bronfman said in a statement that he feels the music industry may have made a mistake in waging war on file sharing. He stated that the music industry as a whole has to take the blame for the increase in P2P file sharing.
"We used to fool ourselves," said Bronfman. "We used to think our content was perfect just exactly as it was. We expected our business would remain blissfully unaffected even as the world of interactivity, constant connection and file sharing was exploding. And of course we were wrong. How were we wrong? By standing still or moving at a glacial pace, we inadvertently went to war with consumers by denying them what they wanted and could otherwise find and as a result of course, consumers won."
Bronfman went on to state that mobile operators risk the same and fewer than 10% of mobile owners actually buy music on their mobile devices, most of these being ringtones.
"The sad truth is that most of what consumers are being offered today on the mobile platform is boring, banal and basic," he said. "People want a more interesting form of mobile music content. They want it to be easy to buy with a single click - yes, a single click, not a dozen. And they want access to it, quickly and easily, wherever they are. 24/7. Any player in the mobile value chain who thinks they can provide less than a great experience for consumers and remain competitive is fooling themselves."
Indonesian authorities have closed several digital music download outlets after executing a series of raids around Jakarta. The action stemmed from evidence packages received from IFPI Asia Pacific and ASIRI, which represents the Indonesian recording industry. Two sophisticated illegal businesses that offered franchises specializing in the sale of copyright infringing music files were targeted.
They sold music files intended to be stored on mobile phones and other portable digital music-capable devices. Outlets like these are fairly widespread among Indonesian shopping malls. In the Jakarta area, officers targeted eight locations with raids believed to the tied to the two illegal operators, Download Mania and Download Station.
Among the locations raided was a main office where business records were held. So far the Indonesian authorizes have seized more than 60 computers, each holding an average of 28,000 illegal music files.
The recording industry has challenged Yahoo Inc! to stop the "massively damaging abuse of intellectual property rights" by Yahoo! China. Yahoo! Inc. owns 44% of Yahoo! China through its investment in the Alibaba Group. The Chinese company has been in court in Beijing trying to contest a ruling that it facilitated mass music piracy through its specialised music service.
Yahoo! China was ruled liable for illegally providing links to copyright infringing music files in a landmark court decision in Beijing in April. Members of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) claims the site offers a bespoke music delivery service that enables and induces users to search for, play and download infringing music tracks for free without ever leaving Yahoo! China's website.
"It is incredible that the music industry should have to defend its rights in a Chinese court against a company in which an American corporate icon has such a large stake. Yahoo! Inc is one of the best-known international brands on the internet, which runs its own legitimate music services all over the world, including in Hong Kong and Taiwan. Yet in mainland China, Yahoo! Inc is investing in and profiting from the widespread breach of intellectual property rights,"IFPI Chairman and CEO John Kennedy said.
Based out of Fremont, California, Envision Peripherals Inc. introduced its Omni Series displays today showcasing stylish high performance LCD TVs including an impressive wide-screen 42-inch Envision L42W761.
"Envision's new HDTV's are the perfect complement to any home or office setting," said Michael Lien, GM, North America Brand Sales. "With a combination of sleek sophistication, remarkable picture and sound quality and total ease of use, the Omni Series TVs are the perfect gifts for someone seeking the ultimate theater experience."
Each of the new 26-, 32- and 42-inch TVs boasts High-Definition capability with ATSC and digital clear-QAM tuners, providing crystal clear reception of over-the-air HD broadcasts and enabling them to Decode clear channels transmitted digitally over cable without the need for separate set-top receiver boxes. Advanced connectivity options allow simultaneous access to multiple digital multimedia devices including DVRs, Blu-ray or HD-DVD players, game consoles, digital photo and video cameras and PCs.
In celebration of the 5th anniversary of Xbox Live, on November 15th Microsoft will be giving all Xbox Live users the chance to download Carcassone for free.
The company also boasted that “more than eight million members are now actively engaged in the largest social entertainment network on TV.”
Any active user that joined in 2002 will receive 500 free Microsoft Points as a reward for being loyal.
"In just five short years Xbox Live has revolutionized the way friends and family have fun in the living room," said John Schappert, corporate vice president of Live, software and services at Microsoft. "On its fifth birthday, Xbox Live truly is the place for hanging out with friends and enjoying downloadable TV shows, movies, videos, game add-ons, and now downloadable Xbox games on demand."
Back in January, Interact-TV had announced the launch of a device called MyTellyHD which ran on Linux and allowed you to store your media on one convenient device. Well, the company has outdone themselves with offering to the public a media storage center capable of holding up to 3.75TB (yes, thats TeraByte) of digital files for your multimedia needs. At current standards, some 750 DVDs could conceptually be stored on this device.
Space wasn't their only concern as they designed it to play well with another product they created called TellyVizionHD which would then allow you to setup a rather limitless storage DVR system.
Inside this device, you'll find no fans to keep it cool as it apparently doesn't need them, which will in turn make for silent operation within your entertainment center. Aside from that, you can expect 5 linked 750GB Seagate hard drives connected via eSATA for fast and reliable data transfer. On the blue back-lit display, there is a space left for overheating warnings so you'll know if you're about to cook your device.
Though not much news has circulated about details on the WiFi-enabled personal media player being developed by Haier and AOL since its showing at CES at the beginning of the year, the cover has finally been lifted. Its now received a new name and a few of the specs have been released for public propaganda. Being named the ibiza Rhapsody and featuring three different versions, the wireless capable PMPs will include 4Gb, 8Gb and 30Gb varieties. Each model will also be available in a select range of colors. All the players appear to look identical with their 2.5-inch displays, FM radio, built in WiFi, bluetooth and integration with the AOL video service and Rhapsody-To-Go.
No word yet as to when they'll be available, but look for them to tip the scales on the expensive side of the spectrum with the 4, 8, and 30Gb models costing $230, $250, and $330 respectively.
In the console wars this generation, its not anything new that Nintendo has become a regular juggernaut in terms of sales. Even a year after its launch, its still difficult for the average consumer to walk into their local electronics store and find a Wii sitting on the store shelves. Worldwide the little console that could is hopping off shelves and into happy homes faster than Nintendo can keep up. Nintendo now warns that it may not be able to keep up with the demand to keep UK shelves stocked during this holiday season.
Nintendo has said that it is doing everything possible to keep up with demand and the company has decided to ship an additional 3.5 million units globally. In April, Nintendo estimated a yearly shipment of 14 million units but has raised that estimate to 17.5 million. Despite that, Nintendo says that not every gamer who wants a Wii for the holidays is guaranteed to get one.
"The demand for Wii hardware globally has been unprecedented and higher than Nintendo could ever have anticipated. Nintendo is now in a position in which seasonality demand trends are being broken, therefore the demand for Wii hardware is constant throughout the whole year globally. Due to this phenomenon it is possible that the demand for Wii hardware may outstrip supply," said a Nintendo spokeswoman.
In the desperate struggle for personal media player makers to compete with Apple's onslaught, Milpitas California based Creative has reached a new personal milestone. Today the company announced that it has officially shipped a total of 25 million MP3 players. Creative holds the number two slot in global unit shipments according to IDC March 2007 report on worldwide and US flash and HDD-based portable media player shipments.
"Shipment of 25 million MP3 players marks a major milestone in Creative history, as our player unit volume exceeds the combined unit sales from some of the biggest names in consumer electronics," said Sim Wong Hoo,
chairman and CEO of Creative. "We believe that we now have our strongest lineup of MP3 and portable media players ever, as we continue to innovate with our recently introduced ZEN(R) Stone, ZEN Stone Plus, and the credit
card-sized ZEN."
Creative shipped its first flash based MP3 player dubbed NOMAD in 1999 and in 2000 launched the Creative Nomad Jukebox which was a high capacity hard drive based media player. Subsequently, later launches of the Creative MuVo and ZEN family of players received critical acclaim and garnered three consecutive Best of CES awards. The Creative ZEN Vision:M won the overall Best in Show award at CES in 2006, edging out more than 2500 other companies.
We reported back in August that a Sydney man had been arrested for uploading the first known pirated copy of The Simpsons Movie which he had recorded using a mobile phone. Jose Duarte, 21, was fined $888 on Tuesday by a magistrate for breaching copyright. News Corp.'s Fox movie studios has tracked the pirate copy back to Duarts's home. Prosecutor Chuan Ng said the movie was downloaded 3,213 times in the few hours.
Duarte's lawyer said that he had attempted to upload the movie twice on its release date, July 26th, but that he was sure he failed. He tried to spread the copy of the movie many chorus before it was available in theaters across the world. "It would appear that this young man had the sophistication of a dead fish," the lawyer, Ken Stewart, said.
Steward added: "I have sat and spent time with this young man, ... and I am quite satisfied that he had no idea what he was doing." Duarte received a fine of 1,000 Australian dollars after pleading guilty to a charge of distributing copyright material in a Sydney Magistrates Court on Tuesday.
Cyberlink has announced cooperation with Samsung Electronics to include CyberLink PowerDirector with Samsung's SC-MX10 SD camcorder, and CyberLink DVD Suite with the HD camcorder SC-HMX10. PowerDirector is a video editing solution that will work well with the SC-MX10 camcorder, offering its users an easy solution to edit video content, with features allowing quick fixes to videos, as well as adding effects and styles.
CyberLink DVD Suite for Samsung SC-HMX10 includes PowerDVD for playback of high-definition video content and DVD movies on the PC, PowerDirector for editing high-definition video content, and PowerProducer for recording high-definition videos on DVDs and authoring discs.
"CyberLink's support of high-definition capturing, editing and playback lets Samsung camcorder users make the most of their high-definition videos," said Alice H. Chang, CEO of CyberLink. "With this first cooperation with Samsung camcorder products, CyberLink is providing the benefits of its solutions to a growing base of camcorder users worldwide."
Fujitsu Limited has announced development of the world's first embedded-FRAM LSI for digital TVs that enables simultaneous use of four-channel High-Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI) connector port. Sample shipment of the new LSI, MB85RF402, started from November 12, 2007. It supports the HDMI connector interface specification standard for digital audio-visual equipment.
The chip combines on a single embedded FRAM chip the display data memory for four HDMI connector ports, which previously required separate memory for each port. Using this LSI in digital TVs enables high-speed factory programming of Extended Display Identification Data (EDID) display data, and in addition facilitates reduction of overall production costs by lessening the number of parts required and reducing mounting space that was previously necessary.
By combining on a single embedded-FRAM chip the display data memory for four HDMI connector ports, the new LSI can reduce the cost of digital TVs while preserving their versatility as the centerpiece of home entertainment systems. This new embedded-FRAM LSI from Fujitsu will be exhibited at the Embedded Technology 2007 tradeshow and conference to be held from November 14 - 16, 2007, at PACIFICO YOKOHAMA in Yokohama, Japan.
Lite-On is to offer a Blu-ray read-only (BD-ROM) drive for just €179 (USD$244). The Lite-On DH-4O1S uses the Serial ATA (SATA) interface to connect to compatible motherboards, and reads Blu-ray discs at up to 4X. The drive is also capable of reading DVD-R/RW, DVD+R/RW and CD-R(W) media. Single layer DVD±R is read at 12x, while dual layer DVD±R and DVD±RW IS READ AT 8x. CD-R(W) can be read at a maximum speed of 32X.
"With this BD-ROM drive we make the Blu-ray format available to a wider audience then ever before," says Jelmer Veldman, marketing manager for PLDS in Europe. "Because it is a read-only device, we are able to reduce the price to a level that it becomes more interesting to make that step to the next generation format. People can now enjoy high definition playback on their PC. And instead of spending hundreds of euros on a standalone Blu-ray player, one can use an HDMI cable to connect his/her PC with a TV-set and enjoy high definition using their BD-ROM drive as their Blu-ray playback device."
Coming with the Xbox 360 Fall Dashboard update on December 2nd, Microsoft has said six new full version original Xbox games will be available for download.
The six games are as follows, Burnout 3, Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex, Crimson Skies: High Road to Revenge, Fable, Halo: Combat Evolved, Indigo Prophecy.
The games will cost 1200 Microsoft points, approximately $15 USD and will most likely have similar DRM to that of Live Arcade games.
Microsoft is also planning to release more Xbox games on the Marketplace soon, and it is expected Halo 2 will be among that bunch.
Just about any person who thinks of their favorite super hero knows the name Marvel. The comic company has been a part of culture and created some of the most fascinating super heroes of our time. Their analysts say that even their paper format of delivering issues of comic books haven't been safe from piracy on the Internet. It is said that upon release of a new issue, a comic book is scanned and shared on the Internet within 36 hours of its publication. With that, Marvel is hoping its new subscription service will help subside the illegal sharing of their intellectual properties.
Marvel Digital Comics Unlimited will launch a subscription service to the tune of $59.88 a year, or at a monthly rate of $9.99, offering high-resolution reprints of more than 2500 back issues. These subscriptions will be obtainable through their marvel.com website.
Included in these issues are the likes of everyone's favorites like X-men, Incredible Hulk and Spiderman to name a few.
"We did not want to get caught flat-footed with kids these days who have the tech that allows them to read comics in a digital format," says Dan Buckley, Marvel's president. "Our fan base is already on the Internet. It seemed like a natural way to go."
In a move to further enhance the iEmpire, Chinese Cell phone provider China Mobile has entered talks with Steve Jobs and company to sell the Apple iPhone in China. Talks seem to be going relatively smoothly, however China Mobile CEO says he doesn't like the revenue sharing that takes place between Apple and other mobile carriers elsewhere in the world.
Apple has been signing exclusive deals with several mobile operators to provide service to the iPhone exclusively in exchange for a share of the profits on the contracts signed. O2 in the UK and AT&T in the US both have agreed to similar deals where the operator pays for a portion of their iPhone subscriber revenue. Apple states that it would like to roll out the iPhone to Asia next year and China Mobile would be a good deal for them as they are China's largest mobile operator with some 350 million subscribers and potential iPhone-aphiles.
In contrast, China Mobile is also part of Google's Open Handset Alliance, a consortium of technologists that will develop products with the Google Android mobile phone platform in mind. This platform is said to potentially be competition for the iPhone once it reaches production.
Dell has been no stranger to releasing 30-inch monitors for PC hungry geeks worldwide, but its previous model fell short of some expectations. Dell has made sure they will right what is wrong with their newest next-gen monitor, the 3008WFP.
Armed with not only 30 Widescreen inches of pixel topology, the monitor gets several different inputs such as HMDI, two dual link DVI inputs, Component, S-VHS, Composite in, USB upstream connector, and a DisplayPort connection. With several different inputs, its quite possible for this monitor to have up to five different machines running into this one monitor.
The processing chip within the monitor allows for resolutions of 2560x1600, 1920x1200, 1920x1080, 1680x1050 and all the other more common Resolution schemes. The monitor itself will also feature the to-be-expected tilt, swivel and vertical extension that seems to be with all of them now-a-days.
The social networking site Bebo has announced today that it will launch an "Open Media" platform on its site to host audio and video for its community. They say that this platform is a way for media brands to build a presence within the community through the use of audio and video.
Mixing the features similar to MySpaceTV and Facebook's Pages feature, Bebo's Open Media platform can be joined without licensing agreements and charge no fees to the content providers. They state that the content will be strictly Limited to just music and video. The site claims that they this system will offer its community "thousands of hours of premium entertainment content from major global entertainment brands and emerging media companies."
With this platform, members will be able to create their own media profiles and store their favorite songs and videos there, while media companies will receive an option to create Channel profiles so their content can be easily found within the community.
While rumors sprout up about Microsoft's Xbox 360may be getting DivX support, it has been confirmed that Sony will include DivX support with their flagship PS3.
There will be a Firmware update that will enable the support for DivX playback which opens up the system as a much more media friendly system. While the implementation is still unseen, there are talks about integration within Sony's online meeting place Home having support for the imported digital files as well. No word yet on how Sony will attempt to stop people from broadcasting intellectual property or adult content over their vulnerable online sharing network.
Playback on the system is certified by DivX to be "excellent" yet there is no word on whether or not it will upscale these files to 1080p or make use of the digital surround sound.
The European HD DVD Promotional Group is the latest of either side in the format war between HD DVD and Blu-ray disc to put out a press release highlighting its strengths over its rival. The group offered up figures from independent research group GfK which analyzed the number of movies purchased by owners of HD players (including games console hardware) in the UK, France, Germany, Spain, Italy and Benelux countries.
The research showed that owners of HD DVD players have bought an average of 3.8 movies each, compared to a figure of 0.6 for Blu-ray. In Spain, the overall attach rate is highest, with owners of HD DVD hardware paying out for 5.7 movies, 14 times higher than the 0.4 figure for Blu-ray.
Specifically, in Italy the HD DVD attach rate is 4.4 and Blu-ray is 0.4. In France, HD DVD stands with a rate of 5 while Blu-ray stands with a rate of 0.6. In Benelux, Blu-ray has an attach rate of 0.4, compared to 2.9 for HD DVD. The Germans also have an attach rate of 2.9 for HD DVD while Blu-ray sits at 0.6 there and finally, in the UK, HD DVD owners have bought an average of 3.7 movies each, compared to 0.8 for Blu-ray.
The addition of support to play back DivX video or XviD video would be a significant boost to the Xbox 360 games console. Since it was launched, support for the MPEG-4-based video has been requested over and over again and rumors have turned out to be false. However, DivX CEO Kevin Hell made comments that have sparked rumors that DivX support will be added in a coming update.
During the SMid Cap conference call with investment firm JP Morgan, Hell was asked if a recent deal that would see DivX codecs shipped with Windows Media Extenders would mean DivX support for the Xbox 360 console; he replied with a "Yes." However, he went on to say that the deal was still in the negotiation process and has not been finalized.
DivX and particularly XviD video content is rampant on the Internet, and support for the video would no doubt drive up the number of users streaming video across a home network to the Xbox 360 console. However, if it were implemented on the basis that Windows Media Center is required, for most Xbox 360 owners it would be almost insulting. You can stream WMV content to the Xbox 360 console without MCE (under XP), and you can use TVersity to transcode and stream DivX / XviD or many many other formats on-the-fly.
The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) said that Jammie Thomas has no basis to complain about the damages decided by a Jury when she was found guilty of illegally distributing 24 pirated tracks. Thomas was told to pay $222,000 to the record companies when the Jury decided on damages of $9,250 per song. The jury could have decided anywhere between $750 per song and $150,000 per song under the provisions of the copyright act.
Thomas filed a motion arguing that the damages were unconstitutionally excessive, and cited the UMG vs. Lindor case (which the RIAA claims is unrelated) in which testimony revealed that record labels make just 70c per song. Thomas wants the damages to be adjusted to what the labels can actually prove, otherwise they are "purely punitive" and statutory damages should be capped at 10 times the actual damages at most.
Defending the damages, the RIAA argues that statutory damages need not be tied to actual damages. "Defendant's argument that statutory damages must bear some reasonable relationship to actual damages has been considered, and rejected, by numerous courts," reads the reply. "Awards of statutory damages under the Copyright Act that fall within the limits set by Congress are for the jury to determine, whatever the amounts of actual damages (if any)."
Announced around the same time that Hulu launched its beta, NBC Direct has entered into beta now, and is already stirring up tech sites to point out everything that's wrong with it. Compared to Hulu, NBC Direct not only offers nothing more, it offers much less and for a more limited time. It carries under 20 shows, some of which only come in two minute digests, while Hulu carries content from NBC, Fox, E!, FUEL TV, SciFi channel, and USA Networks.
NBC Direct is only available through a Windows Media Player and Internet Explorer-enabled client and requires the latest .NET framework to be present. After a show airs, episodes can be downloaded for 48 hours, not a whole lot of time to provide viewers with an option to catch up.
The service offers no mobile support and any of the programs are available in a more convenient fashion with Hulu. It seems that much more work is needed on NBC Direct, which the company will no doubt be told time and time again from feedback of the beta.
Swedish Prosecutor Håkan Roswall has revealed his intentions to file charges against the operators of the popular Pirate BayBitTorrent site before January 1st, 2008. Five of the operators would be charged with crimes related to copyright infringement. Of the five, two are mentioned; administrator Brokep, or Peter Sunde and Carl Lundström.
The announcement comes after comments made earlier in the year in which Roswall vowed to target the Pirate Bay. The site's operators maintain that it is only a search engine, hosts absolutely no infringing content and operates completely compliant with Swedish copyright law.
Roswall hopes that a May 2006 raid, in which over 180 servers at the host of the Pirate Bay were seized, will provide enough evidence of criminal activity. However, a leak regarding the raid revealed that the Swedish police got little or no incriminating evidence against the service or its operators.
Responding to May 2007 comments, administrator Tobias Andersson explained that the police need to do something to save face. "Of course we don't think they will succeed," he said, "I think they feel they have to do it. It would look bad otherwise since they had 20 to 30 police officers involved in the raid … we will most likely be cleared as it is obvious that there is no copyrighted material on the site, there are just links to other places."
Following certification of AVCHD support in high-definition movie player software PowerDVD earlier this year, Cyberlink is now supporting the H.264-based format in its complete range of leading consumer software products. Along with playback, Cyberlink now offers applications to provide authoring and editing capabilities for the format. As a result, the Sony Test Center has now provided certification disc authoring software PowerProducer.
The Advanced Video 1080i and 720p video onto discs, with faster seek times and compression advantages over MPEG-2. As such, it is regarded as a superior choice for consumers looking to record and manipulate high definition (HD) video content.
"The AVCHD format delivers exceptional quality for the recording, storage and playback of high-definition video content," said Alice H. Chang, CEO of CyberLink. "Now with support for the AVCHD format across our leading software categories, we are able to offer a complete suite of products covering video editing, disc creation, and movie playback."
Creative has announced that they have shipped their 25 millionth MP3 player, eight years after shipping their first digital music player.
In comparison, Apple surpassed the mark in 2006, after only five years on the market. Since that point however, iPod sales have surged and recently Apple passed the 110 million mark. The research firm IDC has noted that however big the gap between Apple and Creative, the Korean company is still the 2nd largest manufacturer of MP3 players.
"Shipment of 25 million MP3 players marks a major milestone in Creative history, as our player unit volume exceeds the combined unit sales from some of the biggest names in consumer electronics," chairman and CEO Sim Wong Hoo said.
According to a report from Global Media Intelligence, a division of media analysis firm Screen Digest, rising costs and falling revenue will cause studios to lose $1.9 billion on movies originally released in 2006. The report compares 2006 releases to those just two years earlier in 2004. Releases from that year reportedly earned profits of $2.2 billion.
So what's being blamed for turning profits into losses? The report points to the current trend toward lower DVD sales with no alternative revenue stream replacing those dollars. While studios are actively pursuing other revenue streams like Video on Demand (VoD) to make up for lower DVD returns, based on the report they're not meeting with much success so far.
"Some executives in the Hollywood studios are looking to the new technologies of video-on-demand and subscription-based TV to fill the gap left by DVD. However, GMI estimates that while vod will offer a superior share of the consumer dollar over traditional pay channels (60% versus 40%), it will not deliver at the lofty levels predicted in the early days of the industry and will not help the studios put old wine in new bottles," said Roger Smith, author of the report.
According to a few rock labels, the hit game Guitar Hero III has had a significant impact on CD sales for the bands featured in the game.
The record label Roadrunner Records stated that sales of DragonForce's album "Inhuman Rampage" increased 126% from the week before the game's release. One of DragonForce's songs is an unlockable bonus track in the game. Roadrunner also said that sales for Slipknot's latest album saw a noticeable increase.
The new reports come on the heels of comments made by Electronic Art's Steve Schnur, which were that "games were now more relevant than radio when it comes to promoting new music."
Maybe the record industry will see this new trend and jump on it early.
It seems that Microsoft is hoping to hop on the ever increasing popularity of social media and has posted jobs wanted postings on their website looking for a program manager for a new photo and video sharing website.
The site would be a new addition to the Live family of services and work across Spaces, SkyDrive, Messenger, and Hotmail.
"This feature team is building a next-generation photo and video sharing service that will compete with Flickr, Smugmug and other photo web solutions today," the job posting read. "This is a 'v1' opportunity."
Microsoft has tried a video and file sharing site before, named Soapbox but it never took off in the market.
Pinnacle Systems, Inc., the consumer division of Avid Technology, Inc. has announced a new UPnP (Universal Plug n' Play) digital media adapter that enables users to link any home entertainment center with all of their networked PCs or network storage devices. The ShowCenter 250HD can be used with Windows Vista, Windows XP or Mac OS and is targeted at users with large digital media collections to stream to a home entertainment system.
The device has a built in Ethernet port, along with WiFi support (802.11b/g) to enable simple streaming from source network devices particular to HDTV sets. "The growth in the home theater and HDTV markets has created the need for a simple, cost-effective solution for linking PC-based digital media to a home entertainment system," said Tanguy Leborgne, Pinnacle Systems' Vice President of Worldwide Marketing.
Leborgne added: "PC users and home entertainment enthusiasts want to be able to have their friends and family join them in viewing their digital media collections on their large-screen home entertainment system, rather than in front of their PC. With Pinnacle ShowCenter 250HD, they can do that and more." Browsing through shared media is achieved by using a provided remote control.
Even though the amount of time involved is not very significant especially in the Japanese territory, gaming sites are reporting that Microsoft's Xbox 360 console managed to briefly pass out sales of Sony's PlayStation 3 (PS3). While Microsoft would hope that Japanese gamers have just warmed to the console suddenly, the logical reason for the jump in performance was Namco Bandai's Ace Combat 6: Fires of Liberation.
The title debuted at number two in the Japanese charts last week. According to data from Media Create, the Xbox 360 moved 17,673 units during the week, compared with just 3718 the week before that. In the same time, Sony moved 17,434 PS3 units, just 239 units short of the Xbox 360 figures. In the previous week, 18,785 PS3s were sold.
During the same period, the handheld consoles from Sony and Nintendo showed the lasting demand for both. The PlayStation Portable (PSP) sold 59,714 units and the Nintendo DS sold 78,597 units. The Wii console continued to leave its competitors watch it move further ahead, selling 37,617 units during the week.
Nintendo has confirmed that DVD support will be added to Wii units, but unfortunately not in time for the holiday season. The delay has been blamed on the need to secure adequate Wii unit production for the holiday season to maximize sales performance. The addition of DVD functionality has been debated ever since the Wii console debuted in December 2006, but since then no "official" support has arrived.
In November 2006, Sonic Solutions claimed that the CinePlayer CE software would be used to playback DVD-Video content on the Wii console. Back then it claimed that the DVD-capable Wii would be released in the second half of 2007. According to the Q&A section of its Japanese Wii website, Nintendo did have this timeframe in mind.
Production restraints however got in the way of adding support for DVD. Additionally, the Q&A noted that the DVD licensing fees required to add support for the format were higher than previously expected by the company. It gave no indication as to when a DVD-enabled unit will arrive. "Sorry for the inconvenience, but please be patient," Nintendo pleaded.
Back in September, Prince let his plans known to target companies and sites including eBay, Pirate Bay and YouTube in a crusade against copyright infringement. Since then, the artist has enlisted the help of the Web Sheriff company to aid in his battle with the Internet. Recently he stirred up controversy by targeting unofficial fan sites with cease and desist letters which seek details on how he would be compensated.
Now it is being reported that Prince is lining up lawyers to take aim at the big fish, the Pirate Bay. As well as targeting the Pirate Bay itself, Web Sheriff will also target companies that advertise on the site. It also will reportedly investigate the Pirate Bay's compliance with Swedish and International tax regulations.
Prince's entourage had previously issued a statement explaining that they are not targeting fans for lawsuits, but instead are seeking out "phoney" sites. Prince Fans United (PFU), a site setup to defend the targeted fan sites dismissed the statement as "confusing, libelous and misleading".
Corel Corporation has announced the Ulead VideoStudio 11 Plus Power Pack, a free update to its consumer video editing and DVDauthoring software. The new Power Pack enables users to enjoy the full benefits of HD when editing and viewing their favorite videos. The update offers a bunch of new features, including the ability to upload directly to YouTube from VideoStudio 11.
The update has added support for authoring Blu-ray Disc content, complete with interactive motion menus and to create AVCHD discs to play in Blu-ray players or the PlayStation 3 (PS3) video game console. Those who encode frequently will be interested in the added support for H.264 High Profile (HD) encoding, optimized for multi-core processors.
Support has also been added for the .TOD format (Native to JVC HD camcorders) as well as .m2ts and .mts files. Over 50 new set of menus, templates and graphics will be added with the update also.
TiVo Inc. is to bring back its lifetime service plan for the crucial holiday season. Its customers pay a monthly service charge currently, which when combined with the cost of the cable service, can be a drawback and a reason to settle for DVR's provided by Cable companies. However, amid reports that cable providers will be making DVRs incapable of skipping commercials, interest in TiVo is growing again.
TiVo's current monthly plan stands at $16.95 and a three-year pre-paid plan costs $299. It is behind reported that during the holiday season, TiVo will be offering a lifetime plan for a fee of $399. The plan, with time, could save customers a decent amount of money.
Another selling point for a TiVo DVR is the ability to expand its storage capacity and not have top worry too soon about how large your recorded library has grown.
Even though Apple has stated that it will open its vulnerable iPhone to third-party development in the near future, it seems they're still playing the cat-and-mouse game with hackers over their latest Firmware.
Update 1.1.2 was released and later exploited almost immediately. Apple had released the update which was found to fix the once open loophole of TIFF imaging which previously allowed hackers into the root of the system and disable all third-party applications. Very soon after its release, the hackers found another exploit that lets them "jailbreak" their phones.
Third party applications aren't the only thing that bring a big lure for people to unlock their iPhones. Not being tied to AT&T service contracts is a major issue. It has been reported that some 250,000 of the 1.4 million iPhones sold have been unlocked for this purpose.
In addition to trying to block hackers, the 1.1.2 update offers international keyboard options and network support. Both releases in time for the UK and German launches.
In a recent move by the Federal Communications Commission things could begin to look up for cable subscribers. A new regulation that could take effect soon looks to make large cable providers like Comcast and Time Warner to slash the prices they charge for smaller television programmers to lease space on spare cable channels. This move, could then trickle to the consumer by way of allowing a wider variety of shows to choose from as independent broadcasters have an easier means in which to get their product out there.
In addition, their deregulation attempts could limit cable companies from having any more than 30 percent of subscribers in a given area. This proposal comes as a result of the FCC's annual review of competition in the video industry.
FCC Chairman Kevin Martin stated, "In every other industry regulated by the FCC, there have been significant decreases in the price of services, such as in long-distance rates and wireless rates. But the one exception to that is cable rates, which have gone up almost 100 percent."
The band Radiohead made their latest album available from their website in October. Instead of selling the album In Rainbows outright, the band allows purchasers to decide what they were worth, including the option to pay nothing.
The move has been criticized recently based on an estimate from industry analysts at comScore that 60% of downloaders didn't pay anything. After comScore's report was released on November 5th the band released a statement calling the firm's figures "purely speculative" and "wholly inaccurate." The statement went on to say "the group's representatives would like to remind people that, as the album could only be downloaded from the band's website, it is impossible for outside organisations to have accurate figures on sales." However the band hasn't released any actual numbers.
Recording industry executives apparently aren't particularly impressed with comScore's numbers either. In his blog Warner Brothers Records Head of Technology Ethan Kaplan asked "In what world does a “few out of a hundred” translate to “Most”??????." He was referring to the sample size used for comScore's calculations, which consisted of fewer than 1000 people who downloaded the album. He was also critical of press reports, asking "Can someone answer to me how mainstream journalism has survived this long?"
In a 700+ page document submitted before the US Congress, there is a bill that offers some interesting enlightenment as to how deep the MPAA and RIAA are in with congressional lobbying. Within this bill is a provision that offers up what they're calling a "technology based deterrent" for colleges that allow their students to get away with illegal file-sharing. In this bill, it states that if Colleges and Universities wish to keep the federal funding for financial aid that they so enjoy, then they would need to conform with the file-sharing preventative measures outlined in this bill.
The terms in this proposed act state that the schools will be required to inform the students during the financial aid application process of the dangers of file-sharing and their responsibility to help prevent it. The students will also be informed that they will lose said funding if they are caught participating in file-sharing that isn't deemed worthy by the University. In addition, the students will be warned of civil and criminal charges that could be brought up on them should they choose to participate in illegal file-sharing.
Based in Paris, an online mobile music service company named Musiwave has entered talks with Microsoft about a possible acquisition. A Microsoft executive stated that it is currently in exclusive discussions with parent company Openwave Systems Inc. over the details of purchasing Musiwave.
No details have been released yet, but Microsoft plans to use this service to give better support for their Windows Media Player, Zune, and MSN services. Microsoft stated that the purchase will bring Musiwave closer to recording companies, device makers and mobile operators for more exclusive deals as well as work independently with Microsoft's Connected Entertainment.
If the transaction goes through, Musiwave will continue to operate out of its headquarters in Paris.
In its never ending quest to beat Apple at the digital music player game, Microsoft has officially announced what some have known for some time. The Zune player will not only come in 3 new varieties, but also be available with custom artwork and laser engraved text that the consumer can pre-select on order.
Should a would-be consumer want to customize their new music player, the Zune Originals line comes with laser engraved designs from some 18 different artists. These artists include the likes of Colletivo Studios, Catalina Estrada, Laurent Fetis, Sam Flores, Klaus Haapaniemi, Pierre Marie, Kenzo Minami, Parskid, Mike Perry, Phunk Studios, Chisato Shinya, Skwak, Iosefatu Sua, Tado, Nobumasa Takahashi, Ramiro Torres, Darvin Vida, and Steve Wilson. The zuneoriginals.net website is set to go live tomorrow.
In addition, consumers can also add up to 3 lines of their own personalized text, or 5 lines of text with no art. Also, they can choose from some 20 different "tattoos" and all with no additional charge over the player.
The three new models themselves come in a 4Gb flavor for $149, an 8Gb for $199 and an 80Gb for $249.
U.K. online music store 7Digital has released figures indicating that consumers are showing their preference for DRM free music by purchasing four times as much of it as they do tracks with DRM. This could be big news for a recording industry reeling from increasingly lower sales number for their format of choice, the Compact Disc,
7Digital's numbers don't stop with analyzing DRM preferences though. The good news for audiophiles is that the public is also showing a preference for higher quality. Specifically they're seeing strong sales of MP3's encoded at 320kbps. Although this is still lower quality than a CD, let alone what's possible with formats like HD DVD or Blu-ray, it's an improvement over 128kbps files.
“Consumers are a lot savvier than some people think and overwhelmingly choose MP3 over any other format when given the choice. MP3 is the only truly interoperable format that works with the iPod, most mobile phones (including the iPhone) and all MP3 players," said Ben Drury of 7digital.com.
PBS, the Public Broadcasting Service which provides educational programming throughout the United States, hopes to take advantage of the popularity of shows like Nova and History Detectives on iTunes by selling them through both the BitTorrent and Vuze online stores.
“As of last week, PBS had two of the top 100 podcasts on iTunes, Wired Science and Bill Moyers Journal," PBS spokesman Kevin Dando said. "The PBS audience seems to like this kind of access.”
Meanwhile BitTorrent is quietly becoming a major player in multimedia delivery over the internet, which shouldn't be particularly surprising. After all, for years various industry experts have suggested that P2P technology is key to delivering the amount of data involved in high quality multimedia downloads and Streaming. Since launching their download service BitTorrent has developed a high enough profile for some in the P2P community to look for alternatives to the company's famous filesharing protocol.
By getting popular content that's also available on iTunes, other services have an opportunity to be major players in video downloads when it eventually takes off.
YouTube has announced that it has increased its upload size limit to 1 GB and introduced the option to upload batch videos.
The software however, is a separate download that must be run off the users hard drive. There is still the option to upload through the browser if you so choose though but the new size limit does not apply.
The new size limit should help to solve some of YouTube's video quality issues as the compression will not be as high as current videos are.
This latest move should also give YouTube another edge over the competition, because most offer only 100 MB maximum uploads.
The EMI Group has lived up to its threats and has sued online music industry executive Michael Robertson for copyright infringement on Friday. Robertson was the original founder of MP3.com, which ended up paying out $100 million to record companies to settle a similar case. Several EMI-owned labels have filed lawsuits against Robertson and MP3tunes LLC for willful infringement of copyright.
The company runs both mp3tunes.com and sideload.com. In an interview, Robertson said that he had not seen the lawsuit but that it was more than likely retaliation for a lawsuit MP3tunes filed against EMI in September over a take-down notice it received over sideload.com, a search engine for digital music files.
"These guys rush off to court and tell the court that I am terrible and then they end up buying my company," Robertson said. "It is really a shame because instead of using these technologies to improve their business they make an enemy of every technology company out there." Robertson's MP3.com was sold to Vivendi's Universal Music Group for $385 million.
EMI's complaint says that Robertson's two web sites offer an integrated music service, allowing users to listen to music on their computers, obtain copies of songs online, transfer music to their computers and portable devices, and distribute it to others. It claims that Robertson sold MP3.com and "ultimately started this one as a vehicle to achieve a comparable infringing purpose."
Less than a week after a Finnish school student, Pekka-Eric Auvinen, shot and killed six students and two members of staff at the Jokela school before fatally shooting himself, Finnish police officers arrested and detained another youth for making a similar threat on YouTube. The 16 year old had posted a video titled "Maaninka massacre" on YouTube, similar to what Auvinen did last week.
The boy, who lives in Maaninka, was arrested on Friday and his computer was confiscated. He claims that his video was only a joke; apparently he has not learned the concept of bad taste at just 16 years or age. Auvinen had made many disturbing YouTube videos and in the hours before his attack on his school, he posted a video titled "Jokela High School Massacre - 11/7/2007" on his YouTube channel.
Similar threats were made against schools in Kirkkonummi and Tuusula on Friday, forcing many students to leave school early. With the arrest of the 16 year old on Friday, Finnish authorities seem to be keeping a close eye on YouTube activity and activity on similar sites.
Putting copyright issues aside, sites like YouTube have had more than their fair share of controversy over how their services are being abused in this way. A good example is how a Mexican drug war found its way on to YouTube, where gang members posted extreme videos, often including footage of murder, to taunt their rivals and to provoke more violence.
John Kneuer, the man who's job it is to oversee the transition to all digital broadcasts in the United States as administrator of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), is to leave the post. He will resign this month to "pursue new opportunities", spokesman Todd Sedmak said on Friday.
Kneuer was named administrator of NTIA in May 2006 by President George W. Bush, and has made numerous appearances in recent months before committees on Capitol Hill to keep members of Congress updated on the transition to digital TV. His resignation comes amid growing concerns that the public is largely unaware that such a transition will take place.
On Feb. 18, 2009, millions of TV sets in use in the United States will be incapable of receiving digital signals. To fight this problem, the U.S. Congress committed $1.5 billion to the transition, but only earmarked $5 million for consumer education. The Government will provide U.S. households with two coupons worth $40 each which can be used to purchase digital-to-analog converter boxes.
The NTIA is administering the program. Sedmak said Kneuer's resignation will have no impact on the preparations for the transition. "We have the people and policies and programs in place for this project to be successful and all our other projects," he said. Until the White House nominates a replacement, Meredith Baker, deputy assistant secretary, will serve as acting NTIA administrator.
Over the past month, several anti-piracy operations in Brazil have targeted street pirates in market places. Three major operations were very successful, starting on October 5th, when authorities in the city of Farroupilha, in the state of Rio Grande do Sul, seized approximately one million blank optical units, 200 burners and computer notebooks valued at around $500,000 destined for pirates markets in Brazil.
The seized goods came from the border town of Rivera in Uruguay, which has become the new wholesale outlet for suspect blank optical media and burners. On October 15th, Brazilian authorities intercepted three so-called tourist buses coming from Ciudad de Este in Paraguay on a major highway used for shipping pirate goods in the tri-border. They seized a total of 210,000 CD-Rs and DVD-Rs containing pirated music and movies along with 185 burners and over $300,000 in computer notebooks.
Three people were detained in that operation. On October 18th, 18 search warrants were executed in the market of Galeria Pagé. A total of 105,000 DVDs and 18,300 CD-Rs were seized with illegal film and music products. This marks the third time in a year that Galeria Page was raided and APCM is looking into pursuing civil action against the owners of the market for permitting ongoing pirating activities.
A subsidiary of Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., which produces the Panasonic brand of consumer electronics products, has been searched by Japanese antitrust officials for evidence that it participated in a scheme to fix prices for cathode-ray tubes. Demand for traditional CRT televisions is dropping due to the increasing consumer interest in flat-panel televisions but CRT sales remain strong in developing countries.
Japan's Fair Trade Commission searched the Matsushita subsidiary MT Picture Display Co. Thursday, according to Matsushita spokesman Akira Kadota. He refused to comment on the reason the search was conducted. MT Picture Display, along with several other manufacturers in South Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong, is expected of fixing prices according to a report by Nikkei.
The daily business paper said that antitrust officials in Japan, South Korea, the United States and the European Union are conducting investigations into the matter. Several large CE manufacturers, including Samsung SDI, are suspected of forming a cartel in 2005 to keep the price of CRTs from falling.
A judgment reached previously against mp3.ua, accused of copyright infringement, has been upheld by a Ukrainian court. The verdict obliges the site's operators, Internet Media File Ltd., to pay over US$70,000 in damages and an injunction granted against them will now be enforced. Internet Media File objected to the earlier verdict granting an injunction to IFPI member company HonestMusic.
HonestMusic noticed that mp3.ua was using 36 of its tracks without permission, allowing users to download them. UAMI, the IFPI-affiliated group that represents the recording industry in Ukraine, is working with the judiciary and law enforcement agencies with the aim to extend the injunction against mp3.ua to the repertoire of other IFPI member companies and to initiate the criminal investigation of mp3.ua and other sites in Ukraine.
"The Kiev Appeals Court verdict is a welcome and encouraging development for the music industry in Ukraine, where internet piracy virtually paralyses the development of a viable and legitimate online market for recorded music," Stefan Krawczyk, IFPI Deputy Regional Director for Europe said. "This judgment sets a precedent and will help us to ensure that Ukraine does not become a safe haven for the next generation of allofmp3.com-style illegal sites. It suggests that policymakers and the judiciary are waking up to the importance of policing intellectual property laws online."
According to an article in Home Media Magazine, HD DVD standalone sales will hit the 500,000 mark in the next few weeks and currently sits at about 430,000.
The news comes after reports that over 100,000 standalones were sold just last week after the widely hyped price drops of a couple Toshiba players.
Hitting the 500,000 unit mark would seem to cement HD DVD's lead in the standalone player sales but the Blu-ray camp will quickly mention that the PlayStation 3 has sold over 2 million units in the US since its launch.
Should be interesting to see the end of year stats for standalone sales and disc sales.
The Russian Ministry of the Interior (MOI) announced details of a nationwide series of actions against music pirates last week, dubbed "Operation Counterfeit". It targeted production, storage, distribution and retail outlets of counterfeit CD and DVD pirates throughout the Russian Federation. All divisions and sub-divisions of the Economic Crime Police participated in the actions between 22nd and 29th October 2007.
Over 3.7 million pirate discs containing film and music repertoire of both international and Russian origin were seized after visits and raids on approximately 29,670 premises. The estimated retail value of the recovered product was 147 million roubles (US$6 million). In addition, 1,127 criminal cases and 4,270 administrative cases for summary offences were initiated throughout the Russian Federation.
"'Operation Counterfeit' has generated wide-scale publicity in Russia and it is hoped that such action, coming shortly before the busy Christmas period, will deter the expected increase in pirate sellers of both music and movies," said Nick Roberts, Senior International Investigator for IFPI's Anti-Piracy Enforcement team.
Verbatim Corp. has shown off the first color-background Lightscribe blank DVDR's to the market, offering a background shade of red, orange, yellow, blue and green to serve as an alternative to the original gold background. The company, which has the widest variety of Lightscribe media available, will begin selling the new discs in packs of 25 in Q4 2007, with 5 discs for each new color.
The richly colored DVDRs are produced using LightScribe Media Version 1.2 coating technology on the label side for enhanced image contrast and faster label printing. With a rainbow of background colors to choose from, consumers and businesses can burn customized LightScribe labels for their videos and multimedia presentations that will give them a more professional look.
According to HP, approximately 50M LightScribe-enabled drives are currently installed and that number is growing at 4 to 5 million per month. By combining Verbatim's LightScribe DVDRs with these drives, consumers can use the same optical disc drive laser to burn content on the data side of the disc and to produce silkscreen-quality black text and graphics labels on the label side of the discs.
Polish police have taken a so called "topsite" server offline, which allegedly was used to distributed music illegally before its street release date. An album typically achieves the bulk of its sales in the first few weeks of its release and the record industry claims that the widespread availability of its tracks on the internet beforehand can dramatically undermine those sales.
Police shut down the HPN server during a raid at Wroclaw Technical University. The police also visited the HPN administrator’s home and have, in total, confiscated six servers with 37 hard drives containing 12 terabytes of disk space. Two people have been arrested and they are helping the police with their inquiries.
The hosted more than 11,000 complete MP3 albums and promotional CDs on its server for users to download. Investigators at IFPI, the body that represents the recording industry worldwide, ZPAV, which represents the recording industry in Poland, and anti-piracy group FOTA gathered evidence and drew the secretive HPN server to the attention of the Economic Crime Division of the Wroclaw Police who have subsequently conducted the raids and begun to question suspects.
Cyberlink Corp. has launched CyberLink DVD Suite 6, advertising it as a complete package of retail software for playing movies, editing videos, burning and backing up data, copying and authoring discs. With the adoption of blue-laser, high-definition formats growing, the DVD Studio 6 retail package now comes in three different flavors.
CyberLink DVD Suite 6 Essential This version is geared toward those who are new to digital media and so leaves out some of the features of the other two. This package includes...
PowerDVD for movie playback
PowerProducer for authoring videos onto discs
Power2Go for easy drag-and-drop burning of all types of media files
PowerBackup for archiving application data and files to discs
InstantBurn for using a Blu-ray Disc, HD DVD or DVD as a secondary hard disk-like storage device
MediaShow for creating photo slideshows
PowerDVD Copy for duplicating non-protected DVDs and shrinking video content onto discs
LabelPrint for creating disc labels and cover inlays
PowerStarter for accessing tasks and updating software
CyberLink DVD Suite 6 Pro This package offers all the features of the Essential package and more and also adds more support to several features. It offers...
All Essential package features
PowerDirector for automatic video editing
PowerProducer for authoring videos onto discs (with Dolby 5.1ch support)
PowerBackup for archiving application data and files to discs (incl. additional archiving features)
Power2Go for easy drag-and-drop burning of all types of media files (with addition password protection support)
CyberLink DVD Suite 6 UltraThis is labeled the ultimate of the three packages. It includes all the same features as pro with some improvements. It offers...
All Pro package features
PowerDVD for movie playback (supports Blu-ray and HD DVD)
Power2Go for easy drag-and-drop burning of all types of media files (supports Blu-ray and HD DVD)
PowerProducer for authoring videos onto discs (supports Blu-ray and HD DVD)
PowerDirector for automatic video editing (with support for HD video and the full range of video effects and design templates.
"CyberLink DVD Suite 6 combines the best line up of digital media software from CyberLink," said Alice H. Chang, CEO of CyberLink. "It delivers leading features and advanced technologies for doing everything you could want via a user-friendly interface. CyberLink provides three options to give users the best pack suited to their digital media lifestyle."
U.S. lawmakers are once again trying to get the Department of Justice to take up the case of corporate copyright holders. It seems that Senators Patrick Leahy and John Cornyn apparently are concerned that big corporations don't get enough copyright protection from the law, and feel it's in the country's best interest to assign FBI agents and U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) prosecutors to handle civil litigation for them.
The new bill sponsored by the two Senators is similar to one that's been approved by the Senate 3 times since 2004, and which has been a target for a great deal of criticism from conumer rights groups. The bill would create a special team of FBI agents to investigate copyright infringement cases, as well as allowing for forfeiture of "any property used, or intended to be used, in any manner or part to commit or facilitate the commission" of certain intellectual property offenses.
In the past, Leahy has said that supports the so-called Pirate Act because "Federal prosecutors have been hindered in their pursuit of pirates by the fact that they were Limited to bringing criminal charges with high burdens of proof." In other words, he doesn't want Federal prosecuters hindered by that pesky "reasonable doubt" provision in U.S. criminal law, and would like them to start operating under the much loser "preponderance of evidence," which only requires that juries in civil cases be reasonably sure of their conclusions.
Four people were questioned on suspicion of illegally uploading music on the Internet in Italy, following a raid a raid near Milan. Along with facing criminal charges, the suspects were also handed an administrative fee of €12 million (approximately US$17.6M), levied under Article 174 of the Italian Copyright Act.
Officers from the Guardia di Finanza di Milano took part in Operation Genux which saw the arrest of four individuals aged between 30 and 45 in the town of Melgnano. They had been sharing more than 120,000 files containing copyright infringing music using the DirectConnect peer-to-peer service.
The raid led to the seizure of six computers, seven external hard discs and more than 2,300 CD-Roms, containing music from artists such as U2 and Madonna, and expensive software such as Vista retail discs. "This operation sends a very clear signal that the Italian authorities will not tolerate the mass uploading of copyright infringing material onto the internet,"Enzo Mazza, Chairman of FIMI, said.
Mazaa added: "People are wrong to think they are anonymous when they post material onto peer-to-peer networks. In fact they can be located and legal action brought against them. The administrative fines levied in this case show that abusing copyright on a grand scale can be an extremely costly business."
Earlier this week Blockbuster CEO Jim Keyes announced a new focus for the company. Ironically, the new focus is on the company's old brick and mortar rentail business.
Keyes spoke about the company's Total Access plan, which this year made Blockbuster the first company to ever seriously compete with Netflix in online rentals. "The concept of Total Access—brilliant. The execution of Total Access left a little to be desired," Keyes said. He was referring to the fact that despite being a success in terms of attracting subscribers, so far the program has failed to turn a profit. In fact, according to Keyes the program has cannibalized Blockbuster's in-store customer base.
"We've decided that instead of a horizontal shift [to mail], we think there might be more of a vertical opportunity to move customers across channels so that store customers don't have to only move to digital or by mail," he said. "The ability to transform these customers and allow them to have different use occasions and sources of access, we think is a more relative model for us and will be the more likely migration path over the next few years."
One of the methods Blockbuster intends to use for their digital delivery plans is the newly acquired Movielink download service. Blockbuster bought Movielink earlier this year in an apparent attempt to compete with the Watch Instantly feature debuted by Netflix earlier this year. The purchase gives Blockbuster access to what Keyes calls the "largest amount of digital title rights in the marketplace today."
Although the rumors of Apple offering movie rentals through its iTunes platform are certainly not new, a Carnegie Mellon student has evidence that movie rentals are indeed coming soon.
The student has posted that while doing a dump of the strings from an older version of iTunes to compare them to the new 7.5 upgrade released this weeks, he discovered a few interesting new strings.
They are: "rental-content, rental-bag, rbsync, source-rental-info, dest-rental-info, getvodaccountselectionlist, GET VOD ACCOUNT SELECTION LIST, and supportsRentals."
Those strings would imply that Apple may finally be adding movie rentals to its available content on iTunes.
Say a few analysts, "We've been predicting that Apple was going to provide rentals for about five months now," Blackfriars Communications analyst Carl Howe said. "It will give a nice bump to Apple TV sales over the holidays, which we had also predicted would remain low until this release."
The Apple iPhone has finally gone on sale today in both the UK and Germany and early reports show that sales are brisk in both countries.
T-Mobile has said that more than 10,000 phones had already been sold in Germany, and that there were lines in front of stores waiting for the device.
Since its launch in the US in June, about 1.4 million units have been sold and Apple hopes to ship 10 million phones next year. More European launches are slated for the end of the year and the phone will reach Asia in 2008.
One complaint of European buyers however, must be price. The phone is selling for 399 euros ($587 USD) in Germany and 269 pounds ($566 USD) in the UK. In the US, the phone sells much cheaper at $399 USD.
Are we to expect price cuts in the near future on European iPhones?
Despite months of Blu-ray camp statements indicating their format was running away with the lead in the next-gen format war, it seems at least one executive has their head on straight.
Sony CEO Howard Stringer, at a lecture yesterday in New York, admitted that the format war was nowhere near over and that it both Blu-ray and HD DVD were in a stalemate.
Also noting what many HD DVD enthusiasts have been calling the "turning point" in the format war, Stringer admitted that Blu-ray was doing very well until August when Paramount decided to support, exclusively, HD DVD.
"It's a difficult fight. We were trying to win on the merits, which we were doing for a while, until Paramount changed sides," the AP quoted Stringer as saying.
Stringer was also reported as saying that he wished he was Sony's CEO a few years ago so that he could use his power to help bring the formats together and forgo the entire format war.
The quotes come after a weekend in which HD DVD sold over 100,000 standalone players after extensive mark downs in price on a couple Toshiba players.
Visitors to BitTorrentTracker site Demonoid.com over the last several hours have been greeted by the following message:
"The CRIA threatened the company renting the servers to us, and because of this it is not possible to keep the site online. Sorry for the inconvenience and thanks for your understanding."
In September the site was forced to move its servers to Canada from The Netherlands, where they were under attack from Dutch copyright enfocement agency BREIN. Since that time, the Canadian equivalent to the RIAA, the Canadian Recording Industry Association (CRIA) has been working to have the servers shut down. In September the site was down for a week, and when they returned they no longer accepted connections from Canadian users.
Ticketmaster and Apple have formed a partnership in which digital albums will be sold right alongside the concert tickets for many artists on Ticketmaster.com.
Over 700 artists including such huge names like Kanye West, Keith Urban and Bon Jovi will be part of the cross promotion. As an added promotion, the albums sold at Ticketmaster would be $1 cheaper than on iTunes through the end of the year.
The new promotion will stack on the current Target based promotion in which a $50 iTunes card is sold that gives a $25 credit towards a purchase at ticketmaster.com along with $25 in iTunes credits.
Sony announced today that it had released v2.0 of its PlayStation 3firmware which adds the feature "to remotely turn the console on and off through the remote play function."
That feature will give any PSP owner the access to content on their PS3 hard drive from anywhere. Users will also have the ability to create an unlimited amount of music and photo playlists. There could however be a catch. Many reports are saying that to use the feature, you will also be required to run the cooling fan constantly.
Another couple of more minor features are enhancements to the XMB interface which will allow for customization of the background and color.
Additionally, "a information board feature has been added that would keep users up to date on new PlayStation news, a new PlayStation Network category, and Trend Micro Web Security, which is provided free of charge until April of next year."
LG announced yesterday that it had selected Broadcom's integrated dual HD disc format system-on-a-chip to power its next dual-format HD player.
Broadcom boasts that there chips are the only ones in the industry that can completely support HD DVD's HDi and Blu-ray's BD-Java among other mandatory requirements.
So far, the high prices of dual format players have kept many from purchasing, considering most players run around $1000 USD. You can purchase a Blu-ray and HD DVD player separately for under $600 USD combined.
"Our universal system-on-a-chip and software solution brings us one step closer to ending the confusion surrounding the current format war by supporting both HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc formats at the highest performance levels," Broadcom's consumer electronics chief said in a statement.
Wednesday morning at the Media and Money conference, former Disney CEO Michael Eisner pronounced the Writers Guild of America (WGA) strike that began Monday stupid. Specifically, he said "I see stupid strikes, and I see less stupid strikes. I see smart strikes," adding that "This is a stupid strike."
His argument is simple. Studios aren't making money from online distribution so neither should the writers. However, that logic doesn't hold up very well to scrutiny. Unlike the studios, writers don't finance television shows or movies. Both the risk and reward go primarily to studios and networks. Also, it seems unlikely that actors or directors would be incliined to reduce their pay simply because the studio hasn't established a good revenue stream from internet delivery. The writers just happen to rely more heavily on royalties than others in Hollywood, so it makes them an easier target.
However, he's also critical of studios that he says have hyped the success of internet delivery to the point where most people think they're more profitable than they really are. He said "It's a double-edged sword. The studios deserve what they're getting, because they've been announcing how great (the Internet) is. But then they open their books."
Hollywood is still unsure how to make money from digital content. At least that's the message a panel of experts that included representatives from Google and NBC Universal at a New York conference on Tuesday.
"When you take a show like "Heroes" or "The Office," that show ran once 30 years ago," said Ron Lamprecht, senior vice president, digital distribution, at NBC Universal. "Just in the past couple of years, so many new choices for consumption have developed on so many platforms," he said, pointing to Hulu, an online video service formed by NBC Universal and Fox owner News Corp."Hulu is a big bet for NBCU and News Corp," he said. "Our play for video outside of NBC.com is Hulu and the launch partners in Hulu." Those partners include MGM and Sony Pictures Television.
Despite the interest in new ways to deliver video, they're not giving up on television as a medium yet. "Broadcast television is still very powerful, it's still the only way to do certain things," Laprecht said. "I think there is always going to be a place for consuming a TV show or movie in a certain environment," like a movie theater or a living room.
Despite the usual rhetoric claiming huge losses due to piracy, both Time Warner (Warner Brothers) and News Corp. (Fox) have announced substantial revenue growth in both theatrical and home entertainment divisions.
Hot summer films like Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and Ocean’s 13, as well as a strong showing from the DVD release of 300 contributed to a 33% increase for Time Warner's filmed entertainment division. Meanwhile News Corp.'s Film Entertainment Division saw a 51% increase over last year off the strength of hits including The Simpsons Movie and Live Free or Die Hard.
Television network performance for the two companies was mixed. Time Warner's TNT network bosts the most viewed original series on an ad supported cable network (The Closer) and an annual increase of 6% in ad revenue. Revenue increases from News Corp.'s cable offerings were offset slightly by losses in broadcast television, but were still substantial.
These increases are coming during a period when film and television executives are investing in new delivery methods like corporate websites, online sales (downloads), and third party Streaming services like Joost. At the same time they're still making money from traditional audiences.
Apparently motivated by BitTorrent's high profile dealings with content owners, Peter Sunde, co-founder of The Pirate Bay, says the site is working to develop a new P2P protocol. Sunde said in an interview, "If they go and do something stupid, it will affect a lot of people."The Pirate Bay gets around 1.5 million visitors each day.
For his part, BitTorrent president Ashwin Navin isn't losing any sleep over the site's planned switch. "We are not really disappointed here," he told Reuters. "The pirate community has never paid us a dime." Last month BitTorrent launched a new media distribution service that Navin hopes will increase the overall number of people using the company's self-named P2P protocol by more than 5 times. They already have Brightcove, which distrubutes video for prominent clients including CBS, Fox Entertainment, and Viacom as a client. Deals like those are what worry Sunde.
At least one industry observer, Eric Garland, CEO of BigChampagne, isn't surprised by The Pirate Bay's apparent distrust of BitTorrent's corporate ties. "Future development (of the BitTorrent software) will almost certainly be focused on things that do not benefit or further the aims of the pirate," Garland said.
Paramount is joining rival Warner Bros. in offering heavily discounted DVDs to Chinese consumers through Warner's established channels in an attempt to combat rampant piracy in that country. They're hoping that despite costing at least twice as much as a pirated copy, the DVDs will sell because people would rather buy legitimate goods.
Last year Time Warner, corporate parent of Warner Brothers, set up Warner China with China Film Group and Hengdian Group to sell movies for prices equivalent to around $1.50 just a few days after they're released in theaters. Since then Fox has also made plans for similar Chinese releases, but with prices closer to $3 per disc, which is also what Paramount plans to sell their DVDs for. As Fox's international home-entertainment manager Keith Feldman said last November, "It comes down to our ability as marketers to convince the Chinese consumer it's worth spending the money."
"We're committed to developing a legitimate market in China, and having two more Hollywood studios gives us more critical mass,"Warner Bros. managing director of China distribution, Tony Vaughan, said in a news conference.
Despite assurances from company spokesmen that all is going according to plan for Sony's gaming division, the company is apparently considering getting out of the gaming CPU business entirely.
In September Sony announced that they would be selling the manufacturing facility where PS3 CPUs are built to Toshiba, but indicated that they intended to remain involved in related research with partners Toshiba and IBM. Plans currently under consideration would have them withdrawing completely from the alliance responsible for creation of the PS3's Cell processor.
Sony spokesman Tomio Takizawa said the company "is in talks with IBM and Toshiba to review the project." He added "Given the sale plan, it would be unreasonable for us to continue research on manufacturing technologies."
In an effort to promote the Xbox 360 as a "family friendly" console, Microsoft announced yesterday a new feature called Family Timer which will allow parents to limit the amount of time their children can play the console on a daily or weekly basis.
Available through the "Family Settings Screen", the timer can be set and when the time limit is reached the console will save your current game and shut down automatically.
"The campaign is designed to educate parents on the tools and resources available that can help them manage their family's media use," explained Robbie Bach, president of Microsoft's Entertainment and Devices Division. "The main program was a 20-city bus tour where we visited with parents and showed them how to use the controls on the Xbox 360 and Windows Vista, and with kids showing them that there are fun games for all ages."
The Family Timer is not a brand new feature however, it can also be used by those with administrator privileges on any computer using Windows Vista.
The famous pop musician Prince has continued his crusade against online content by sending legal notices to fan sites demanding that "anything linked to the likeness of" of the artist, including music, lyrics and images, be removed immediately.
Three of the affected sites, housequake.com, prince.org, and princefans.com, have formed a union called "Prince Fans United" in an effort to fight back what they call violations of free speech laws.
This latest news follows the events that occured over the summer when the pop star had all content that contained his name removed from YouTube.
Unfortunately for Prince though, his crusade to remove all content from YouTube has landed him in a lawsuit brought forth by the EFF and the uploader of a video that was removed. The video, a 30 second clip of the uploader's baby daughter dancing to Prince's song "Let's Go Crazy" was taken down and the the uploader and EFF believe "the removal infringed upon her fair use and free speech rights."
Should be interesting to see what happens after this latest attempt by Prince to censor the internet.
Microsoft has come to an agreement with China's second largest computer manufacturer, Founder, in which more and more new computers will come with genuine copies of Windows pre-installed.
The agreement follows an almost identical deal with the country's top manufacturer Lenovo, both of which were made as an effort to curb the rampant piracy of Microsoft software in China.
Microsoft chairman Steve Ballmer called the deal an "essential part" of its Chinese strategy and said Windows would now come on every new personal computer sold and about 40 percent of business computers.
According to the BSA, up to 82 percent of all software used in China is illegally obtained.
According to Video Business, over 90,000 Toshiba HD-A2 HD DVD players were sold over the weekend by brick and mortar outlets such as Wal-Mart, Best Buy, and Circuit City. The figures however, do not include online retailers, most notably Amazon, which means the sales figures could easily be over 100,000.
Many analysts estimate 40,000 being sold at Wal-Mart alone over the weekend, making it a very hot seller.
Sales of the newer HD-A3 model also appeared to be brisk, with many locations selling out after the A2 quickly depleted.
As a comparison, Blu-ray's top selling standalone (PS3 not included), the Sony's BDP-S300, has sold 100,000 units total since its introduction nearly 5 months ago.
CinemaNow has licensed Sonic's new Qflix software, which will allow movies downloaded from the online video service to be burned with CSS encryption on home computers. CinemaNow hopes to have CSS encrypted burning available some time in the second quarter of 2008. Some CinemaNow titles to be burned to DVD using a copy protection system based on fluxDVD (aka RatDVD). However, since not all standalone DVD players can play fluxDVD protected content, the standard hasn't been widely adopted by content owners.
“Our strategy over the past year has been to stop beating our heads against the wall on delivering content to the PC and to concentrate on embedding CinemaNow into as many devices and platforms as possible,” Marvis said. “We’re trying to build an ingredient brand, where CinemaNow is an embedded ingredient to how people access entertainment, whether in the home or on a portable device.”
“The online video distribution industry will get a massive shot in the arm with the ability to burn downloaded video to DVD with the same protection and ubiquitous playability of packaged DVDs,”Sonic Solutions senior VP Jim Taylor said. “We are confident that our partnership with CinemaNow will fuel the burn-to-DVD business and provide content owners with a new, valuable distribution platform.”
Sony is set to release a third generation PlayStation 2 in Japan before the holidays with a built-in AC adapter that weighs only 25 ounces.
The new, lighter model will sell for 16,000 yen ($140 USD), equal to the price of the current model.
Sony has given its support for the PS2 until at least 2010, and with the company losing significant amounts of money per PS3 console sold, the PS2 is crucial to keeping Sony's gaming division afloat.
Corel has announced DVD Copy 6 Plus, an update to their DVD Copy series designed to help users copy their unencrypted DVDs as well as convert video for playback on a variety of platforms such as the iPhone and other mobile devices.
The new program allows users to convert in video in three quick steps and the end results can be played on the iPhone, iPod, PSP, Zune, or even the Nintendo DS.
According to the site, DVD Copy 6 Plus now supports "DivX Ultra, XviD, H.264 HD and MPEG2 HD as well as AVCHD and HDV, including direct import from the latest AVCHD camcorders."
As an added bonus, the program comes with WinDVD 8 Silver, the Virtual Drive Tool and Disc Label with Lightscribe support.
The program works on XP and Vista and is available now for about $50 USD.
Joost has decided to scrap its own inline chat client and instead join with Meebo, the popular cross-platform chat service that supports all notable IM clients including MSN, Yahoo Messenger, AIM, Google Talk, ICQ and Jabber.
Although Meebo is browser-based, and Joost normally takes up the full screen, the company has said it will integrate the service as layer on top of the application which will eliminate the need to switch to the browser.
According to an email sent out to users of the Zune media player, Microsoft is preparing to launch its upgrade to the desktop software as well as the device on November 13th.
The updates will be delivered automatically beginning on that day and will add wireless sync, a new Zune Marketplace, and a social network built around the device.
"By accepting the updates, your Zune will have the same software that comes preloaded on all new devices," Microsoft said.
Microsoft is pushing the updates in an effort to keep early adopters current with the new features available to newer Zune users.
Oregon Attorney General Hardy Myers is getting the state's Department of Justice involved in the RIAA's campaign to identify file sharers on college campuses. The RIAA has issued a subpoena to learn the identities of 17 people allegedly sharing files illegally from the University of Oregon campus.
A motion filed by Myers claims that because the RIAA is providing nothing more than IP addresses, it's impossible to positively identify the person sitting at the computer. Myers argues that complying with the RIAA subpoena would require the University to conduct an extensive investigation to determine who was actually using each computer at the time the alleged copyright violations took place.
Stephanie Soden, a spokeswoman at the Department of Justice in Oregon, said "It really is quite burdensome. [The RIAA is] using a broader and blunter tool than necessary and the university feels it doesn't want to spend the resources needed to comply."
An RIAA spokesman said "This is not the first attempt to quash a subpoena, nor do we expect it to be the last. In the handful of instances where this has occurred, the courts have overwhelmingly ruled in favor of the record companies."
AT&T has lowered their forecast for the number of homes that will have their U-verse IPTV service available by the end of 2008 to 17 million. This is down from an estimate of 19 million made as recently as May.
The success of U-verse may be key to the long term survival of the telecommunications company. Competition from cable companies for traditional voice customers has forced them to look for a replacement revenue stream, but so far establishing the service hasn't gone as smoothly as planned.
Just last month they suffered a setback when they were unable to obtain a statewide franchise in Connecticut to bypass local government demands for franchise agreements. This followed a July Federal Court ruling that U-verse is subject to cable television regulations.
Macrovision has patched a security hole in a driver file used for their SafeDisc CD/DVD copy protection system. According to security experts the software flaw could allow an attacker to completely take over an affected Windows XP or Server 2003 computer. A Microsoft security advisory indicates that Vista is immune to the problem.
Despite the level of access this could give an attacker, it requires the attacker to be at (or at least logged into) the computer. Microsoft says customers have reported "limited attacks."
Last week, at the Blu-ray Disc Festival in Los Angeles, 20th Century Fox president Mike Dunn took shots at a company he characterized as an 800 pound gorilla looking for customer confusion to spark online media sales. It was a thinly veiled reference to HD DVD supporter Microsoft, and later in the week a Microsoft representative responded, saying “The [Blu-ray] camp’s claims about Microsoft’s desire to have a format war are baseless.” Kevin Collins, director in the Microsoft Consumer Media Technology Group said ”Microsoft has over 100 people working on HD DVD interactivity and we believe that HD DVD is the next-generation optical format.”
Collins said the company's decision to back HD DVD was a result of purely pragmatic concerns such as lower disc manufacturing costs and mandated managed copying, which is supposed to make it possible to exercise some fair use rights without compromising DRM concerns. On the subject of copying, he said “AACS today is rapidly approaching the ‘final agreement’ that will start to make this available for customers, though I do not have a firm timeline on this.” He added, “The key fact is that Microsoft believed that a next-generation format should be ‘consumer friendly’ and at the time of the decision, only HD DVD supported this.”
Today AfterDawn kicks off a series of guides intended to help you navigate through the maze of hi-def technology. The first two guides cover general high definition signals and HDTV technology. Future guides in the series will include more details on basic technology, as well as instructions for basic Authoring and playback on computers and standalone players.
Samsung has decided to drop plans for a mid-tier Blu-ray standalone that would have been priced somewhere in between the $499 BD-P1400 and $999 BD-UP5000.
"Samsung assessed its product lineup and after discussions with our channel partners, decided to focus on the BD-P1400 and the BD-UP5000 to make its next-generation offerings more efficient," according to a Samsung statement. "As a result, the BD-P2400 was removed from the 2007 holiday lineup."
The BD-UP5000, Samsung's first combination HD DVD and Blu-ray player, should be available to consumers in mid-December, and will be BD profile 1.1 compliant like all players released from this point forward.
Phillips has begun offering television buyers a new service plan that included "lifetime technical support, next-day scheduling of in-home repairs and a simplified exchange program for those living in areas without authorized service support." The program, which is called Philips Simplicity Advantage, was designed to "bring the same level of service to consumers that is already present in Philips technology," the company said. It's available only for flat panel HDTVs 37" or larger.
The move is intended as a way for Phillips to differentiate themselves from value brands that are offering stiff competition for traditional consumer electronics manufacturers. Over the past several months, upstart Vizio has stunned the retail world by dominating flat panel TV sales for one quarter and coming in second the next.
Surveys have indicated that one major issue for consumers when considering electronics purchases is the level of support offered by the manufacturer.
Nokia has announced that their relaunch of the failed N-Gage platform will be delayed until at least December as the company works on finalizing the software for the online-enabled service.
Nokia's new OVI brand will incorporate music, gaming, GPS, photography and other online-enabled features including N-Gage functions.
"N-gage is coming in December. Software testing is taking a bit more time than what we had expected," said Kari Tuutti, spokesperson for Nokia.
The N-Gage service, which allows players to download demos, connect to other players, as well access other gaming features and read reviews will have games created by Gameloft and Electronic Arts when it goes live.
This morning, the Writers Guild of America formally went on strike after negotiations with the Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers over a contract dispute fell through.
The WGA's current contract expired last Wednesday and the two groups had been in negotiations in an effort to avoid a strike.
“Early today, the WGA completely withdrew its DVD proposal, which the [AMPTP] companies said was a stumbling block,” said WGA West in a Sunday statement. “Yet the AMPTP made no response to any of the other proposals that the WGA has made since July.”
Some of the demands the WGA is looking for include a substantial hike in the writers’ share of electronic sell-through revenue, "which is currently based on 1.2% of the licensing fee production companies receive for each downloaded item." The WGA wants 2.5%.
The WGA also wants to get paid for internet streaming of its work which they currently do not. The AMPTP calls web streaming "promotional" and insists that studios do not get significant revenues from streaming to pay other content partners.
Although rumors have been swirling for weeks that it would be moving from dual format to Blu-ray, Warner has said that is has no plans to turn away from dual-format and instead pledged a strong line-up for both formats for the upcoming year.
Many of the rumors started due to a Home Media Magazine article last week in which Warner VP of High-Definition Media, Dan Silverberg made the following quotes:
"One thing that may be changing is our strategy," Silverberg was quoted as saying. "When both formats launched and hardware prices were high, we made a decision to support both formats and let the consumer decide. But now that hardware pricing is affordable for both Blu-ray and HD DVD, it appears consumers no longer want to decide -- so the notion of staying in two formats for the duration is something we are re-evaluating."
Silverberg was then quoted as saying "we can definitely talk Blu-ray" and that Warner is "committed to the format", quotes that suggest the company would be moving to Blu-ray.
Now however, Jim Noonan, SVP of Strategic Promotion and Communication for Warner Home Entertainment Group is saying that Silverberg's remarks were "misquoted and misconstrued."
Thanks to a new deal signed by the companies, CinemaNow's video download service will now be available on Samsung's P2 PMP.
User can now purchase movies, TV shows and music video from Samsung.CinemaNow.com with all videos priced between $1.99 and $19.95 USD.
According to CinemaNow, users will have access to movie and TV releases from "Walt Disney Studios, 20th Century Fox, Lionsgate, MGM, Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures, Universal Studios and Warner Bros.; music videos from EMI and Sony BMG; and programming from the Sundance Channel, A&E, The History Channel, Egami and others."
“CinemaNow is continuously innovating to provide a comprehensive set of tools that leading companies across the digital entertainment landscape can use to deliver a high-quality video experience,” said Curt Marvis, CEO of CinemaNow. “Samsung Electronics is a global leader in creating innovative media ecosystems, and we are pleased to partner with them to offer consumers a branded digital video experience they can count on as the portable video market continues to grow.”
"Samsung is dedicated to providing consumers [with] an easy-to-use interactive media environment solution,” said Reid Sullivan, VP of Digital Audio and Video Marketing, Samsung Electronics America. “By partnering with a leading digital video service provider such as CinemaNow, Samsung will bring Hollywood directly to consumers and elevate the user experience to the next level.”
Toshiba has announced a 22.2-inch TFT color LCD monitor which it boasts has a QUXGA-W screen resolution of 3840 x 2400.
The typical high resolution for LCD monitors is
2560 x 1600 and normally seen on the 30-inch variety.
Although the resolution may excite you, the price and other specifications will not. The monitor sports a dim 235 cd/m2 brightness and a small 300:1 contrast ratio. The viewing angles disappoint as well, with only 120 degrees horizontal and 100 degrees vertical.
Toshiba has said the display will sell for approximately $18,000 USD and will require a video card that sells for about $2,700 USD. Why the insanely large price? Because there are no current production lines capable of producing LCD substrates with such high resolutions and the displays come from "experimental" facilities used normally for medical imaging equipment.
The estimated shipping date for the monitor is Spring 2008.
Canadian ISP Bell Sympatico admitted using limiting bandwidth to P2P applications during peak usage hours. The admission comes after major U.S. broadband (cable) internet provider Comcast was forced to admit delaying some packets from P2P uploads, as well as those from some other applications such as Lotus Notes.
So why all the uproar over bandwidth "throttling" by providers? While it's true that piracy occurs over such networks, there's also legitimate traffic like downloads for legal software (like Linux OS disc images) and legal video and audio. In fact, taking the current bandwidth availability into account, P2P technology is emerging as a likely framework for delivering music, movies, and television across the internet both for downloads and streaming.
Many consumers are frustrated by what they see as deceptive marketing by broadband providers who often market their high speed services' multimedia capabillities but don't necessarily deliver. The Federal Communications Commision is also being criticized for a relatively hands-off approach to these providers. Last week a group of Net Neutrality activists filed a complaint against Comcast, claiming the company's "network management," which renders some applications nearly useless, violates FCC principles stated in the agency's official Internet Policy Statement. There are also calls in Congress for revisiting Net Neutrality legislation.
Disney owned ESPN has entered into an agreement with Microsoft to provide content for the company's Xbox Live download service. "Establishing this relationship with Microsoft on Xbox 360 provides an innovative way to reach our target demographic," said Matt Murphy, senior veep of digital video distribution for Disney and ESPN Media Networks.
Series like the cable network's coverage of The World Series of Poker and video game oriented reality show Madden Nation will be offered, as well as coverage of ESPN's annual Xbox Summer Games. The same programming is already being sold on iTunes.
"This is only the second deal ESPN has done regarding electronic sell-through, and we think it's a fantastic match for our platform and our consumer base, many of whom are avid sports fans," said Ross Honey, senior director of the media and entertainment group at Microsoft. "At the end of the day, most of our consumers are young males," Honey said. "You have a perfect match here."
Microsoft has inked a deal with India's Reliance Communications to provide their Mediaroom platform for a new IPTV venture in that country.
According to Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer the Reliance service is different than offerings in Western countries because it's intended to be a mass market product, rather than targeting more affluent customers. "This partnership is unique because of the scale of development. We are moving further and faster than anywhere in the world ... further and further down the economic chain," Ballmer said.
Reliance Communication is a major player in India's quickly expanding mobile phone market. They're hoping to take advantage of India's estimated 100 million households with televisions, which is experiencing phenomenal growth of 20% - 25% annually as the country's economy booms.
Over the last year Microsoft has made a major marketing push, hoping to get Mediaroom established as a major player in the emerging IPTV market.
Yet another milestone was reached yesterday, as now our English discussion forums have more than 2,500,000 public messages. The 2 million mark was reached back in February, so it took just under 9 months to add yet another half a million to the total post count on forums.
Related to this little announcement, here are the other main stats for our site:
704,795 registered members
190,675 newsletter subscribers
90,963,660 software downloads served so far
799,014 forum posts made to our Finnish discussion forums
I'd like to thank all of our users -- and our moderators -- for making the discussion forum what it is today.
Although the UK government has threatened to crack down on illegal file sharing through new legislation, John Lovelock, the director general of the Federation Against Software Theft (FAST) feels his method will work just as well, ban any pirates from the Internet.
FAST would like to monitor and filter all ISP networks to ensure that unauthorized file sharing does not occur. If such file sharing does occur, FAST wants the ability to lifetime ban the user from the ISP in which the offense occurred. But what if the user than decides to move to a new ISP? FAST will follow that user and "If there's evidence of that person then joining another ISP and then taking up again, we would go to that ISP and say: Here's the evidence and we don't think they should be allowed to use your network". Such tactics would effectively ban a pirate from using the Internet.
Although there is no way Lovelock will get his way on this, it brings up serious questions about civil liberties and how involved anti-piracy groups can become on an ISP level.
As we have reported here at AfterDawn, last month Jammie Thomas, the first person to ever go to trial over unauthorized file sharing lost her case and now owes the entertainment industry a $200,000 USD settlement.
We also reported that she has decided to pay the the full settlement herself and it seems she has been doing anything possible to raise the money.
It seems Jammie has launched a new store here in which she sells coffee mugs, t-shirts, baby bibs, and even women's thongs all stamped with a "Free Jammie" logo created by her supporters.
As the store says, "Free Jammie Merchandise Store is a store that sells products with the Free Jammie logo to get the word out about freejammie.com."
Last month The Pirate Bay filed a lawsuit against some major players in the entertainment industry alleging that they were trying to corrupt to sabotage the infamous torrenttracker.
The MPAA has finally responded to the claims and to no ones surprise, they have denied all the claims including that they ever worked with MediaDefender. Unfortunately for the MPAA's claims, archives of leaked MD emails beg to differ.
MPAA attorney Espen Tøndel said that the "companies represented by the MPAA never requested MediaDefender to do the things The Pirate Bay claims."
One example given by TF involves Universal Pictures, a studio known for being represented by the MPAA. The leaked emails leave nothing to the imagination when Universal execs say “can you jump all over this swarm and try to kill it?”, meaning they are asking MD to pollute torrent sites with fake files in an effort to hide real ones. Universal is just one of many movie studios that have been hired by MD, yet the MPAA somehow denies the claims.
ArkivMusic.com has signed agreements with the Big Four record labels, Universal Classics, EMI Classics, Sony BMG Masterworks and Warner Classics as well as 24 indie labels in an effort to produce CDs on demand under the newly formed ArkivCD program.
The program will include title "sets with massive booklets, such as operas with lengthy libretto texts and translations."
The company hopes to have 5000 titles available by the end of the year.
Nintendo has finally decided to stop support for the original Nintendo Entertainment System, 24 years after the system's launch.
A spokesperson has said the company made their decision due "to increasingly short supplies of replacement parts."
The iconic console was known as the NES in Europe and North America and the Famicom in Japan.
Nintendo's Ken Toyoda said it was regrettable that the company has to turn its back on the old console but he wants Nintendo's loyal fans to focus on the Wii, the hottest selling next-gen console.
Since its launch late last year, the Wii has sold over 12 million consoles worldwide. The NES sold 60 million through 2006.
According to a complaint filed with the Federal Communication Commission by members of the SavetheInternet.com coalition, a group of Net Neutrality proponents, as well as academics from Harvard, Yale, and Stanford law schools, Comcast is violating the FCC's Internet Policy Statement. That statement says, among other things that "consumers are entitled to access the lawful Internet content of
their choice."
The complaint stems from recent controversy over Comcast's handling of certain traffic, which includes delaying traffic from some applications long enough to stop those programs from working properly. So far Comcast's response to criticism about the problem has been to characterize it as "network management," and repeatedly point out that they're not Blocking any application," apparently responding to an allegation that no one has made against them.
But the groups filing the petition say, "No plausible technical or economic reason suggests that blocking particular applications is a reasonable way to manage a network." They're asking the FCC to clarify the Internet Policy statement to explicitly say "intentionally degrading an application or class of applications is not 'reasonable network management' under the FCC policy statement."
In just another sign that P2P file sharing is not going away anytime soon, the very popular torrent site Mininova has reached its 3 billionth download with hopes that it will reach 4 billion before the year is up.
Traffic tracking sites have shown that the site has 3 million daily visitors and over 10 million torrents are downloaded each day. The site continues to show tremendous growth since its launch three years ago.
Because there are legal loopholes that .torrent files nicely fit, sites such as Mininova continue to thrive. Such large companies as Ask.com, eHarmony, and Howard Johnson hotels even have advertising on the site currently despite the blatant illegal file sharing that happens because of the site.
Although more than 200,000 Xbox 360 HD DVD drives had been sold through the end of September, Microsoft doesn't have any plans to integrate it as a core component of the console.
Microsoft Director of Marketing Albert Penello indicated that, although the company is focusing on the drive as an add-on for gamers, which stands in stark contrast to Sony's positioning of the PS3 as a home entertainment center. “You need to get the Xbox system, and software, and then the drive, and titles. It’s not a mass-market proposition,” he said. “It’s a multi-hundred dollar proposition.”
Ironically, unlike Sony, Microsoft has still managed to create a niche market for video downloads with their Xbox Live internet portal. They've also been successful promoting the HD DVD add-on with high profile movie and television releases. What's even more interesting is their selective targetting. For example, in October they teamed up with Universal Studios Home Entertainment and Best Buy to give away copies of the first season of Heroes on HD DVD with the add-on.
“Every time we do one of these things, we do see a bump,” Penello said. “The Heroes [bundle] exceeded expectations. People are responding to these types of things.”
After upstart flat panel television manufacturer Vizio stunned the consumer electronics world by shipping more flat panel televisions in the U.S. than any other vendor in the second quarter of this year, market analysis firm DisplaySearch says they've slipped to second place in the third quarter behind Samsung.
Samsung, the leader prior to Vizio's move, managed to take back the top spot due to sales of both LCD and plasma displays. While Vizio is number 2 in LCD sales, they're not even in top 5 when it comes to plasma.
Another likely factor was the sudden spike in shipments earlier this year that gave Vizio the lead. Since these numbers are based on units shipped to retailers rather than sold to consumers, the increase earlier in the year was partly a move to stock up for future sales. In order for third quarter shipments to maintain that high level, third quarter sales would likely have had to keep rising. Still second place is still a notable achievement.
Since Vizio primarily caters to discount club buyers, while traditional TV manufacturers like Samsung, Sharp, and Sony have a big presence in retailers like Walmart and Target, analysts expect Vizio's position to fall again in the fourth quarter. While discount club sales tend to be rather flat during the year, traditional retailers see a significant increase during the Christmas season.
University of London researchers Birgitte Andersen and Marion Frenz, have reported in a new survey of a large group of Canadians that the more unauthorized music people download on P2P networks, the more CDs they legally purchase.
The report states “We estimate that the effect of one additional P2P download per month is to increase music purchasing by 0.44 CDs per year.”
Using a simple example, if someone downloads 270 songs via P2P, that person will buy 9 more CDs than someone who only downloaded 27 songs. Those results should be more than surprising to the record industry and anti-piracy groups.
The researchers did not find a positive or a negative relationship between filesharing and CD sales so according to the report, filesharing is not the cause of the drop in CD sales. It may actually even be a boon to it.
Here is just another study telling us what the RIAA doesn't want people to know, that piracy isn't as bad you may think.
Next month Toshiba will be releasing a DVR that can put up to two hours of hi-def content on standard DVD+/-R discs using a recently finalized HD DVD format called HD Rec in addition to recording HD DVD-R blanks. It also features a 300GB hard drive.
Since most HDTV is encoded in MPEG-2 the RD-A301 also has a built in transcoder, allowing it to Encode MPEG-2 to AVC. Besides fitting up to 2 hours of hi-def content on regular DVDs, according to Toshiba this also allows up to 159 hours of HD video to be stored on the hard drive. It also includes dual tuners.
The only down side at this time is a lack of compatible hardware. While HD Rec discs can be played on the RD-A301, no other player supports it at this time.
Toshiba has said they expect the unit to go on sale for ¥100,000 (US$875) in Japan. Currently there are no plans to sell it in other countries.
A new recommendation from Warner Brothers, Disney, and Fox would amend CSS licensing prohibit copying DVD content to a hard drive. The proposal would allow copies to be made only with approval from the copyright holder for the DVD. And of course it would require a device using a legitimate CSS license to do so. This is the second such amendment, although the previous attempt, rejected almost a year ago, wouldn't have required studio permission for the copies.
Although this may seem like a potential winfall for consumers, Kaleidescape CEO Michael Malcolm, sent a letter to members of the DVD-CCA (the licensing body responsible for CSS) threatening an antitrust lawsuit if the changes are approved. Kaleidescape is the only company to make a CSS licensed device that would be affected by the licensing change.
The Managed Copy Amendment states that "Products shall not be designed to make or direct the making of a playable, persistent copy of CSS Data.” The proposal, as well as another amendement nearly identical to one withdrawn in June of this year after Malcolm sent a similar letter will be considered at a meeting of the DVD-CCA's Copy Protection Advisory Council on November 7.
Although Sony has kept mum on the subject, online reports have suggested that a new model of the PlayStation 2 could be hitting the US in 2008 with a sub-$100 USD price tag.
According to the games industry trade paper MCV, this third generation PS2 will be even more compact than the current Slim models and "see the power brick moved inside the casing."
Most reports have the console retailing for $99 USD in North America and £75 overseas when it hits at some point during 2008.
Sony announced last week that it hoped to sell 12 million more PS2s worldwide in the five months ending March 2008 and this new third gen console would certainly help.
According to Enterbrain data figures, the Nintendo Wii outsold the Sony PlayStation 3 2-to-1 in Japan for the month of October as compared to just four months ago, when the Wii was outselling the PS3 6-to-1.
110,415 Wii units were sold in October in Japan compared to 47,183 PS3 units.
The higher PS3 sales can mostly be attributed to a stronger lineup of games as well as recent price cuts of the console. The narrowing sales lead must be a welcome sign for Sony's game business, which just posted an operating loss of 96.7 billion yen ($841.8 million USD) for the period of July-September.
Nintendo America has shot down any rumor that the Nintendo Wii will be getting a hard drive to facilitate upcoming WiiWare titles.
"The way that we look at it is, we really don't want people storing every single game they buy on their drive," PR manager Eric Walter said.
"When you buy a game, it's yours forever, so you can delete it, and go back and get it at any time you want. In a way, we liken it to putting music on your iPod; you listen to it for a while, and then you get tired of it, and you pull it off, and you put some new stuff on" he added.
Gamers have complained about transferring data between the console's 512MB internal flash memory and an SD card and depending on the size of the WiiWare games, a significant amount of space may need to be cleared in order to have room for the titles. Walter however, does not see this as a problem.
"A lot of the games for WiiWare that have been submitted so far are smaller in size, so they’re not gonna take up a ton of your drive," he added.
In response to widespread reports that it would be only stocking HD DVD players for the holiday season, Kmart VP Jonathan Magasanik released a statement which said the following.
"There have been numerous statements in the media today, attributed to Toshiba, indicating exclusive support for the HD DVD format in Kmart stores. These statements are false. Kmart intends to support both the HD DVD and Blu-ray platforms, and has no plans to support either platform exclusively" read the statement.
Its still not clear what Blu-ray players Kmart will stock next to its Toshiba HD DVD players, but Kmart has had the PS3 available on shelves since its release.
Sony Electronics president Stan Glasgow has said that more than a couple Blu-ray players will drop in price to around $399 USD in part to keep up with the mass price drops on Toshiba HD DVD players.
For those hoping the players will drop in price even more, Glasgow had this to say. "I don’t expect it to go much lower than that."
The president went on to say that Sony was planning new players for 2008 with "possibly 1.2" features.
The 40GB PlayStation 3 is set to begin selling at $399 USD making it the cheapest Blu-ray player on the market.
Napster announced on Thursday that its net loss for the Q2 2007 was smaller than the loss in Q2 2006 because the service posted higher revenue despite a loss in paid subscribers.
For the quarter ended September 30th, the company reported a net loss of $5.1 million USD as compared to $9 million USD for the comparable period last year. Revenue increased 24 percent to $31.6 million USD.
Napster said it ended the quarter down 20,000 subscribers to 750,000 from 770,000 in the first quarter.
In a somewhat surprising move, Best Buy and Circuit City have begun offering Toshiba's 1080i HD-A3 HD DVD player for $199 USD, a $100 cut off the original price. What makes the move surprising is that the player has only been in stores since October.
To sweeten the pot, the A3 comes with 7 free HD DVD movies, two with the purchase and 5 more through a mail-in-offer.
Although Sears announced they would have the player for $169 USD on Black Friday, supplies will be very limited then. Best Buy and Circuit City don't appear to have limited supply and are offering the deal online and in-store.
Sony has begun a "much more aggressive" holiday marketing campaign with an emphasis on the PlayStation 3's Blu-ray playback.
Sony Marketing SVP Peter Dille said the new campaign is set to start in conjunction with the launch of the 40GB model of the system and it will be the company's "largest-ever marketing effort for a hardware platform."
Victor Matsuda, VP of Sony's Blu-ray Disc Group explained that the campaign would put emphasis on the Blu-ray capabilities of the console. The campaign will "focus on the convergence of the PS3 as a movie and game device" and that it was "a big part of the corporate strategy for promoting Blu-ray Disc this fourth quarter."
Matsuda even admitted that the company was considering bundling the PS3's Blu-ray remote with every console to help emphasize the Blu-ray capabilities.
Sony Pictures Entertainment is currently looking to sell over 50 percent of their digital and animation divisions which could sell for up to 500 million USD.
Sony Pictures Animation which is best known for movies such as "Open Season" and "Surf's Up" and Sony Pictures Imageworks, which is famous for its effects in the "Spider-Man" trilogy should be worth most of that value.
The company hopes to have one investor as it believes both businesses are "very closely linked." The company also believes both divisions can expand into video games given the right investor.
A Sony spokesperson told the NYTimes that the company was "open to exploring equity partnerships, and it's no surprise that there is market interest in our visual effects and animation businesses."
Qloud, the new music service by Steve Case has a very interesting premise. It wants to help users share his or her iTunes music library with their friends using an application on the social networking site Facebook.
The company went into beta three months ago and since then it has gained over a million registered users and totaled 120 million plays according to the company.
Qloud "looks at a user's library of songs in iTunes, and then syncs it with an application on Facebook. The service isn't necessarily streaming music from your own computer: instead it is matching songs from your library to its own catalog of six million plus songs."
You will need to get a plug-in for iTunes however, or the linking between the applications won't work. The service will also allow users to search the libraries of their Facebook friends, as well as play and exchange playlists. Users can then adds songs from their friend's libraries to their own.
"Although there are hundreds of music sites, Qloud provides consumers with unparalleled choice, control and convenience," Case said of his service. "We're delighted to be partnering with a 'supergroup' of legends from the music and Internet industries to take music -- and social networks -- to a whole new level."
Now that it is mandatory for Blu-ray players to have the necessary hardware to support Final Standard Profile (1.1), Panasonic has become the first manufacturer to officially announce a player with support for 1.1.
The DMP-BD30 will support picture-in-picture, audio mixing and have an SD memory card slot which will allow for playback of HD content in the AVCHD format. The slot will also allow for the playback of digital pictures stored on the card.
Gene Kelsey, VP of Panasonic feels Profile 1.1 is enough to give Blu-ray an edge over HD DVD. "The DMP-BD30 will contribute greatly to Blu-ray's mounting lead over the competing format," said Kelsey.
"One of the more intriguing aspects of the Final Standard Profile is the Picture-in-Picture feature that would allow the movie fan to access a variety of entertainment enhancements, such as having the director or an actor POP up to discuss a scene you are watching, or with an animated movie, you might see the actor performing their character's voice over, all while still watching the movie. Not only do these features give Panasonic a strong advantage in the high definition market, but they provide the movie community with numerous opportunities to embellish the viewing experience with additional creative elements."
Blockbuster has announced their financial statement for the Q3 in which the company saw total revenues decreasing by 5.7 percent to 1.24 billion USD. The net loss was 35 million USD as compared to a net loss of 24.7 million USD for the same period in 2006.
The company blamed the decrease in revenue on the closure or sale of 526 separate stores but did say they had seen an increase in revenue from its online rental service.
"We believe the actions we have taken over the last quarter have better positioned Blockbuster for the future," said Jim Keyes, Blockbuster's chairman and CEO.
The Blockbuster management has plans to "reduce annualized overhead costs by approximately USD 45 million through the elimination of staffing and operational redundancies in their in-store and online corporate support structure and through improvements in other operating efficiencies" and has already begun implementing the plan.
"Going forward, we are focused on protecting our core rental business, developing new retail opportunities, and becoming the preferred provider of digital entertainment," Keyes said.
Over 20 million customers worldwide used Blockbuster during the Q3 2007 with over 3 million using the online service.
This isnt much of a news article, but just a heads up that Wal-Mart will be selling the Toshiba HD-A21080iHD DVD player for $98 USD tomorrow beginning at 8 am.
The price is half of the current lows offered by Circuit City and Amazon, and also marking the first time an HD standalone has fallen below $100 USD which is normally the realm of standard DVD players.
Kmart has announced that they will be dropping Blu-ray players for the holidays due to their high prices. The company will be focusing solely on HD DVD instead.
The HD DVD Promotions Group said the move was made because Blu-ray players "are more tailored to home theater enthusiasts" while HD DVD has players under $200 USD available now and most likely for under $150 after Thanksgiving.
Best Buy is selling the Toshiba HD-A2 for $179 USD, and other retailers such as Amazon and Circuit City have it for $198 USD making it by far the cheapest standalone HD player on the market. The Microsoft Xbox 360 add-on drive meanwhile, is selling for $164 USD with the first season of Heroes, which normally retails for $70 USD.
Sears, on Black Friday, will be offering the new Toshiba 1080iHD-A3 for $169 USD with 7 free movies, a deal that should make any interested buyer more than excited.
According to an analyst from Friedman Billings Ramsey & Company, the recently confirmed upgrade to Apple Inc.'s iPhone, scheduled for early 2008, has already suffered its first delay. Mehdi Hosseini cites data from recent checks that show the next gen iPhone was most likely scheduled for a release in March or April 2008, but that now the upgraded version of the one of the year's hottest gadgets may only see daylight around late summer.
Sony Corp. has developed a battery that provides longer play time for the newer slim model of the PlayStation Portable (PSP) console. Released after being shown off at E3 this year, the slim model of the 
In an update to our article 
