DIGITAL DIGEST - http://www.digital-digest.com
DIGITAL DIGEST | LiveUpdate Newsletter - Issue 53
9 July, 2006

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TOP NEWS SUMMARY:

1. Introduction

2. News in Brief

3. Rant Away: THX

4. Software Spotlight: RipIt4Me

5. How to cancel/change your subscription email address/settings
- how to maintain the subscription to this newsletter even
if your email address has changed

6. A simple thank-you and some concluding words

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1. Introduction

Welcome to another issue of Digital Digest's "LiveUpdate"
newsletter. In this issue, I have a big rant about THX, and we
spotlight a brand new software that is causing lots of interest in
the DVD backup community, RipIt4Me.

-- DVDGuy


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2. News in Brief

Apple wants to start selling movie downloads for 99 cents a piece.

http://www.digital-digest.com/news-60039.html

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A 14 year old girl sues MySpace cause a guy that she met there
sexually assaulted her after he picked her up from school took her
to dinner and a movie.

http://www.digital-digest.com/news-60040.html

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Microsoft releases Windows Live Messenger that sports all kinds of
new features such as Sharing Folders, Free PC to PC VoIP, offline
messaging support and more.

http://www.digital-digest.com/news-60041.html

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Benchmark your system, take screenshots, or capture real time video
with Fraps software.

http://www.digital-digest.com/news-60042.html

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Toshiba announces the release date for their new HD-DVD recorder.

http://www.digital-digest.com/news-60043.html

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Taiyo Yuden has released some 8X DVD-R DL. Record up to 215 minutes
on one DVD-R DL disc and burn it in about 15 min.

http://www.digital-digest.com/news-60044.html

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Yahoo! Mail Beta, Google GMail, and Windows Live Mail the top 3
internet mail clients get a review.

http://www.digital-digest.com/news-60045.html

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BitTorrent gets updated to version 4.2.0., update will reduce the
amount of internet congestion the servers will experience thus
increasing your response time from the servers.

http://www.digital-digest.com/news-60046.html

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According to Sony the PS3 should be all you ever need in a game
console and then some.

http://www.digital-digest.com/news-60047.html

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Ever wondered how piracy really works? How do these "pirates" get
copies of the movie before the official release date?

http://www.digital-digest.com/news-60048.html

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WGA (Windows Genuine Advantage) tool from Microsoft, reports back to
Microsoft every 2 weeks or so to give them your IP address and other
information. If you don't like that, download this tool that will
remove it from your PC.

http://www.digital-digest.com/news-60049.html

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Would you rather buy a DVD or download a DVD? According to Wall
Street, price will decide between the two options.

http://www.digital-digest.com/news-60051.html

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Is XM Radio piracy? The RIAA thinks so and sued them for it.

http://www.digital-digest.com/news-60053.html

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Nero 7 updates to version 7.2.3.2b. Its had quite a few new features
in burning and copying, audio, and DVD.

http://www.digital-digest.com/news-60055.html

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The ever popular BitTorrent has now decided to offer streaming video
to its download section.

http://www.digital-digest.com/news-60056.html

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A comparison between the Toshiba HD-DVD player(s) and Samsung's Blu-
Ray DVD player.

http://www.digital-digest.com/news-60058.html

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PSP firmware exploit revealed that sceKernelLoadExec takes advantage
of a security check.

http://www.digital-digest.com/news-60059.html

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MTV starts selling TV shows and more on iTunes.

http://www.digital-digest.com/news-60061.html

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Microsoft sued over WGA tool. People are claiming its spyware.

http://www.digital-digest.com/news-60062.html

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Internet Explorer 7 is almost here! Third and last beta version
here for download.

http://www.digital-digest.com/news-60063.html

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DVDReMake 3.5.3 is released!

http://www.digital-digest.com/news-60064.html

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New worm out that disguises itself as a WGA file and it going around
thru AOL instant messenger.

http://www.digital-digest.com/news-60079.html

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BitTorrent is in financial trouble having a hard time paying for its
server costs. Will they go under?

http://www.digital-digest.com/news-60077.html

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DVD Decrypter lives with the help from a small program called
RipIt4Me.

http://www.digital-digest.com/news-60073.html

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Verbatim released Mini DVD+R DL disc's. Record double the amount of
time on your camcorder when you use these discs.

http://www.digital-digest.com/news-60072.html

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Analyst say Sony is commiting suicide by pricing the PS3 so high.
Consumers will pay the price to a certain extent but, Sony is
pushing it!

http://www.digital-digest.com/news-60070.html

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AnyDVD Beta Update

http://www.digital-digest.com/news-60068.html

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According to Microsoft, this is your last chance to download a Beta
edition of Windows Vista.

http://www.digital-digest.com/news-60066.html

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Police is keeping the PirateBay servers.

http://www.digital-digest.com/news-60065.html

-- jmet


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3. Rant Away: THX

Just recently, THX requested that Digital Digest remove links to all
of their THX DVD/VOB trailers. We have been linking to these
trailers for several years now, so it was a surprise to see THX
deciding finally that we shouldn't be allowed to have these
trailers. To be fair, this is totally within their rights and I have
no problem at all with complying with their demands.

However, this brings up an interesting issue - should trailers be
copyrighted? Trailers are really just a form of
advertising/promotion, and I always thought the point of trailers is
to get as many people to watch them as possible. Certainly, Dolby
seems to take a less drastic approach to allowing its trailers to be
made available to download. When someone downloads a THX trailer and
use it to show off/test their home cinema setup or whatever, isn't
THX benefiting from this exposure, it certainly doesn't hurt them.

I guess THX is slightly different to Dolby, in that THX is a
certification system. DVD producers have to get their products
certified before they can carry the THX logo, and in this way I
guess I understand why they wouldn't want their trailers to be made
available so freely - if people start putting THX trailers onto DVDs
that they've copied or made themselves, then it does harm THX's
reputation. But this brings us to their certification system, which
I think has been a subject of my rant sometime before.

One of the biggest complaints about the THX certification system in
the early days of DVD was that even non-Anamorphic widescreen DVDs
can obtain a THX certification. The most notable example for me was
The X-Files Movie (the original R1 release). The video on that disc
can only be described as a shockingly poor non-anamorphic print with
aliasing artifacts all over the place, and yet, it receives a THX
certification. DVDs like that made me wonder if the THX
certification program wasn't really just a cash-for-logo program
after all. Later on, as most DVDs were anamorphic, this became less
of an issue. THX's Optimizer calibration tool was also a nice
addition, even though it's a bit too simplistic for the real Home
Theatre enthusiast, and a little bit too complicated for the average
Joe user.

/Rant

-- DVDGUy


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4. Software Spotlight: RipIt4Me

The software making all the buzz right is RipIt4Me. In the last two
issues, we discussed the issue of ARccOS and RipGuard DVDs - these
DVDs can't be ripped and shrinked normally in DVD Decrypter/DVD
Shrink, requiring sometimes complicated methods to by pass these
copy protection measures. With the release of RipIt4Me, these
complicated steps can now be simplified to just one mouse click - no
only will it do the ripping, it will even open up DVD Shrink, load
the ripped files and run the analyzer for you by the time its done.
Even on non protected DVDs, it will help to clean up some of the
mess that bad DVD authoring can leave behind.

In truth, you can't really call RipIt4Me a DVD ripper, as it relies
on several other programs to do the "dirty work". It's more of a a
GUI or a wizard that runs on top of DVD Decrypter, FixVTS and DVD
Shrink and controls these programs to rip the DVD for you.
Previously, if you wanted a simple solution such as this, you had to
rely on the commercial AnyDVD tool or the problem prone (but free)
DVD43 software.

Experts who already know what they are doing will probably still use
their previous methods, but RipIt4Me is really great for someone who
doesn't know about ARccOS and doesn't really want to know about it.
Just put the DVD in, start RipIt4Me, click the button and shrink
away. Couldn't be easier, just like how DVD backup should be.

RipIt4Me is a new software, and it will be a while before it becomes
100% bug free, but the early versions already work quite
brilliantly. I don't really know who designed and built this
software, but whoever you are, you deserve a pat on the back for
creating a 70 KB software that solves a lots of problems.

-- DVDGuy

RipIt4Me @ Digital Digest:
http://www.digital-digest.com/software/ripit4me.html

Official Guide:
http://www.digital-digest.com/articles/ripit4me_guide_page1.html

Animated (Wink) Guide:
http://www.digital-digest.com/articles/ri4me_guide_page1.html

Official Site:
http://www.ripit4me.org


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6. A simple thank-you and some concluding words

Just a note to thank all the thousands of people, including you, who
joined the Digital Digest LiveUpdate list. I've spent quite a bit of
time developing this site, and making it what it is today, and
really do appreciate your continued support.

I hoped you enjoyed another issue of the LiveUpdate newsletter.

Thanks!!

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