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DIGITAL DIGEST - http://www.digital-digest.com
DIGITAL DIGEST | LiveUpdate Newsletter - Issue 64
27 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

I've sure written a lot of crap this week. Two blog posts, a new
FAVC guide and the usual weekly roundup. The FAVC guide is something
I've been wanting to write for a while now. After finally getting
around to it, I found FAVC very easy to use and I think it has to be
my new recommendation in terms of AVI/video to DVD conversion tool.
As for the blog entries, there was an update on how the excellent
Nintendo customer service and an article on fanboism.

Links:
Blog - Are you a fanboi? http://www.digital-
digest.com/blog/DVDGuy/2007/10/19/are-you-a-fanboi/
Blog - Update on Wii remote jackets: http://www.digital-
digest.com/blog/DVDGuy/2007/10/16/update-on-wii-remote-jackets/
FAVC Guide: http://www.digital-
digest.com/articles/FAVC_Video_to_DVD_Guide_page1.html

-- DVDGuy


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2. Weekly News Roundup

Time again for the weekly news roundup. Got a lot to talk about this
week, so let's begin.

In copyright related news, YouTube has launched (1) its new anti-
piracy blocker. So that's 90% of its videos being blocked now, and
the rest is made up of clips of Chocolate Rain Guy, crying Britney
Spears fan "guy" and video blogs from people talking about things
nobody cares about. Even the lovable dramatic chipmunk might have to
be removed, since it comes from a Japanese TV show which is no doubt
copyrighted. In news that I should have covered last week, a UK car
repair firm has been sued for copyright infringment (2) because
their workers had a radio on while working on the cars in the
background. Has the world gone mad? It's like the story (3) of the
mother being sued because her home video of her baby, which she had
uploaded onto YouTube and removed, because there was some
copyrighted music in the background. I think copyright control lost
all common sense. It's suppose to protect artists from lost revenue,
but how does a home video of a baby hurt anybody? Comcast has begun
to block certain P2P traffic (4) in a bid to stop piracy, and
possibly (more importantly) curb network usage. ISPs sell you
bandwidth when they do not have the network capacity to accommodate
it if everyone was using the maximum. It has worked before because
most people don't use anywhere near their allocated limits.
Unfortunately with the net becoming more and more popular, and
downloads becoming larger and larger (watching 24 hours of legal
YouTube videos can use up GBs of bandwidth), people are using more
and getting closer to their limits than ever before. If the net is
to continue to thrive, then somebody, either in the private sector
or the government, need to step in and fund further network
infrastructure, because there is only so much you can do to limit
traffic flow before it starts to hurt the Internet. Went a little
off topic here, sorry about that.
Now to change the topic entirely, in gaming news, the PS3 has seen a
sale surge up nearly 180% in recent weeks in the UK. At first
glance, it seems that the surge is due to the introduction of the
cheaper 40 GB PS2-emulation-less version of the PS3, but sales
figure show (5) that people are actually buying the discontinued
model (with PS2 emulation) for fear that they won't be able to buy a
PS2 compatible PS3 in the future. I share their fears, but I lack
the money to do anything about it. This might have been Sony's
strategy all along, but it all depends on what happens after the PS2
compatible PS3 sells out - will they introduce another model that
has PS2 compatibility, or do what they are threatening to do now,
which is to stop PS2 emulation support altogether? If so, won't that
hurt PS3 sales even more? While the situation may be far from
desperate for Sony, they are sure acting like it with the latest
news that they've sold their PS3 cell chip production plant to
bitter HD rivals Toshiba. In the short terms, this frees up money
for Sony and allows them to concentrate on their core products. But
in the long term, won't this gives Toshiba control over the pricing
of PS3 cell chips and so wouldn't this mean less price cuts in the
future? Certainly, it will improve Toshiba's profile as a technology
leader, and the cost of running such a production plant can be
offset easily by their record earnings recently. Toshiba is also
developing a close relationship with Microsoft? Will we see a cell
chip in the Xbox 720 perhaps? Microsoft themselves are doing pretty
well recently due to Halo 3. It has pushed Xbox 360 sales past the
Wii (6), shipping double the normal monthly number of consoles and
almost 5 times as many sales as the PS3 (which declined 8% in a
month which saw gaming sales actually increase by 64%). It's amazing
to think that a single game, the third in the series in fact,
managed to do all of this. Sony really needs a game like this to
push the PS3 instead of relying on Blu-ray to sell consoles, but
there appears to be nothing on the horizon just yet (as least no
exclusives). It's not all bad news for Sony though, - their their
PSP is doing very well, not a Nintendo DS beater, but still enough
of a market to sustain it for a few generations. Microsoft,
meanwhile, is planning to sell a Xbox 360 that includes a built-in
HD DVD drive (7). Personally, I think they should have done it with
the Elite, but I also don't think they will do it until HD DVD
become a more established format.

On to HD news, this article (8) goes behind the scenes to look at
the development of the Transformers HD DVD and the advanced
interactive/web enabled content for the disc. The Transformers HD
DVD has been selling very well, in the top 5 of disc sales on Amazon
(that includes all DVD sales) - it's the kind of movie that will
sell discs, not because it's a brilliant movie (it's not), but it's
the kind of movie to really show off HD systems. It's also selling
well because the disc is region free, and I know lots of people here
in Australia that have purchased through Amazon, and with the
exchange rate and the horrible pricing of both Blu-ray and HD DVD
movies here in Australia (the price for the Transformers HD DVD here
in Australia is $US 38, compared to only $28 from Amazon), no wonder
people are sourcing their HD movies overseas (9). There is also the
strange situation where some movies are released by different
studios worldwide, and these studios differ in which HD format they
support - a Blu-ray exclusive in the US might be a HD DVD exclusive
in the UK. With HD DVD being region-free, HD DVD owners are at an
advantage when it comes to buying overseas. Blu-ray owners, however,
have to be vigilant when checking to see if movies are indeed region-
free (a lot of them are), or risk buying a movie they can't play.
Region control sucks. In Australia, companies cannot enforce DVD
region control due to our competition commission (ACCC) stating that
forcing region control might be against the Trade Practices Act.
This is why almost all our DVD players are region free, even from
big brands like LG or Samsung (there is usually a code to unlock
these players). I hope the situation continues with HD players, but
so far, all HD players are region locked. Speaking of HD players,
Toshiba has finally started selling HD DVD players here in
Australia, and it looks like they've read my post (10) about free
movie offers and the lack of them here in Australia. Toshiba are now
offering free movies too with their players in Australia, more
details here (11). Hopefully, this will allow HD DVD to break into
the Blu-ray dominated market here in Australia (it's not hard to
dominate our very small market, especially considering the competing
format has zero standalone players for sale).

That's it for this week. See you in a week's time.


Links:
(1) http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=84412
(2) http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=84425
(3) http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=84468
(4) http://www.digital-digest.com/news-60739.html
(5) http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=84436
(6) http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=84447
(7) http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=84458
(8)
http://dvd.monstersandcritics.com/features/article_1365236.php/Paramount_Transfo\
rmers_HD_DVD_way_more_than_meets_the_eye_
(9) http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=84444
(10)
http://www.digital-digest.com/blog/DVDGuy/2007/10/04/where-are-my-free-movies-mo\
re-bd-nonsense-is-your-tv-hd/
(11) http://www.dtvforum.info/index.php?showtopic=55518


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3. Weekly Software Roundup

October 21, 2007 DVRMSToolbox 1.2.0.9 (Freeware)
October 21, 2007 Photodex ProShow Producer 3.1.2018
October 21, 2007 Photodex ProShow Gold 3.1.2018
October 21, 2007 Photodex ProShow 3.1.2018
October 20, 2007 AVI to AC3 1.0.4.1 (Freeware)
October 20, 2007 ProgDVB 5.11.5 (Freeware)
October 20, 2007 MeGUI 0.2.6.1027 (Freeware)
October 19, 2007 PiMPStreamer 1.0 (Freeware)
October 19, 2007 Videora iPod Converter 3.05 (Freeware)
October 19, 2007 Videora iPhone Converter 3.05 (Freeware)
October 19, 2007 ConvertXtoDVD 2.2.3.258d
October 19, 2007 Movie Library ++ 3.2 (Freeware)
October 18, 2007 Goldwave 5.22
October 18, 2007 XULPlayer 0.2.0.0 (Freeware)
October 18, 2007 Joost 1.0.2 Beta (Freeware)
October 18, 2007 ChrisTV Standard 5.10
October 18, 2007 ChrisTV Professional 5.10
October 18, 2007 ChrisTV Lite 5.10 (Freeware)
October 18, 2007 MediaCoder 0.6.0 Build 3920 (Freeware)
October 17, 2007 GOTSent 0.22 (Freeware)
October 17, 2007 TSReader Pro 2.8 Build 46
October 17, 2007 TSReader Standard 2.8 Build 46
October 17, 2007 TSReader Lite 2.8 Build 46 (Freeware)
October 17, 2007 K-Lite Mega Codec Pack 3.5.0 (Freeware)
October 17, 2007 K-Lite Codec Pack 3.5.0 (Freeware)
October 17, 2007 MediaPortal 0.2.3.0 RC3 (Freeware)
October 17, 2007 XviD4PSP 5.023 Beta (Freeware)
October 17, 2007 SlideshowMovie 1.0.3
October 16, 2007 Comskip 0.79.107 (Freeware)
October 16, 2007 AVStoMPEG 10.2007.1015.2100 (Freeware)
October 16, 2007 AVStoDVD 1.1.3 (Freeware)
October 16, 2007 iuVCR 4.17.0.408
October 16, 2007 VideoInspector 1.11.1.110
October 16, 2007 Submerge 1.2
October 16, 2007 Net Transport 2.49
October 16, 2007 MediaCodeSpeedEdit 1.1.0.8 (Freeware)
October 15, 2007 SimpleMovieX 3.5
October 15, 2007 ffdshow Rev. 1530 (Freeware)
October 14, 2007 VirtualDub 1.7.6 (Build 28292) (Freeware)
October 14, 2007 Burn4Free 3.6.0.0 (Freeware)
October 14, 2007 Video DVD Maker 3.1.0.3 (Freeware)


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


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4. How to cancel/change settings/email address for your subscription
to this newsletter

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