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DIGITAL DIGEST - http://www.digital-digest.com
DIGITAL DIGEST | LiveUpdate Newsletter - Issue 70
2 December, 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

Now that I've finally purchased the PS3, this week has all been
about playing with it to see what it could do. With the knowledge
I've gained, I wrote a H.264 conversion guide that aims to bring PS3
compatibility, and two version updates of it too. The first version
only had AAC 5.1 audio support, but I later found this tool called
mkv2vob, which allows H.264 MKV files with AC3 5.1 audio to be
remuxed into a VOB file, which plays perfectly on the PS3 with 5.1
audio. The reason we need to do this is because the MP4 container
does not support AC3 audio, and AAC 5.1 audio is not decoded by the
PS3 (yet). I also wrote a blog entry that talked about my PS3 buying
experience and my first week's experience with using it. The
conclusion is clear, in that's it's an excellent DVD and Blu-ray
player.

I will now try my hands at AVCHD encoding, since Nero Vision seems
to support it (albeit with a lot of restrictions, it seems).

Links:
* PS3: A week later …
http://www.digital-digest.com/blog/DVDGuy/2007/11/30/ps3-a-week-later/
* PS3 H.264 Conversion Guide
http://www.digital-digest.com/articles/PS3_H.264_Conversion_Guide_page1.html

-- DVDGuy


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2. Weekly News Roundup

I can't believe we're in December already for 2007. Where has it all
gone? I mean it seemed like it was only yesterday when I was going
around from shop to shop after the Christmas rush to buy myself a
Wii console, and now it's nearly a year on (and people are still
going from shop to shop trying to buy a Wii console). It's quieter
week, mainly because my mind has been elsewhere (writing the PS3
H.264 Conversion Guide (1)), so I might have missed or not cared
about a few news stories here and there. Sorry about that.

In copyright news, Canada's movie studio friendly government (2) is
seeking to implement even tougher copyright laws that will make the
US DMCA look weak by comparison. Well that's what happens when you
elect right leaning governments - just look at what's happening in
France (3) too with their newly elected US-loving President.

Moving quickly onto HD news, it's been a week of where both HD
format groups are throwing stats at each other. First, the HD DVD
people say that HD DVD player sales have topped 750,000 (4) -
impressive. But maybe not as impressive as Blu-ray's claim that they
rule in Europe and during the Black Friday sales (5) in the US. I
really need to write a summary of what's going on in the HD wars,
but from the current data, it seems:

* HD DVD sells more standalones
* Blu-ray sells more players overall if you include the PS3
* More HD DVD movies are sold per player
* But Blu-ray has more movie sales overall because it has more
players, even though it sells much less movies per player
* Movie sales are generally influenced by big releases, title such
as 300, Transformers, Spider-Man 3 and Ratatouille, and the more
releases a side has for that week, the more sales it generates
(well, duh). It does seem that Blu-ray has more "hit" releases than
HD DVD at the moment

There is finally a non-Toshiba cheap HD DVD player out on the
market, not that there's anything wrong with Toshiba players.
Venturer has put out a HD DVD player (6) based on the Toshiba A-3
for $199 - not very competitive when you look at the prices the
Toshibas are selling at. I'm sure the actual store pricing will be a
lot lower. While prices might not be quite competitive in the US,
I'm hoping that the Venturer might come to Australia and bring
prices here lower - Toshiba player prices are high here due to
various reasons such as our prices being matched to European prices
due to Toshiba's corporate structure, but many of these reasons
don't apply to Venturer and Asian made players. And while not HD
news strictly, many reviewers are hailing the new Pioneer "Kuro"
plasma (7) as the best TV out on the market. As an owner of a 4th
generation model (the Kuro is the 8th generation model), I only have
good things to say about the Pioneer plasma range. While I'm not
sure about the "best in the world" rating, it's certainly up there,
although other brands such as Panasonic are not far behind. The Kuro
is available in 50? 720p, 1080p and 60? 1080p models - if I had the
money now, I would upgrade my panel to the 50? 1080p model, 60? if I
win the lottery.

Gaming next, and as mentioned in the intro to this piece, the Wii is
the thing everybody wants this Christmas (8), which is funny,
because it's in the same position as last Christmas. Not wanting to
sound smug or anything, but if you really wanted a Wii, why wait
until the Holiday gift season to get one? I'm sure there were a few
available back in June if you really wanted to get one. Wii stocks
are so low that even the PS3 has managed to outsell it in Japan (9).
It is very impressive figures for the PS3, don't get me wrong, but
if the Wii's stock in Japan wasn't limited to 160,000 or so, it
would have killed the PS3's 180,000 sales and probably beat every
other console combined. The PS3 is doing very well (10) due to the
40 GB lower priced model (how can I argue against that when I'm one
of the people who joined in with the buying (11)) and could top the
Xbox 360, but not according to Microsoft (12), which Sony has come
out and criticized. I will have to wait and see for the final
figures before choosing to believe either side. The PS3 is also a
hacker's dream (13) because its processor is optimized for hacking
like activities. I just hope the console is locked down tight
security wise, because I don't want my PS3 to help some hacker's
attempt to hack into the Pentagon or something. And the official
list of updates for the Xbox 360 "Fall" update (14) has been
released by Microsoft, and it's a huge list. I won't go through
everything, except to say that it looks like Microsoft have beaten
Sony to the punch by getting DivX/XviD support into the console
first, unless Sony releases a surprise firmware update in the next
two days that is. The DivX support is quite extensive, covering all
the advanced encoding features like GMC, Q-Pel and B-Frames (read
our DivX Setup Guide (15) to find out what these mean), and up to
720p resolution at 5 Mbps. And AC3 5.1 audio support, as well as MP3
support, is included too. So it looks like pretty much every
DivX/XviD file out there will be supported. Will this make the 360
the most popular hardware device for viewing pirated TV show
episodes? That is if we still end up having any episodes to download
due to the writer strike (16).

Until next week …

Links:
(1)
http://www.digital-digest.com/articles/PS3_H.264_Conversion_Guide_page1.html
(2) http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=85085
(3) http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=85002
(4) http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=85054
(5)
http://www.dailytech.com/Bluray+Disc+Outsells+HD+DVD+During+Black+Friday+Week/ar\
ticle9846.htm
(6) http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=85084
(7) http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=85069
(8) http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=85026
(9)
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/f04cdfa2-9f1d-11dc-8031-0000779fd2ac,dwp_uuid=e8477cc4-c\
820-11db-b0dc-000b5df10621.html
(10) http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=85057
(11) http://www.digital-digest.com/blog/DVDGuy/2007/11/30/ps3-a-week-later/
(12) http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=85083
(13) http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=85039
(14) http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=85097
(15) http://www.divx-digest.com/articles/divx6_setup.html
(16) http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=85109


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3. Weekly Software Roundup

December 2, 2007 Vista Codec Package 4.5.4 (Freeware)
December 2, 2007 Cuttermaran 1.69 (Freeware)
December 2, 2007 AutoMKV 0.92b (Freeware)
December 2, 2007 DVBcut 0.5.4 Rev. 105 (Freeware)
December 2, 2007 ProgDVB 5.12.3 (Freeware)
December 1, 2007 BurnAware Free Edition 0.9.7 beta (Freeware)
December 1, 2007 DVBViewer 3.9.1.0
December 1, 2007 Vegas 8.0a
December 1, 2007 GOTSent 0.23 beta 8 (Freeware)
November 30, 2007 AVI to AC3 1.0.4.6 (Freeware)
November 30, 2007 mkv2vob 1.2.1 (Freeware)
November 29, 2007 VideoLAN 0.8.6d (Freeware)
November 29, 2007 TMPGEnc DVD Author 3.1.1.174
November 29, 2007 Jubler 3.4.1 (Freeware)
November 29, 2007 Wondershare DVD Slideshow Builder 4.0.0
November 29, 2007 ffdshow Rev. 1650 (Freeware)
November 29, 2007 QuickTime Alternative (QT7) 2.1.1 (Freeware)
November 29, 2007 MLC Lossless Codec 0.3 (Freeware)
November 28, 2007 WinMPG Video Convert 6.9
November 28, 2007 RipBot264 1.6.9 (Freeware)
November 28, 2007 Kiss DajeVu Encoder 2008.R02 (Freeware)
November 28, 2007 Wondershare Flash SlideShow Builder 4.3.0
November 27, 2007 SimpleMovieX 3.6
November 27, 2007 MeGUI 0.2.6.1040 (Freeware)
November 27, 2007 x264 full rev. 702 (Freeware)
November 26, 2007 Freevo 1.7.4 (Freeware)
November 26, 2007 KMPlayer 2.9.3.1417 Beta (Freeware)
November 26, 2007 XP Codec Pack 2.3.2 (Freeware)
November 25, 2007 DVDINFOPro 4.7.5.0
November 25, 2007 Net Transport 2.51a
November 25, 2007 BluffTitler 7.16 (Freeware)
November 25, 2007 Burn4Free 3.8.0.0 (Freeware)

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


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