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DIGITAL DIGEST - http://www.digital-digest.com
DIGITAL DIGEST | LiveUpdate Newsletter - Issue 63
14 October, 2007

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TOP NEWS SUMMARY:

1. Introduction

2. Weekly News Roundup

3. Weekly Software Roundup

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

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1. Introduction

Another week, another set of news and software roundups. I'm
starting to get the hang of this.

-- DVDGuy

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2. Weekly News Roundup

Once again, I'll go through all the news items that have gone
through the Digital Digest website and forum for the week (I've kept
this up for a month, a new record for me in terms of keeping up with
anything).

Starting with copyright related news as usual, slashdot has
slashdotted an article (1) about a website (which I will not link
for legal and personal objections, but search for "tvboxset" on
Google) that is selling DVDs for TV episodes. Not so strange, except
that these aren't original DVDs, rather DVD-Rs containing shows
probably recorded off TV or downloaded. Now, why isn't the MPAA
going after sites like this and instead, going after regular viewers
and even websites like Digital Digest? In fact, professional piracy
outfits are making enormous profits using professional DVD
replicators to mass produce pirated DVDs to sell for profit (usually
to fund further illegal activities), yet it's only Torrentspy that's
getting the MPAA's attention (2). You've got to wonder sometimes.
And speaking of targeting regular users rather than professional
pirates, Ian Roger of Yahoo Music says (3) that companies shouldn't
waste any more time and effort on DRM, which has obviously failed to
stop music sharing and at the same time, piss off regular consumers.
Damn right.

Now in gaming news, and as covered in my last blog entry (4), Greg
Zeschuk of Bioware says (5) that the Xbox 360 and PS3 are pretty
much the same in terms of performance, and that Blu-ray storage
won't necessarily win the day for PS3. While I agree, having more
time to think about it, there are certainly situations where more
space is good. Things like if you want to package multiple language
versions of the same game onto a single disc. Of course, this
limitation can be overcome by distributing different language
versions separately, and it's not an issue of gameplay. There's
always the possibility of multi-DVD releases, and don't rule out
Xbox 360 one day using HD DVD as a gaming format if/when it becomes
necessary. The Wii has a new firmware (6) out that allows USB
keyboards to be used. I would really like the Xbox 360 to support a
keyboard/mouse combination for gaming, although it would give
certain users an unfair advantage in online gaming. Meanwhile,
Capcom has dropped PS3 support for its upcoming game Monster Hunter
3, and possibly other games too, due to "high development cost" on
the PS3. Capcom seems to have a surprise though, with a countdown
clock (7) that is set to reach zero in two days time and the
mysterious phrase "Prepare Yourself". PS3 fans are thinking it will
be a PS3 related surprise to make up for dropping Monster Hunter 3.
The relatively poor PS3 sales is probably a contributing factor to
developers switching their focus to the Xbox 360/PC/Wii platforms -
the maths is simply, the more consoles out there, the more
profitable a game will be. In an effort to boost PS3 sales before
the important holiday season, Sony is set to release its 40 GB "PS3
Lite", featuring less hardware feature (no emulation, less USB
ports, no memory card ports and comes in a different color). I like
this move, although I'm disturbed by news that the "full" version
will be discontinued when stock sells out (in an effort to drive
sales to the "full" version, I suppose). Sony should release 3
different PS3 packages, the PS3 Lite ($399), a PS3 Standard ($499)
that adds PS2 software emulation ports to the PS3 Lite and a PS3 Pro
($599) with 80 GB HDD, full hardware emulation and all hardware
features and. Simple!

And finally, to HD news. Toshiba says HD DVD player sales are back
on top (8), but only if you do not include the PS3 (to be fair, the
Xbox 360 HD DVD drive is not included either). But the sale numbers
are so small, both for hardware and movies, that the release of
Transformers on HD DVD might turn the whole sales numbers upside
down (currently number 6 on the Amazon DVD/HD DVD/Blu-ray bestseller
list, was as high as number 3). A quite different type of HD DVD
promotion (9), to celebrate the release of Star Trek TOS on HD DVD,
nearly 300 theatres in the US will screen the HD version of the
episode "The Menagerie". LG is set to release its second generation
dual-format player (10), this time with full interactivity (minus BD-
Live for Blu-ray) for both HD formats. If they can release it at
$500 to $600, it will sell quite well I think (one/two hundred
dollars more than a single format player is cheap insurance against
not being able to play that movie you want because it was released
in the "wrong" format). But it will probably sell for $999, which
explains why dual-format players only have a 2% market in HD
standalones at the moment. Shame. In the same article, the HD DVD
people are already talking about private networked presentations.
Don't really know how it works, but at least they are talking about
it while Blu-ray has yet to even announce a BD-Live network capable
player (there's no reason why the PS3 can't be made to support it
now, except for the lack of any software to take advantage of it due
to no other BD-Live capable players being available, even from
Sony). If HD DVD really wants to win the HD war, all they need to do
is to perfect HD DVD/DVD combos (no more playback errors, and
preferably do one of those single sided multi-layer combos where
both the HD and DVD versions are on the same side), then for the
studio (most likely HD DVD die-hard Universal) to release a single
combo version for all their hit movies still at the same price as
DVD releases. And at the same time, don't release a DVD only version
of the same movie to force even DVD users to buy the combo version
(the "budget" DVD only version to come in a few months time). If HD
DVD is really not that much more expensive than DVD to manufacture,
then it costs the studio very little, and will boost HD DVD in a
huge way (albeit artificially). It would make for a smooth
transition from DVD to HD DVD as long as the pricing remains the
same. And Blu-ray can't even compete if they wanted to.

That's all for this week. Join me, the same time, same blog (or newsletter),
next week for more WEEKLY ROUNDUP ADVENTURES!!


Links:
(1) http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=84258
(2) http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=84349
(3) http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=84312
(4)
http://www.digital-digest.com/blog/DVDGuy/2007/10/12/plasma-tvs-killing-the-plan\
et-excellent-customer-service-xbox-360-vs-ps3/
(5) http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=84259
(6) http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=84336
(7) http://www.capcom-unity.com/
(8) http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=84338
(9) http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=84337
(10) http://www.videobusiness.com/article/CA6490438.html


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3. Weekly Software Roundup

October 14, 2007 Burn4Free 3.6.0.0 Freeware
October 14, 2007 Video DVD Maker 3.1.0.3 Freeware
October 13, 2007 Vegas Movie Studio 8.0b
October 13, 2007 DGMPGDec 1.5.0 Beta 6 Freeware
October 13, 2007 ProgDVB 5.11.3 Freeware
October 13, 2007 Movie Library ++ 3.1 Beta Freeware
October 12, 2007 AVI to AC3 1.0.3.8 Freeware
October 12, 2007 TitleWriter 4.6 Beta Freeware
October 12, 2007 AVStoMPEG 10.1011.1400 Freeware
October 12, 2007 MediaCoder 0.6.0 Build 3905 Freeware
October 11, 2007 MeGUI 0.2.6.1024 Freeware
October 11, 2007 Comskip 0.79.105 Freeware
October 11, 2007 PiMPStreamer 1.0.2 Beta Freeware
October 10, 2007 EMDB 0.49 Freeware
October 10, 2007 Video DVD Maker Pro 2.5.0.37
October 10, 2007 VSO PhotoDVD 2.5.0.3
October 10, 2007 Vista Codec Package 4.5.1 Freeware
October 10, 2007 Nero Burning ROM 8.1.1.0b
October 10, 2007 ffdshow Rev. 1523 Freeware
October 10, 2007 Camtasia Studio 5.0.0
October 10, 2007 Plato DVD Creator 3.75
October 10, 2007 Plato Video To Zune 3.67
October 10, 2007 Plato Video To iPod PSP 3GP 3.67
October 10, 2007 ImTOO MPEG Encoder 3.1.41.0928b
October 9, 2007 MovieConverter 1.0
October 9, 2007 madFlac 1.3 Freeware
October 9, 2007 CodecInstaller 2.7.0
October 8, 2007 TVersity 0.9.10.8 Freeware
October 8, 2007 DVBcut 0.5.4 Rev. 82 Freeware
October 8, 2007 MPlayer / Mencoder 1.0rc2 Freeware
October 8, 2007 MediaInfo 0.7.5.3 Freeware
October 8, 2007 DVD Rebuilder Pro 1.26.5
October 8, 2007 KMPlayer 2.9.3.1382 Beta Freeware
October 8, 2007 XP Codec Pack 2.3.0 beta Freeware
October 8, 2007 iuVCR 4.16.0.407
October 8, 2007 Q DVD Author 1.0 RC2 Freeware
October 7, 2007 AutoGK 2.47 Beta
October 7, 2007 XULPlayer 0.1.0.0 Freeware


http://www.digital-digest.com/software/lastweeksoftware.php


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