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DIGITAL DIGEST - http://www.digital-digest.com
DIGITAL DIGEST | LiveUpdate Newsletter - Issue 65
28 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

It's been a busy week on my blog. Not so much in terms of people
actually visiting and reading it (but big thanks goes out to my
regular reader, whoever you are). I started the week by writing an
entry looking at the latest game console sales for September,
something I think I will be doing on a monthly basis. Then a nice
and short piece on how H.264 is taking over the world. And finally,
another huge rant on fanbois and how I hate them (did you know that
a fanboi's favourite activity is to call someone else a fanboi and
then to blog about how they hate fanbois?). Oh, and then there's the
weekly roundup of course, which you can read later on in this
newsletter.

Links:
* Blog - Game Consoles - September 2007 NPD Sales Figure Analysis:
http://www.digital-digest.com/blog/DVDGuy/2007/10/22/game-consoles-september-200\
7-npd-sales-figure-analysis/

* H.264 - Taking over the world one codec at a time:
http://www.digital-digest.com/blog/DVDGuy/2007/10/26/h264-taking-over-the-world-\
one-codec-at-a-time/

* PS3 doesn't suck as much as fanbois:
http://www.digital-digest.com/blog/DVDGuy/2007/10/27/ps3-doesnt-suck-as-much-as-\
fanbois/


-- DVDGuy


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2. Weekly News Roundup

Woohoo! Another weekly roundup. More work on a Sunday when I didn't
get a good night's sleep in my hot non air-conditioned office. I'm
not bitter, really, I'm not.

Anyway, in copyright news the MPAA has apparently hired a hacker (1)
to find out confidential information about the bittorrent site,
TorrentSpy. I'm pretty sure hacking is illegal in the US. It may in
fact be considered an act of terrorism. All those MPAA "piracy
equals terrorism" posters finally start to make some sense. The big
news of the week was the closure of the popular music bittorrent
site (2), OiNK. There is already news that The Pirate Bay may start
something similar to replace it. It will probably end up being
something better and harder to close down too. Meanwhile on the
other end of the spectrum, Amazon says its DRM free music sales has
been a great success (3). No surprise really, considering DRM is
completely useless in preventing piracy and its only purpose is to
annoy consumers (and make healthy royalties for the company who
invented the DRM engine). Now only if there were something similar
for movies …

On to gaming news, US September sales figures have been released and
it's another bad month for the PS3 (read my in depth analysis of the
figures here (4)). I think I've posted enough about the problems
with the PS3 over this last few days (5), that I don't think I need
go into it any further (although since my blog post, another
developer (6) has come out to say it's a pain to work on the PS3).
But at least Activision is standing by the PS3, saying that it is
the most advanced console (7) and that in 4 or 5 years time, people
will see the difference. I'm not sure Sony can wait that long
though, considering their gaming division losses (8) taking the
shine off their otherwise impressive profit figures. This week has
all been about how bad the PS3 is, and I guess Microsoft is happy to
just sit and enjoy the afterglow of the Halo 3 effect. But they are
not resting on their laurels, and rumour is that IPTV might be
coming to the Xbox 360 (9) in the fall update (and since it's fall
already in the US, the update might not be that far away). It will
probably be an U.S only affair though. Shame.

HD news now, the Transformers on HD DVD has sold well (10), although
not as well as first claimed by Paramount. Blu-ray still held the
week 51% to 49%, but how quickly that their 2-to-1 advantage shrank
(11) due to one single movie, and also the puny amount of HD discs
sold compared to DVDs, means that these "figure wars" are really
quite pointless. I've always maintained that consumers should adopt
a format neutral stance and support both formats to ensure they
don't lose out, and Samsung is helping the cause (12) by announcing
more details on their updated dual-format player (which will be Blu-
ray Profile 1.1 compatible, one of the first on the market to be).
But if you don't mind having two separate players, then HD DVD
players have finally fallen below the magic $US 200 threshold. Wal-
Mart, and now Circuit City, will be selling the superseded Toshiba
A2 for under $200 (13). That's quite a decent price for a HD DVD
player that also doubles as a fairly decent DVD upscaler (not as
good as the more expensive XA2 though, but the Reon VX chip in that
player puts it into the high-end class of DVD players). While $200
is tempting, I think prices will drop further. In the meantime,
check out Amazon's Xbox 360 HD DVD add-on drive deal (14) (if you
have an Xbox 360 that is) - you get Heroes Season 1 on HD DVD of
$69.95 value, plus 5 other free HD DVD movies by redemption and all
for under $180. Assuming each HD DVD is worth $20, that's $170 worth
of movies for $180, so the drive only costs $10 (and it doubles as a
HD DVD-ROM drive for your PC too!).

That's all folks from my hot non air-conditioned office. See you
next week.


Links:
(1) http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=84485
(2) http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=84510
(3) http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=84519
(4)
http://www.digital-digest.com/blog/DVDGuy/2007/10/22/game-consoles-september-200\
7-npd-sales-figure-analysis/
(5)
http://www.digital-digest.com/blog/DVDGuy/2007/10/27/ps3-doesnt-suck-as-much-as-\
fanbois/
(6) http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?postid=546590
(7) http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=84491
(8) http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=84545
(9) http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=84574
(10) http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=84490
(11) http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=84520
(12) http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=84518
(13) http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=84546
(14) http://tinyurl.com/39bey3


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3. Weekly Software Roundup

October 28, 2007 AvsP 2.0.2 (Freeware)
October 28, 2007 H264TS_Cutter 107 Beta (Freeware)
October 27, 2007 Comskip 0.79.111 (Freeware)
October 27, 2007 PPT2DVD 4.1.0
October 27, 2007 X Codec Pack 2.2.0 Build 487 Beta (Freeware)
October 27, 2007 ProgDVB 4.87.6 (Freeware)
October 27, 2007 MeGUI 0.2.6.1033 (Freeware)
October 26, 2007 ffdshow Rev. 1578 (Freeware)
October 26, 2007 K-Lite Mega Codec Pack 3.5.3 (Freeware)
October 26, 2007 K-Lite Codec Pack 3.5.3 (Freeware)
October 26, 2007 VideoSpec 0.5.7 (Freeware)
October 26, 2007 TSReader Pro 2.8 Build 46a
October 26, 2007 TSReader Standard 2.8 Build 46a
October 26, 2007 TSReader Lite 2.8 Build 46a (Freeware)
October 26, 2007 DVBcut 0.5.4 Rev. 95 (Freeware)
October 25, 2007 ConvertXtoDVD 2.2.3f
October 25, 2007 DGMPGDec 1.5.0 Beta 8 (Freeware)
October 25, 2007 GOTSent 0.23 beta 3 (Freeware)
October 25, 2007 MediaCoder 0.6.0 Build 3930 (Freeware)
October 25, 2007 Movica Beta 6.3 (Freeware)
October 24, 2007 SimpleMovieX 3.5.1
October 24, 2007 EMDB 0.51 (Freeware)
October 23, 2007 FF Player 0.97 (Freeware)
October 23, 2007 VideoInspector 1.11.2.111
October 23, 2007 Muxman Pro 1.0.0
October 23, 2007 AVI to AC3 1.0.4.2 (Freeware)
October 23, 2007 RipBot264 1.6.6 (Freeware)
October 22, 2007 DeVeDe 3.3 (Freeware)
October 22, 2007 MP4Converter.net's PS3 Video Converter 3.1.43.1018b
October 22, 2007 KMPlayer 2.9.3.1389 Beta (Freeware)
October 22, 2007 FinalBurner Pro 1.23.0.134
October 22, 2007 FinalBurner 1.23.0.113 (Freeware)
October 22, 2007 Convert Srt to Ssa 1.0.00.007 (Freeware)
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


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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