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DIGITAL DIGEST - http://www.digital-digest.com
DIGITAL DIGEST | LiveUpdate Newsletter - Issue 76
13 January, 2008

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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

The fallout from the Warner decision continues this week, as well as
some more interesting products and technologies coming out of the
CES. I've tried to sum up what I feel about the possible Blu-ray
victory, and what it will mean for consumers. It's by no means a
pretty picture, but possibly one that can still be changed by
consumer action.

HD DVD is still not dead yet, but it all depends on what Paramount
and Universal do in the coming weeks.

Links:
* The HD Format War: End Game?
http://www.digital-digest.com/blog/DVDGuy/2008/01/09/the-hd-format-war-end-game/

-- DVDGuy


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2. Weekly News Roundup

Good afternoon. This is DVDGuy for Digital Digest and you're
watching the Weekly News Roundup Show. I hope you are enjoying your
weekend wherever you are. Now here's the news roundup for this week.

Starting as usual with copyright news of sorts, Sony demonstrated at
the CES the ability to use the PS3 to make copies of selected Blu-
ray titles <1>, for use in the PSP or Memory Stick. While not
specifically stated, the copies would most likely be DRM protected
to prevent further copying/uploading, and it appears this might not
be an example of AACS managed copy, but something else entirely.
This is a good start in terms of making DRM more consumer friendly,
although we will most likely end up paying more for the right to do
this. And just before we move onto HD, Blu-ray backers Lionsgate has
come out to say publicly their reason for supporting Blu-ray: more
DRM <2>! This is not really new or surprising, as a win for Blu-ray
was always going to be a loss for consumer rights, with the region
coding, BD+ and various other anti-consumer "features" of Blu-ray.
It is surprising that, with DRM being so unpopular right now that
even staunch DRM supporters Sony BMG has just dumped it <3>, that
Lionsgate would actually admit that DRM is the main reasons for
supporting Blu-ray, not the PS3, or advanced features, bigger
storage space. Even though Lionsgate admit that DRM is unlikely to
stop piracy and that the best way to fight it is offer better
features and pricing to make official versions more attractive, they
are still supporting a format mainly because it has more DRM.

And on that note, we move onto HD. Oh boy, what a week it has been.
Blu-ray supporters are still celebrating the death of HD DVD
(slightly premature, IMO), while the wires has been full of news
about the imminent about face of Paramount <4> and Universal <5> to
ditch HD DVD (or at least ditch HD DVD exclusivity). Both companies
have come out with statements of support <6> for HD DVD <7>,
although Warner did the same not too long ago and supporting HD DVD
does not mean not supporting Blu-ray. The Warner affiliated studios
such as HBO and New Line have also come out with Blu-ray exclusive
stances, which is not surprising considering they are owned by the
same parent companies and that New Line has yet to release any HD
DVDs of note. Meanwhile to add insult to injury, adult studios
Digital Playground and Hustler have both ditched their HD DVD
exclusive stance to support Blu-ray as well - although you will note
that we broke the Digital Playground story 3 weeks ago, so this is
more of a "kick them while they're down" type of story, rather than
an actual reaction to Warner's decision. The good news continues for
Blu-ray with the announcement of a sub-$300 Blu-ray Profile 1.1
player <8> from Funai, hopefully a sign of things to come in the
hardware pricing department. Not so good news for early Blu-ray
adopters, especially those that aren't aware of profiles, is the
BDA's attitude towards those that have helped it to possibly win the
format war. Their "They knew what they were getting into" <9>
statement and revelation that the incomplete specification that is
Profile 1.0 was rushed to the market to compete with the finalised
specification of HD DVD, smacks of a statement that comes from
someone who cheated and then got away with it. It seems good guys do
finish last (and by "good guys", I mean the people that were able to
release a complete hardware specification, didn't think consumers
needed region coding and passed on shoving more DRM down the throat
of users - you can read more of my ranting in my previous blog
<10>). Microsoft, ever so careful as to not stick their foot in too
deep into the HD war, has distanced themselves from the Warner
decision by indicating that a Blu-ray add-on drive for the Xbox 360
might be a possibility if HD DVD fails. Not exactly what Toshiba
wanted to hear from one of it's main partners. However, Microsoft
appear to be not working on the Blu-ray add-on drive yet, and one
might take quite a long time to be produced, if ever at all, due to
the complications of BD-J. Actually while researching BD-J versus
HDi, I came across this interesting forum post that dissected a
story about the history for the HD format war <11> - a very
interesting read with input from Amir Majidimehr, who works for
Microsoft and with some very inside knowledge about the formation of
the HD formats. Did you know that the Blu-ray Technical Committee
recommended HDi for use in Blu-ray instead of the harder to
programme for and slower BD-J? Or that all Blu-ray discs, even home
made ones, require AACS copy protection to be present? Or that
managed copy is only voluntary on Blu-ray, but mandatory on HD DVD,
which means that managed copy might never see the light of day if
Blu-ray wins?

But it's nice to see that there are still some companies that are
supporting HD DVD, blank media makers Ritek being one of them. Ritek
demonstrated some quite funky new HD burning technologies <12>,
including the ability to make dual sided, dual-format (Blu-ray on
one side, HD DVD on the other) blank media, as well as do-it-
yourself HD DVD combos that contain both HD DVD (single and dual
layer) and DVD content on a single disc. Home made combo discs can
be quite useful for home users and businesses as they transition
from DVDs to HD media (and don't want friends/family/customers from
getting a disc that they can't play). Moving away from the HD format
war to another format war, Panasonic has demonstrated wireless HD
<13> using their imaginatively named WirelessHD technology. This
kind of technology, in my opinion, is extremely useful and I will
write a blog entry on this next week. And when I say "another format
war", there is a rival but most likely incompatible system called
Wireless HDMI. Panasonic also demonstrated the world's largest
plasma TV <14>, at a massive 150?, or 9 times the picture area of a
50? screen. All you need to get one is a second mortgage for your
home, a Toshiba micro nuclear power plant <15> to power it, a third
mortgage to build the extension to your home to fit the damn thing
in, and you're set for some awesome TV viewing.

On to gaming, Sony has claimed that they have sold 1.2 million PS3s
during the holiday period <16>. Meanwhile, Microsoft is claiming
another type of record <17>, claiming they will break revenues
records for a game console in 2008, after selling more than 17.7
million Xbox 360's so far. There is no doubt that the Xbox 360 is
the most profitable console on the market today, mainly due to high
games sales. The December NDP figures should be released soon so we
can have a better look at how the 3 main consoles fared during the
last month of 2007.

And that's the news for the second week of 2008. We will be back
with more roundup next Sunday, so until then, have a good week. This
is DVDGuy signing off.

Links:
<1> http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=85707
<2> http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=85759
<3> http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/01/11/0630245
<4> http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?postid=551217
<5> http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?postid=551243
<6> http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2008/01/universal-to-co.html
<7> http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/news/2206746/paramount-continues-back-hd-dvd
<8> http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=85684
<9> http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=85738
<10>
http://www.digital-digest.com/blog/DVDGuy/2008/01/09/the-hd-format-war-end-game/
<11> http://www.shootfortheedit.com/forum/showthread.php?t=742
<12> http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=85761
<13> http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=85686
<14> http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=85714
<15>
http://www.engadget.com/2007/12/19/toshibas-building-a-micro-nuclear-reactor-for\
-your-garage/
<16> http://blogs.pcworld.com/gameon/archives/006192.html
<17> http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=85705


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3. Weekly Software Roundup

January 13, 2008 MediaCoder 0.6.1 Build 4026 (Freeware)
January 13, 2008 RipBot264 1.8.0 (Freeware)
January 13, 2008 PgcEdit 8.6 (Freeware)
January 13, 2008 avi.NET 2.5.7.0 (Freeware)
January 13, 2008 VoltaicHD 1.1.0
January 13, 2008 MovieGate 2.66
January 13, 2008 Net Transport 2.54
January 12, 2008 Miro 1.1 (Freeware)
January 12, 2008 VSO PhotoDVD 2.6.4.0
January 12, 2008 BurnAware Free Edition 1.1 (Freeware)
January 12, 2008 VisualSubSync 0.9.13 (Freeware)
January 12, 2008 ProgDVB 5.12.8 (Freeware)
January 12, 2008 FAVC 1.06 (Freeware)
January 11, 2008 mkv2vob 1.4.1 (Freeware)
January 10, 2008 PPT2DVD 4.6.0.3
January 10, 2008 DivX Converter 6.6
January 10, 2008 Zoom Player WMV Pro 5.02
January 10, 2008 Zoom Player Pro 5.02
January 10, 2008 Zoom Player Standard 5.02 (Freeware)
January 10, 2008 x264 full rev. 719 (Freeware)
January 10, 2008 MainConcept Reference 1.0.0
January 10, 2008 MediaInfo 0.7.5.7 (Freeware)
January 9, 2008 BluffTitler 7.18 (Freeware)
January 9, 2008 Got All Media 7.0 (Freeware)
January 9, 2008 Camtasia Studio 5.0.1
January 9, 2008 ffdshow Rev. 1763 (Freeware)
January 9, 2008 Submerge 1.3
January 8, 2008 CodecInstaller 2.8.1
January 8, 2008 Video DVD Maker 3.5.0.9 (Freeware)
January 8, 2008 Video DVD Maker Pro 2.9.0.47
January 8, 2008 Plato Video To iPod PSP 3GP 3.72
January 8, 2008 Plato Video To Zune 3.72
January 8, 2008 Plato Video to iPod Converter 3.79
January 7, 2008 SolveigMM Video Splitter 2.0.801.06 Beta
January 7, 2008 StaxRip 1.0.0.2 (Freeware)
January 7, 2008 EasyMPEG Lite 3.3.4build55 (Freeware)
January 6, 2008 DVD Rebuilder Pro 1.26.6
January 6, 2008 SubDownloaderČ 0.7.0 (Freeware)

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


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