**************************************************************
This issue of Digital Digest Live Update is sponsored by
MP4Converter Software Studio and ImTOO Software Studio, professional
providers of software for the latest and most popular MP4 Players
like the iPod, PSP, Archos, Zune, iRiver and other portable devices.
For more information, please visit www.mp4converter.net and
www.imtoo.com

**************************************************************

DIGITAL DIGEST - http://www.digital-digest.com
DIGITAL DIGEST | LiveUpdate Newsletter - Issue 58
19 December, 2006

**************************************************************

TOP NEWS SUMMARY:

1. Introduction

2. iPod Video Converter for Mac

3. DVD to iPod Suite for Windows

4. News in Brief

5. Holiday Greetings

6. Bits and Pieces

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

8. A simple thank-you and some concluding words

*******************************************************

1. Introduction

Welcome to another issue of Digital Digest's "LiveUpdate"
newsletter, in what could be the final issue of 2006. Hope you've
had a great 2006 and a brilliant 2007.

-- DVDGuy

*******************************************************

2. iPod Video Converter for Mac-- helps Mac computer users enjoy
your beloved files on your iPod/ PSP/ Zune etc directly

As more and more people are finding out, MP4Converter Software
Studio is a professional provider of software for the latest and
most popular MP4 Players like the iPod, PSP, Archos, Zune,
iRiver ... We have released a new series of products - if you are
confused about how to transfer DVD/ video files for your iPod on Mac
or Windows , here are 3 tools you can try for FREE:

iPod Video Converter for Mac
- Professional tool for Mac users
- rip and convert various video files to iPod MP4 directly
- rip and convert all audio files to iPod M4A, MP3, AAC etc
More info: http://www.mp4converter.net/ipod-video-converter-mac.html
Free Trial:
http://www.mp4converter.net/downloads/ipod-video-converter-for-mac.tar.gz

iPod Video Converter
- Special tool for windows users
- rip and convert various video files to iPod MP4 directly
- rip and convert all audio files to iPod M4A, MP3, AAC etc
More info: http://www.mp4converter.net/ipod-video-converter-win.html
Free Trial: http://www.mp4converter.net/downloads/m-ipod-video-converter.exe

DVD to iPod Converter
- Professional tool for windows users
- rip and convert DVDs to iPod MP4 directly
- rip and convert DVDs to iPod M4A, MP3, AAC
More info: http://www.mp4converter.net/dvd-to-ipod-converter-win.html
Free Trial: http://www.mp4converter.net/downloads/m-dvd-to-ipod-converter.exe

If you own an iPod, a PSP or Zune/ iRiver/ Archos / Creative Zen at
the same time, a comprehensive tool for all of them is recommended:

MP4 Converter
- For windows users
- convert various video files to MP4 format for iPod, PSP, Zune,
Archos, iRiver, Creative Zen etc
- convert audio files to M4A, AAC etc
More info: http://www.mp4converter.net/mp4-converter-win.html
Free Trial: http://www.mp4converter.net/downloads/m-mp4-converter.exe

DVD to MP4 Converter
- For windows users
- rip and convert DVD to MP4, AVI, MPEG4, DivX, XviD video formats
directly
- rip and convert DVD to MP3, AAC, M4A
More info: http://www.mp4converter.net/dvd-to-mp4-converter-win.html
Free Trial: http://www.mp4converter.net/downloads/m-dvd-to-mp4-converter.exe

More software available at: http://www.mp4converter.net/

*******************************************************

3. DVD to iPod Suite for Windows --- bring almost everything closer
to your iPod

ImTOO Software Studio is an outstanding multimedia software provider
with a high reputation amongst users and the software industry.
To thank all the customers' support, ImTOO have provided a 30%
discount for ImTOO DVD to iPod Suite at $45.

ImTOO DVD to iPod Suite
- Contains DVD to iPod Converter and iPod Video/Movie Converter
- Rip and converter DVD to iPod supported MP4 video format directly
- Convert almost all video and audio files to iPod supported M4A,
AAC, MP3 etc
- Simple settings with fast speed

Free Trial: http://www.imtoo.com/downloads/dvd-to-ipod-suite.zip
Learn More: http://www.imtoo.com/dvd-to-ipod-suite.html
But Now: http://www.imtoo.com/pay/pay.php?product_code=dvd-to-ipod-suite

Besides this iPod suite, ImTOO Software Studio provides numerous
other software as well,such as:
DVD Ripper
DVD Audio Ripper
Video Converter (MPEG Encoder)
DVD Copy Express
DVD Creator

...

High quality with discount price are provided!!

Learn more from http://www.imtoo.com

*******************************************************

4. News in Brief

Ahead software, also known as Nero has updated their Nero Recode
software to version 2.3.7.0. to include the ability of importing
subtitles and more.

http://www.digital-digest.com/news-60310.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ahead software has updated Nero 7 to version 7.5.9.0 to help
recording Blu-Ray and HD-DVD DVD's and it is also Windows Vista
Ready.

http://www.digital-digest.com/news-60311.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Elby software has updated the CloneDVD Mobile software to correct
some bugs and fix some subtitle problems.

http://www.digital-digest.com/news-60313.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

CloneDVD updates to fix a problem with unicode characters not
displaying properly and mild subtitle problems.

http://www.digital-digest.com/news-60319.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Some XBOX 360 users are experiencing technical difficulties while
trying to download available content from Microsoft's new XBOX Live
service.

http://www.digital-digest.com/news-60314.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Be the first to own Lite-On's new 20X DVD burner!

http://www.digital-digest.com/news-60317.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The program "FixVTS" underwent a update to allow it to run under the
Linux operating system.

http://www.digital-digest.com/news-60318.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Convert any video file to a .AVI with the Winff program!

http://www.digital-digest.com/news-60320.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

HD-DVD hits the road on this tricked-out 18-wheeler, also known as
the HD DVD Mobile Experience which is filled with all the latest HD
hardware.

http://www.digital-digest.com/news-60321.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Magic DVD Ripper has updated their software to version 4.3 to help
ripping episodic DVD's and help converting new Sony protected DVD's.

http://www.digital-digest.com/news-60322.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

20 major TV networks and film studios have collaborated with YouTube
to bring you High Definition content for free.

http://www.digital-digest.com/news-60325.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Virus spreading through MySpace when users view a malicious embedded
QuickTime video.

http://www.digital-digest.com/news-60326.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

DVD ReBuilder under goes a fairly lengthy update to cover supporting
new output formats to fixing a rate control problem that caused
jerking in the video .

http://www.digital-digest.com/news-60327.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Alive Software has a whole slew of updates to all of its software
from the Zune converter to its 3GP converter.

http://www.digital-digest.com/news-60328.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Nintendo is already getting sued for faulty game equipment that
apparently is getting the blame for a lot of broken items and
electronics.

http://www.digital-digest.com/news-60333.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

DVD2One has updated their software to include the much requested
batch processing feature as well as the ability to check the file
system of your destination drive.

http://www.digital-digest.com/news-60338.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

RipIt4Me goes through so many updates, its hard to remember all of
the changes it has under gone!  There has been at least 4 or 5
updates since the last news letter!

http://www.digital-digest.com/news-60339.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Slysoft has updated their AnyDVD software to help over come some new
Sony copyright protections as well added/modified the language files.

http://www.digital-digest.com/news-60340.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

DVD95Copy has also updated to handle these new copyright protection
schemes coming out.

http://www.digital-digest.com/news-60341.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sony and Pioneer have both released a Blu-Ray player with shocking
similarities!  Perhaps someone copied off someone else?

http://www.digital-digest.com/news-60342.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Apple Computers is tossing around the idea of entering the game
console market to compete against Nintendo and Sony, as well as
Microsoft.

http://www.digital-digest.com/news-60343.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Nintendo will replace Wiimote controller straps after numerous
reports of Wiimote related accidents

http://www.digital-digest.com/news-60347.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

DVDFab Gold/Platinum/Decrypter gets another version update, now with
ISO input/output support and several fixes

http://www.digital-digest.com/news-60349.html

-- jmet

*******************************************************

5. Holiday Greetings

Everyone at Digital Digest and the Digital Video Forums would like
to wish you a happy and safe holiday period. We hope you've had a
great 2006. 2006 for Digital Digest was pretty special, with the
launch of our re-designed website and continued growth of our forum
into one of the biggest digital video forums on the net, it's been
full of up and downs. 2007 looks to be an interesting year, with the
high definition DVD formats looking to make an impact on the PC
market, and the many new challenges that will come with the release
of Windows Vista.

Have a great 2007.

-- DVDGuy

******************************************************

6. Bits and Pieces

Exciting news for HD DVD supporters and Xbox 360 gamers - the Xbox
360's HD DVD add-on drive (retails for about $200) can be connected
to Windows XP, Vista and even Mac OS X and will function perfectly
as a HD DVD read drive, reading data disc and playing back HD DVD
movies (software HD DVD player required). The add-on drive uses an
USB connector so it's easy to connect to your PC. Drivers are
supplied by Toshiba for Windows XP, but support within Vista and OS
X is built in to these operating systems. This means for $200, not
only do you get a standalone HD DVD player, you also get a external
HD DVD drive for your computer as well. Looks like Microsoft has got
this one spot on. If you want to find out more and actually see some
screenshots of playback in action (as well as what the internals of
the drive looks like), head on to this article:

http://uneasysilence.com/archive/2006/11/8303/

Still on the theme of console HD video, High-Def Digest (not related
to us) has written quite a good comparison between Blu-ray playback
on the PS3 and HD DVD playback on the Xbox 360 with add-on drive.
The article points out some flaws in both players, compared to your
average standalone player. For the Xbox 360, there's no HDMI output
for one (although we don't discount the possibility of Microsoft
releasing HDMI cables one day) and the noisy nature of the console
itself (cooling fans), which goes against the usual "silent running"
principle of home theatre components. There's also no internal True
HD or DTS-HD decoding/analog output.

For the PS3, the opposite occurs as there's no analog video output
(component), and only HDMI (version 1.3, which is nice), but
internal decoding of all the audio formats (except for DTS-HD
Lossless) is present. The biggest problem seems to be the lack of
upconversion for both games and movies, in particular upconversion
of 720p content when connected in 1080 mode. In this situation, the
720p content is downconverted to 480p, so you're stuck with that if
your monitor does not support 720p inputs.

These problems aside, both players are more than adequate,
considering that they are really bonus features since people buy
them for games first and movies second. The Xbox 360 add-on drive's
computer support might just give it the edge it needs to win my
vote. You can read more about the comparison and review here:

http://www.highdefdigest.com/feature_ps3vsxbox360addon.html

RipIt4Me's popularity continues to grow. I for one don't use any
other rippers now, and you can all see that from the recent guides
I've written. What's new recently is the support for Linux (running
under Wine). Wine or natively, there are tons of Linux and Mac OS X
software titles available (Linux software listing on Digital
Digest : http://www.digital-digest.com/software/topcategory-17.html,
Mac OS: http://www.digital-digest.com/software/topcategory-16.html)
for anything from DVD authoring (a favourite on the Mac) to
DivX/XviD encoding. I had a peek at the stats listed on RipIt4Me's
download page, 1.3 millions + downloads and 2.3 million + page views
is pretty impressive for a software that's not even 6 months old.
Some useful RipIt4Me links:

Download: http://www.ripit4me.org/download.html
Guide: http://www.ripit4me.org/guide.html
Animated Guide: http://www.digital-digest.com/articles/ri4me_guide_page1.html
Quick and Dirty DVD Backup Guide (using RipIt4Me):
http://www.digital-digest.com/articles/RipIt4Me_DVD_Shrink_Quick_Backup_page1.ht\
ml

I've also written a new guide for MeGUI. MeGUI isn't the most newbie-
friendly converter around, but for everyone else, it's fantastic.
Through Avisynth, it supports a whole range of input formats, and
gives you lots of options to play around with. The guide I've
written concentrates on H.264 encoding (from a DVD source, ripped
using RipIt4Me of course), although it could easily be adapted to
other encoding formats as well. You can read the guide here:

http://www.digital-digest.com/articles/MeGUI_H.264_Conversion_Guide_page1.html

-- DVDGuy

******************************************************

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

Changing subscription status for this newsletter is pretty easy.

To un-subscribe:
- Send an email to liveupdate-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com using the
email account that receives this newsletter.
- Or go to the Yahoo My Groups page to edit your group
subscriptions. More information here:
http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/groups/groups-32.html
- DO NOT reply to this email for unsubscribe requests - it will be
ignored

To change the email address that receives this newsletter:
- Un-subscribe using your current one, and sign up using a new email
address

*******************************************************

8. A simple thank-you and some concluding words

Just a note to thank all the thousands of people, including you, who
joined the Digital Digest LiveUpdate list. I've spent quite a bit of
time developing this site, and making it what it is today, and
really do appreciate your continued support.

I hoped you enjoyed another issue of the LiveUpdate newsletter.

Thanks!!

======END OF LIVEUPDATE NEWSLETTER======

**************************************************************

DIGITAL DIGEST - http://www.digital-digest.com
DIGITAL DIGEST | LiveUpdate Newsletter - Issue 59
1 February, 2007

**************************************************************

TOP NEWS SUMMARY:

1. Introduction

2. News in Brief

3. The Future of Video

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

5. A simple thank-you and some concluding words

*******************************************************

1. Introduction

Welcome to the first issue of LiveUpdate for 2007. In this issue, we
highlight what we think are some exciting new ways for the delivery
of video, IPTV and P2P Video Streaming, both coming to a computer/TV
near you sooner than you think!

-- DVDGuy

*******************************************************

2. News in Brief

Magic DVD Ripper updates to version 4.3.1 to fix some minor bug
issues and also has some improvements

http://www.digital-digest.com/news-60363.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The RIAA and MPAA know all about piracy and how it works, they even
know where it takes place, yet they do nothing about it

http://www.digital-digest.com/news-60364.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Will dual format players in the High Definition war between HD-DVD
and Blu-Ray and who will be the first time debut them

http://www.digital-digest.com/news-60368.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Enormous hard drives are on their way here reaching the 1 TB
(Terabyte) threshold

http://www.digital-digest.com/news-60369.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The High Definition DVD FAQ has been updated to Version 0.7.9 to
answer some of your questions regarding PowerDVD Ultra and PS3/Xbox
360's high definition DVD playback capabilities

http://www.digital-digest.com/news-60373.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Brand new on scene of DVD ripping is a small program called
BackupHDDVD, which decrypts HD-DVD movies with the help of these
unique keys

http://www.digital-digest.com/news-60374.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Do you need to import or export some MPEG4 files to and from your
PSP...If so Moyea PSP Video Manager is your software

http://www.digital-digest.com/news-60377.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

ConvertXtoDVD updates to version 2.1.10 to fix several bugs and add
some suggestion from the consumers

http://www.digital-digest.com/news-60378.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

BitBurners has just launched a public media database where consumers
can search and record information about the DVD recordable media on
the market

http://www.digital-digest.com/news-60380.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ahead software has updated Nero to version 7.7.5.1 to help you with
your digital media

http://www.digital-digest.com/news-60381.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Nero Recode has updated to version 2.4.5.0 to help you with all your
DVD and MPEG 4 needs

http://www.digital-digest.com/news-60382.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

First HD-DVD was cracked, now muslix64 has cracked AACS found on Blu-
Ray DVD's

http://www.digital-digest.com/news-60383.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The movie studios and the AACS foundation have both confirmed that
their beloved AACS copyright protection has been cracked

http://www.digital-digest.com/news-60385.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

RipIt4Me updates to version 1.6.6.0 to fix some minor bugs that came
with version 1.6.5.0 and the Win9X operating system as well as some
other minor modifications

http://www.digital-digest.com/news-60386.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Cyberlink's PowerDVD updates to version 7.0.2414 to help you with
all your video and audio entertainment needs

http://www.digital-digest.com/news-60387.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

AACS makes excuses about how their unbeatable copyright protection
was hacked no more than a month after they released it

http://www.digital-digest.com/news-60389.html

-- jmet

*******************************************************

3. The Future of Video

When people think about the future of video right now, they think
Blu-ray or HD DVD. While both of these formats represent the next
step in terms of the traditional media based video delivery, there
are some exciting things being developed and tested in the area of
video broadcast and online streaming.

First up is IPTV (Internet Protocol Television), also known as
Internet TV. Like VoIP (Voice over IP), IPTV aims to use the
existing Internet infrastructure to deliver video as an alternative
to the traditional free-to-air/cable/satellite delivery services.
With video compression reaching higher and higher levels, and the
increasing number of net-connected home threatres in people's homes,
an IPTV set-top box that delivers hundreds of channels, with video
on demand, doesn't seem to be too far away. The great thing about
IPTV is that because it uses the Internet, a two way communication
system is already present, allowing for unlimited interactivity,
video on demand and other nifty features. There are already some
test IPTV systems being deployed, but viewers will need faster
Internet connections if the delivery of high definition content is
to be viable.

The other interesting piece of technology is somewhat controversial,
and perhaps that's why there hasn't been a great deal made of it by
usual players in the industry. P2P video streaming is already here,
and its idea is so simple, it's one of those "why didn't I think of
it" situations. Basically, you take the concept of peer-to-peer
(P2P) file sharing and then apply it to video streaming. For those
that don't know, P2P file sharing works by people downloading parts
of a file from other users in the system, and at the same time
offering the parts they've already downloaded to everyone else. This
means that the more people that are downloading, the faster the
download will get, since there will be more uploaders as well. You
can see why this makes sense when applied to video streaming - the
more people that view the stream, the smoother the stream will get -
the total opposite of what happens with traditional video streaming.
With P2P video streaming, you can have the infrastructure in place
for traditional video streaming (basically lots of bandwidth and
throughput) and then add in the P2P element -  making buffering a
thing of the past. P2P video streaming is already quite popular in
Asian, and for people who follow sports (especially Football/Soccer)
where live broadcasts are lacking from traditional media sources.
P2P may have a bad reputation, but P2P video streaming is promising
and makes perfect sense. I predict P2P video streaming will become
mainstream in the very near future.

-- DVDGuy

******************************************************

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

Changing subscription status for this newsletter is pretty easy.

To un-subscribe:
- Send an email to liveupdate-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com using the
email account that receives this newsletter.
- Or go to the Yahoo My Groups page to edit your group
subscriptions. More information here:
http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/groups/groups-32.html
- DO NOT reply to this email for unsubscribe requests - it will be
ignored

To change the email address that receives this newsletter:
- Un-subscribe using your current one, and sign up using a new email
address

*******************************************************

5. A simple thank-you and some concluding words

Just a note to thank all the thousands of people, including you, who
joined the Digital Digest LiveUpdate list. I've spent quite a bit of
time developing this site, and making it what it is today, and
really do appreciate your continued support.

I hoped you enjoyed another issue of the LiveUpdate newsletter.

Thanks!!

======END OF LIVEUPDATE NEWSLETTER======

**************************************************************

DIGITAL DIGEST - http://www.digital-digest.com
DIGITAL DIGEST | LiveUpdate Newsletter - Issue 60
23 September, 2007

**************************************************************

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

*******************************************************

1. Introduction

I said before that I would make this newsletter a regular thing, but
once again, I've failed to live up to (at the very least, my own)
expectation. Sorry about that. But try again I will. The format of
the newsletter is slightly changed, to make it a bit easier for me
to keep on updating it. There will hopefully be an issue every week,
with a news roundup (that I will also on my new blog:
http://www.digital-digest.com/blog/DVDGuy/), and a software update
roundup. There will be less personal rants and opinions, which will
now primarily be on my blog.

Again, I apologise for the lack of updates, and hopefully (I sure
use this word a lot) the updates will be more regular again (I know
I've said that before).

-- DVDGuy

*******************************************************

2. Weekly News Roundup

Starting with some copyright related news, I found some funny anti-
piracy video parodies (1) on the net and posted them up - it's not
strictly news, but I thought it needed to be shared. There was news
that MediaDefender (2), a anti-piracy company, set up a fake video
sharing websites to lure people in to get their details for legal
purposes - it's ironic that their own emails and details were leaked
or stolen, and it's now available online for all to see. The MPAA is
at it again (3), and they once again have asked ISPs to help them
catch video pirates, or to filter out "inappropriate" content, and
maybe even charge users extra up front for the movies they will no
doubt steal at some point. Macrovision, the company with the
slogan "quality protection", which actually means copy protection
that ruins quality, is talking about legal DVD rips (4), albeit at a
premium. It's not a bad idea, I must admit, and it's certainly
better than introducing more and more layers of (easily bypassed and
consumer unfriendly) DRM. And to round off the copyright related
news, Germany will ban all kinds of CD and DVD copying (5), even for
personal use, starting in 2008.

Now onto some gaming news, reports say that Sony will sell its PS3
cell chip division (6) or manufacturing plant to Toshiba, Sony's
bitter rivals in the HD war. Are Sony that desperate to free up some
cash to subsidize their struggling PS3? Or is this just part of
normal business and cooperation between Japanese conglomerates,
which happens quite frequently. A Star Wars lightsaber game on the
Wii (7)? Yes please (and what took so long). Sony's long
awaited "Home" virtual community for the PS3 is going to be delayed
(8) - things are really not going well for the PS3, and comments (9)
such as the following from Sony execs aren't helping:

----
"Going aggressive only on price without being able to back it up
with content doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me"
----

In other words, no discounts for the PS3 because it doesn't have
enough games to make up for the loss in income. Yes, I'm sure the
high price and low hardware sales will encourage software publishers
to make more games for the PS3, not less. Bioshock on the PS3 anyone?

In HD news, Intel says (10) that it's next mobile chip platform,
Montevina, will support both Blu-ray and HD DVD decoding. Intel is
still a major backer of HD DVD, but because Blu-ray uses the same
set of video codecs as HD DVD, it's impossible to support one HD
format without supporting the other, unless they do something really
sneaky and anti-competitive by deliberately blocking Blu-ray
playback or acceleration. Not that Blu-ray will care even if Intel
ditches Blu-ray, because you see, they have already won will win.
Disney CEO Robert Iger is quote as saying that "victory is a forgone
conclusion" (11) during an investment meeting, which stunned other
attending studio execs. I went on a nice rant at Iger's statement,
and also this other statement: "The public can tell the difference"
statement in regards to Blu-ray being heaps better than HD DVD -
yes, there differences Mr. Iger. Blu-ray can't do the advanced
interactive stuff that HD DVD has been doing since day one, like
picture-in-picture and Internet connectivity. A lot of Blu-ray
titles also used the inferior MPEG-2 video codec, making for a
poorer picture quality compared to MPEG-4 AVC or VC-1 encoded discs.
But Blu-ray does have more copy protection and region protection (HD
DVD is region-free), so I'm sure that's exactly what consumers want.
Just what kind of company would sacrifice essential features and
quality, and yet not miss a beat when it comes to unnecessary DRM
and region control?

Okay, that's about it for this week. Stay tuned next week, same time
same place, for another roundup (hopefully).

Links:
(1)  http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=83940
(2)  http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=83949
(3)  http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=83963
(4)  http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=83969
(5)  http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=84024
(6)  http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=83964
(7)  http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=83967
(8)  http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=84008
(9)  http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=84032
(10) http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=83966
(11) http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=84009


*******************************************************

3. Weekly Software Roundup

September 23, 2007   SubMagic 0.70 (Freeware)
September 23, 2007   Movica Beta 6.2 (Freeware)
September 23, 2007   AC3ACM 1.4 (Freeware)
September 23, 2007   CDBurnerXP Pro 4.0.013.220 (Freeware)
September 22, 2007   BluffTitler 7.12 (Freeware)
September 22, 2007   MediaCoder 0.6.0 Build 3880 (Freeware)
September 22, 2007   x264 full rev. 678 (Freeware)
September 22, 2007   BSplayer Pro 2.24
September 22, 2007   BSplayer 2.24
September 21, 2007   Foto2Avi 2.0 (Freeware)
September 20, 2007   AVIsynth 2.5.8 Alpha 2 (Freeware)
September 20, 2007   DivX Codec 6.7
September 20, 2007   JFuse 4.02
September 20, 2007   XULPlayer 0.0.6.0 (Freeware)
September 20, 2007   WatchHDTV 1.961 (Freeware)
September 19, 2007   J. River Media Center 12.0.329
September 19, 2007   Videora iPod Converter 3.04 (Freeware)
September 19, 2007   Videora iPhone Converter 3.04 (Freeware)
September 19, 2007   FinalBurner Pro 1.21.0.130
September 19, 2007   FinalBurner 1.21.0.110 (Freeware)
September 18, 2007   SageTV 6.2
September 18, 2007   Alive YouTube Video Converter 1.0.8.6
September 18, 2007   SVCD2DVD 2.5.3200
September 18, 2007   Kantaris Media Player 0.2.2 (Freeware)
September 18, 2007   Elecard Converter Studio 1.2.57
September 17, 2007   MediaCodeSpeedEdit 1.1.0.7 (Freeware)
September 17, 2007   AvsP 2.0.1 (Freeware)
September 17, 2007   VirtualDub MPEG-2 1.6.19 build 24571 (Freeware)
September 17, 2007   EMDB 0.48 (Freeware)
September 17, 2007   KMPlayer 2.9.3.1373 Beta (Freeware)
September 17, 2007   DeVeDe 3.2  (Freeware)
September 16, 2007   WAV to AC3 Encoder 0.6 (Freeware)
September 16, 2007   FF Player 0.95 (Freeware)
September 16, 2007   DVB Web Scheduler 5.0.0.5 Test (Freeware)

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


******************************************************

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

Changing subscription status for this newsletter is pretty easy.

To un-subscribe:
- Send an email to liveupdate-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com using the
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======END OF LIVEUPDATE NEWSLETTER======

Digital Digest "LiveUpdate" Newsletter - Issue 61

**************************************************************

DIGITAL DIGEST - http://www.digital-digest.com
DIGITAL DIGEST | LiveUpdate Newsletter - Issue 61
30 September, 2007

**************************************************************

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

*******************************************************

1. Introduction

Looks like I was able to keep my word about making this newsletter a weekly
thing, at least for the first week. One week at a time, one week at a time ...

-- DVDGuy

*******************************************************

2. Weekly News Roundup

Starting with copyright related news again, some DRM advocates are worried that
there might be a consumer backlash (1) towards DRM (you don’t say!). I mean it’s
not like there was a DRM related revolt (2) on Digg earlier this year or
anything, and I’m sure Apple/EMI and Amazon launching DRM-free music was just a
coincidence, and in no way related to a consumer backlash. Torrent site Demonoid
has been shut down (3) by the Canadian RIA. Torrent sites usually only link to
torrent files, and not the actual copyrighted content, but in the greater scheme
of things, providing any assistance to copyright infringement is going to be
risky, whether they host the actual file or not. I would like to see some
separation between torrent sites and legitimate sites like Google Video, who are
under renewed pressure (4) this week over users uploaded pirated content - the
main aim of torrent sites is to offer pirated content, whereas Google Video and
other video sharing sites have pirated content because they cannot control their
numerous users. Then again, there are video sharing sites that advertise free
movies and encourage users to upload them, so they again should be treated
differently (5). And then there is “Movie Night” (6) on school campuses. Showing
movies in common rooms or public areas is technically “broadcasting” and is
against the terms of the copyright agreement, but how much does that really hurt
the movie studios, so much so that lawsuits need to be launched? What’s next,
not being showing to watch movies with people other than your immediate family?

Onto gaming news. Sony says that it can catch up to the Xbox 360 (7) by March
next year. I would say that if they don’t at least achieve this, then the PS3 is
in serious trouble. The PS3 is the cheapest Blu-ray player around, and actually
represents good value if you want next-gen gaming + HD movie playback, but it
still hasn’t been able to beat the Xbox 360 + HD DVD add-on drive in sales since
launch. Add to that the Xbox 360’s better range of games and exclusives, it’s
not looking great for the PS3 compared to how well the PS2 did at this stage of
its release. Can Sony claim a huge market share like it did with the PS2? I
don’t think so and not being able to hold on to the market the PS2 created means
a defeat for Sony no matter which way you look at it. Sony will hope that’s it’s
new slim PSP bundle (8) will at least claim a bigger market share in the
handheld gaming market, a market dominated by Nintendo for some time now. But
the big news of the week has been the launch of Halo 3 (9). Even the news of
scratched discs didn’t slow down sales, with Halo 3 breaking all gaming and even
movie box office records on the first day. When video games start making more
money than big Hollywood blockbusters like Spider-Man 3, something has changed
in the way entertainment is delivered. It’s no wonder then that there has been
more and more games to movie conversion, rather than the reverse, lately (Hitman
the movie is that one I’m waiting for).

In HD news, it seems site like us are either not doing our jobs, or people are
not visiting our sites (the most likely explanation, and I’m sure that the 10
people that read this blog will agree with me here). Consumers just don’t seem
to understand HD (10) with only 11% feeling they understand HD completely, and
even HDTV owners don’t seem to understand. The situation is not just limited to
the US either, with Australian consumers faring even worse (11). It’s a shame,
because HD really is quite wonderful … people who have enjoyed proper HD will
never want to go back to standard definition. And if you’ve already jumped on
the HD movie bandwagon (in particularly, the HD DVD one), then you can enjoy
state of the art interactive features (12) from future titles such as Shrek the
Third, in addition to the superb video and audio quality. But speaking of
interactive features, Blu-ray is still playing a game of catch-up, and consumers
will be the victim once again (no wonder they are confused about HD). As I’ve
blogged (13) previously, Blu-ray has really screwed the pooch on the issue of
hardware standards, and now Blu-ray owners may need to replace their less than a
year old Blu-ray player because it doesn’t have all the required features for
future Blu-ray movies. Us HD DVD owners are feeling pretty smug about it all
because the HD DVD standard has been finalized from day one and includes all the
advanced interactive features that Blu-ray owners might not be seeing until next
year. And did I mention that HD DVD is region-free? I know I shouldn’t go on and
on about region-free, but it really is wonderful to have it. There’s not a lot
of HD DVD movies on sale in Australia (and the ones on sale are too expensive),
but because of the region-free status, I can import movies from the US or UK,
usually at a lower price and faster release date. Unlike DVDs, with the NTSC/PAL
difference, HD DVDs don’t have this difference so the US version is either
likely to be identical, or in most cases, superior to the local release. Studios
and local distributors may not like it, but it’s partly their fault isn’t it for
not releasing identical versions in a timely manner. My US import to my local
purchase ratio is at 3:1 at the moment.

And that’s all folks for this week. See you next week.


Links:
(1)  http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=84073
(2)  http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6615047.stm
(3)  http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2007/09/26/demoniodbound
(4)  http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=84127
(5)  http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=84140
(6)  http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=84103
(7)  http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=84102
(8)  http://www.digital-digest.com/news-60695.html
(9)  http://forum.digital-digest.com/forumdisplay.php?f=145
(10) http://www.digital-digest.com/news-60690.html
(11) http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=84100
(12) http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=84139
(13) http://www.digital-digest.com/news-60697.html


*******************************************************

3. Weekly Software Roundup

September 30, 2007   Burn4Free 3.5.0.0 (Freeware)
September 30, 2007   XP Codec Pack 2.2.0 (Freeware)
September 30, 2007   XULPlayer 0.0.6.1 (Freeware)
September 30, 2007   VirtualDub 1.7.5 (Build 28225) (Freeware)
September 30, 2007   DVR-Studio Pro 1.70
September 30, 2007   DVR-Studio 1.70
September 30, 2007   MeGUI 0.2.6.1015 (Freeware)
September 30, 2007   RipBot264 1.6.3 (Freeware)
September 29, 2007   AutoMKV 0.90c (Freeware)
September 29, 2007   CDBurnerXP Pro 4.0.015.277 (Freeware)
September 29, 2007   Wondershare DVD Slideshow Builder 3.5.1
September 29, 2007   ProgDVB 4.87.1 (Freeware)
September 29, 2007   AVStoDVD 1.1.2 (Freeware)
September 28, 2007   Beyond TV 4.7.1
September 28, 2007   TMPGEnc MPEG Editor Premium 2.5.4.176
September 27, 2007   FF Player 0.96 (Freeware)
September 27, 2007   VirtualDub MPEG-2 1.6.19 build 24586 (Freeware)
September 27, 2007   Wondershare iPod Slideshow 1.0
September 27, 2007   AutoGK 2.46 Beta
September 27, 2007   BluffTitler 7.13 (Freeware)
September 27, 2007   ffdshow Rev. 1487 (Freeware)
September 27, 2007   Winclipdvb 2.9.4 (Freeware)
September 26, 2007   DVD-lab Pro 2.33
September 26, 2007   VideoInspector 1.11.0.109
September 26, 2007   RealAnime 6.0.0 Alpha (Freeware)
September 26, 2007   SolveigMM AVI Trimmer 1.5 (Freeware)
September 25, 2007   SVCD2DVD 2.5.3300
September 25, 2007   Unreal Media Server 5.5 (Freeware)
September 25, 2007   x264 full rev. 680 (Freeware)
September 24, 2007   PgcEdit 8.5    (Freeware)
September 24, 2007   MP4Converter.net's iPod Video Converter 3.1.40.0921b
September 24, 2007   Plato Video To Zune 3.66
September 24, 2007   Plato DVD Creator 3.74
September 24, 2007   Plato Video To iPod PSP 3GP 3.66
September 24, 2007   KMPlayer 2.9.3.1375 Beta (Freeware)
September 23, 2007   SMSG 1.0.3.0 (Freeware)

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


******************************************************

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

Changing subscription status for this newsletter is pretty easy.

To un-subscribe:
- Send an email to liveupdate-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com using the email
account that receives this newsletter.
- Or go to the Yahoo My Groups page to edit your group subscriptions. More
information here:
http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/groups/groups-32.html
- DO NOT reply to this email for unsubscribe requests - it will be ignored

To change the email address that receives this newsletter:
- Un-subscribe using your current one, and sign up using a new email address


======END OF LIVEUPDATE NEWSLETTER======

**************************************************************

DIGITAL DIGEST - http://www.digital-digest.com
DIGITAL DIGEST | LiveUpdate Newsletter - Issue 62
7 October, 2007

**************************************************************

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

*******************************************************

1. Introduction

Three weeks in a row where a newsletter has been sent out
regularly ... it must be a new record for me!

-- DVDGuy

*******************************************************

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.

Starting with copyright related news, Sony is once again in the
headlines with Sony's chief lawyer person saying (1) that copying
songs that you have already purchased, such as from the CD to your
computer, is considered stealing. This betrays the intention of
content owners such as Sony, who want you to buy a copy of the movie
for every single device that you want to use it on. So if you have a
PS3, a PSP, a Walkman video player and a Sony Vaio laptop, then
you're screwed. And just in case you are wondering what could happen
to you if content owners find you guilty of copyright infringement,
a woman found guilty of sharing 24 songs (2) has been ordered to pay
$US 220,000 to the RIAA. Although I'm still not sure whether it's a
copy protection related problem or not, but Fox's new Blu-ray movies
featuring BD+ copy protection has been found to cause problems (3)
in certain players, and requiring firmware updates to fix the
problem (and if you're lucky, the required firmware might just be
available). Later reports suggested that it was the BD-J usage in
these discs causing the problem, rather than BD+, since a disc
without BD+ from Fox also suffers from similar problems. I don't
know what's worse, playback failure due to BD+ or playback failure
due to a basic standard feature like BD-J when all the DRM layers
appear to be working. It seem the priority of the Blu-ray engineers
might have been to get the DRM working first, and then worry about
the other small features like playback.

Onto gaming news. The Halo 3 version of the Xbox 360 hardware appear
to be using a new 65 nm CPU (4), which is probably Microsoft's
solution to the overheating problem the console suffers, which is
indicated by red rings showing up on the 360's power switch
indicator. While Microsoft has been generous in extending the
warranty from the initial 90 days, to a year and now 3 years,
perhaps they can learn something from Nintendo when it comes to
dealing with design faults. The Wiimote strap was notorious for
breaking and usually smashing into people (if you're lucky) or
expensive electronics (not so lucky). A better strap was introduced,
and Nintendo offered to replace all older straps with the new ones
without cost, and this seem to solve most problems. Now, Nintendo
has gone a step further by giving all existing Wii owners up to four
non-slip jackets for Wiimotes (5) free of charge - all you need to
do is to give them a call with your details, and they will send them
out to you. All new Wiimotes will ship with the jacket from now on.
Now this is what I call commitment to service. They admitted the
problem, found a solution and offered to fix everything for free
even though it will cost them more than 17 million dollars - if only
all companies were like this (but I guess the 360's problem was more
serious, and they have already committed a billion dollars to fix
the problem). The big PS3 news of the week has been the announcement
of a €400 40 GB PS3 (6) for the EU market, set to sell for €400. The
catch is that it has no backwards compatibility with PS2 titles at
all, limited to only 2 USB ports and no Compact Flash/Memory Stick
and SD slots. I think the console will have a matte finish too, as
opposed to the glossy finish of the other versions. The bad news is
that once the fully featured models sell out, this cut down version
will be the only one available in Europe (and I assume, in Australia
too). This is the 5th version of the console to have been released
as Sony tries to make the package more attractive price wise.

In HD news, Acer is to launch what it claims to be the first PC with
a combo drive (7), capable of playing both Blu-ray and HD DVD
movies. As a supporter for format neutrality, I hope it turns out to
be the first of many. Back to the Fox Blu-ray playback problems
mentioned earlier - it turns out that the problem was related to the
BD-Java usage of these discs, rather than a BD+ issue, at least with
the "Fantastic 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer" disc. This once again
highlights how Blu-ray is playing the catch up game when it comes to
interactivity, with HD DVD's equivalent HDi being used from day one
to great effect (albeit not without it's own compatibility problems
at the start). When HD DVD are already starting to toy around with
interactive online shopping via HD DVD movies (8), Blu-ray is still
struggling (9) with basic interactive content like Picture-in-
Picture. And when Blu-ray profile 1.1, 2.0 are rolled out, expect
more problems as discs requiring 1.1 or 2.0 players might simply
fail on 1.0 players (most of which lack the secondary video/audio
decode and persistent storage required to upgrade to 1.1). But the
good news for Blu-ray is that the new layer of DRM, BD+, appears to
be working. Meanwhile, a Japanese HD DVD presentation appear to show
several Spielberg directed or produced films that will be released
on HD DVD (10), at least in Japan. Films like Jaws, E.T, Back to the
Future and Jurassic Park were shown. Spielberg has been quoted to be
a Blu-ray supporter (I suspect he has been fed some non truths by
Blu-ray supporter friends of his, such as how Blu-ray has better
quality or how HD DVD is doomed). His movies were left out of
Paramount's HD DVD exclusive deal, for example, so it suggests that
at the very least, he doesn't want HD DVD exclusivity for his
movies. The only one of his films scheduled to be released on HD has
been Close Encounters on Blu-ray. But with many of his
films "belonging" to HD DVD friendly studios, namely Paramount and
Universal, it all depends on who has control over the release of his
movies. Spielberg has always been slow to get on the next-gen video
train, if you can recall how long it took his movies to come out on
DVD.
See you next week.

Links:
(1)  http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=84200
(2)  http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=84206
(3)  http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=84197
(4)  http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=84160
(5)  http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=84238
(6)  http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=84223
(7)  http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=84169
(8)  http://tinyurl.com/ynuqhx
(9)  http://www.guidetohometheater.com/features/907bdint/
(10) http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=84222


*******************************************************

3. Weekly Software Roundup

October 7, 2007      AutoGK 2.47 Beta
October 7, 2007      XULPlayer 0.1.0.0 (Freeware)
October 7, 2007      MeGUI 0.2.6.1023 (Freeware)
October 6, 2007      Movie Library ++ 3.0
October 6, 2007      MediaCoder 0.6.0 Build 3902 (Freeware)
October 6, 2007      FinalBurner Pro 1.22.0.132
October 6, 2007      FinalBurner 1.22.0.111 (Freeware)
October 6, 2007      ffdshow Rev. 1508 (Freeware)
October 6, 2007      ProgDVB 5.11.2 (Freeware)
October 5, 2007      DivX Codec 6.7.0.18
October 5, 2007      DVBcut 0.5.4   (Freeware)
October 5, 2007      DGMPGDec 1.5.0 Beta 4 (Freeware)
October 5, 2007      Miro 0.9.9.1a Public Preview 2    (Freeware)
October 5, 2007      RipBot264 1.6.5 (Freeware)
October 4, 2007      Cam Video Tool 4 DVD Flick 1.1 (Freeware)
October 4, 2007      Cut Assistant 0.9.12.1 (Freeware)
October 4, 2007      DVDINFOPro 4.6.3.1
October 4, 2007      DVBViewer Pro 3.9.0.0
October 4, 2007      DVBViewer Technisat Edition 3.9.0.0 (Freeware)
October 4, 2007      Comskip 0.79.103 (Freeware)
October 3, 2007      BluffTitler 7.14 (Freeware)
October 3, 2007      Video DVD Maker Pro 2.4.0.36
October 3, 2007      Video DVD Maker 2.12.0.75 (Freeware)
October 3, 2007      DVB Web Scheduler 5.0.0.11 (Freeware)
October 2, 2007      MPEG StreamClip for Windows 1.2b2   (Freeware)
October 2, 2007      Kantaris Media Player 0.2.4 (Freeware)
October 2, 2007      MovieGate 2.64
October 2, 2007      My Movie Collection 2.6.1
October 2, 2007      Nero Vision 5.0
October 2, 2007      Nero Burning ROM 8.1.1.0
October 2, 2007      Nero Suite 8.0
October 1, 2007      KMPlayer 2.9.3.1378 Beta (Freeware)
October 1, 2007      Joost 1.0 Beta   (Freeware)
September 30, 2007   Burn4Free 3.5.0.0 (Freeware)
September 30, 2007   XP Codec Pack 2.2.0 (Freeware)
September 30, 2007   VirtualDub 1.7.5 (Build 28225) (Freeware)
September 30, 2007   DVR-Studio Pro 1.70
September 30, 2007   DVR-Studio 1.70


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


******************************************************

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

Changing subscription status for this newsletter is pretty easy.

To un-subscribe:
- Send an email to liveupdate-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com using the
email account that receives this newsletter.
- Or go to the Yahoo My Groups page to edit your group
subscriptions. More information here:
http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/groups/groups-32.html
- DO NOT reply to this email for unsubscribe requests - it will be
ignored

To change the email address that receives this newsletter:
- Un-subscribe using your current one, and sign up using a new email
address


======END OF LIVEUPDATE NEWSLETTER======

**************************************************************

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

**************************************************************

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

*******************************************************

1. Introduction

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

-- DVDGuy

*******************************************************

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


*******************************************************

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


******************************************************

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

Changing subscription status for this newsletter is pretty easy.

To un-subscribe:
- Send an email to liveupdate-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com using the
email account that receives this newsletter.
- Or go to the Yahoo My Groups page to edit your group
subscriptions. More information here:
http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/groups/groups-32.html
- DO NOT reply to this email for unsubscribe requests - it will be
ignored

To change the email address that receives this newsletter:
- Un-subscribe using your current one, and sign up using a new email
address


======END OF LIVEUPDATE NEWSLETTER======

**************************************************************

DIGITAL DIGEST - http://www.digital-digest.com
DIGITAL DIGEST | LiveUpdate Newsletter - Issue 64
27 October, 2007

**************************************************************

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

*******************************************************

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


*******************************************************

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


*******************************************************

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


******************************************************

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

Changing subscription status for this newsletter is pretty easy.

To un-subscribe:
- Send an email to liveupdate-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com using the
email account that receives this newsletter.
- Or go to the Yahoo My Groups page to edit your group
subscriptions. More information here:
http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/groups/groups-32.html
- DO NOT reply to this email for unsubscribe requests - it will be
ignored

To change the email address that receives this newsletter:
- Un-subscribe using your current one, and sign up using a new email
address


======END OF LIVEUPDATE NEWSLETTER======

**************************************************************

DIGITAL DIGEST - http://www.digital-digest.com
DIGITAL DIGEST | LiveUpdate Newsletter - Issue 65
28 October, 2007

**************************************************************

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

*******************************************************

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


*******************************************************

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


*******************************************************

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


******************************************************

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

Changing subscription status for this newsletter is pretty easy.

To un-subscribe:
- Send an email to liveupdate-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com using the
email account that receives this newsletter.
- Or go to the Yahoo My Groups page to edit your group
subscriptions. More information here:
http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/groups/groups-32.html
- DO NOT reply to this email for unsubscribe requests - it will be
ignored

To change the email address that receives this newsletter:
- Un-subscribe using your current one, and sign up using a new email
address


======END OF LIVEUPDATE NEWSLETTER======

**************************************************************

DIGITAL DIGEST - http://www.digital-digest.com
DIGITAL DIGEST | LiveUpdate Newsletter - Issue 66
4 November, 2007

**************************************************************

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

*******************************************************

1. Introduction

This week has definitely been a week for HD DVD news, as the HD DVD
promotional machine finally started its engines. I was more
interested in the new Nvidia 8800 GT card, and how I think it's the
best value card for gaming and HD video at present. It's a shame it
doesn't do full VC-1 accelerated decoding, but then again, none of
the cards do yet. The ATI Radeon HD 2400/2600 series does VC-1
acceleration better, but if you have a fast CPU, then you probably
won't care about the difference of 30% CPU usage versus 15%.

Links:
* GeForce 8800 GT - The card everyone's been waiting for?
http://www.digital-digest.com/blog/DVDGuy/2007/10/31/geforce-8800-gt-the-card-ev\
eryones-been-waiting-for/

-- DVDGuy


*******************************************************

2. Weekly News Roundup

So another Sunday, and another news roundup. There really ought to
be some rule to forbid working on a Sunday, but then it would just
mean more work on Mondays. There really ought to be some rule to
forbid working on a Monday …

In copyright news, in a Slysoft newsletter, a claim was made that
BD+ copy protection, the additional layer of copy protection that
Blu-ray (1) owners enjoy, will be defeated soon (2). Everybody
probably still remembers the statement that Richard Doherty, (ex?)
analyst at Envisioneering Group made in regards to BD+:

------------------------------------
"BD+, unlike AACS, which suffered a partial hack last year, won't
likely be breached for 10 years"
------------------------------------

Not exactly 10 years, but 0.5 years is not bad. Surprisingly, this
was the only bit of important copyright related news for the week …
the RIAA/MPAA must be on holidays. Although with so many OiNK
replacement sites popping up, there will have a lot of work to do
when they come back.

In HD news, Fox is set to release the very first BD 1.1 disc (3) for
the sci-fi movie Sunshine. This is the first Blu-ray disc to feature
picture-in-picture technology, which has been present on HD DVD (4)
almost from day one. To access the feature, people will need to have
a BD 1.1 player, of which there is only one on the market (in
standalone form anyway), the newly released Panasonic DMP-BD30 (5).
PS3 owners should expect a firmware update (6) to get themselves up
to at least 1.1 standard (although the PS3 is good enough for 2.0 in
any case). Will the disc play properly on 1.0 players? We will find
out soon enough. The news this week has all been about HD DVD's
price drops. Several special Black Friday sales have ensured that
not only did HD DVD standalones break the $200 barrier (7), it broke
the $100 barrier (8) too. $98 for a standalone HD DVD player from
Toshiba (the superceded HD-A2) that has built in DVD upscaling and
comes with 5 free HD DVD movies - that's really just too good to be
true. It sure beats spending $500+ here in Australia to buy a
similar player that only comes with 3 movies. K-Mart has saw the
trend (9), and will now offer the HD-A2 as their only HD DVD or Blu-
ray standalone for sale this Christmas. They will still sell the PS3
(as well as the Xbox 360 HD DVD add-on) so talk of them going
exclusive is not factual. The HD-A2 is not a bad player. It lacks
1080p output, but as this DigiWiki entry (10) explains, it's not a
problem at all for people with 1080p displays while playing back
film content. To continue with the HD DVD news, Toshiba has showed
off their new HD DVD recorder (11), now supporting HD Rec, a format
that uses H.264 (12) to record to standard DVD discs, allowing 2
hours of HD content to be stored. Remember that Toshiba's initial
idea for HD was to use existing DVD/red laser technology and combine
that with a new more efficient codec (H.264 of VC-1 (13)). It's just
as well then that Ritek will soon launch HD DVD recordable discs
(14). Asus is also launching their quietest HD DVD-ROM drive yet
(15), designed for home theatre PCs.

On that note, let's move to gaming. Sort of. I'm very impressed with
Nvidia's new 8800 GT card (16) as I noted in an earlier blog post
(17). It combines the 3D performance of the 8800 GTS, with the HD
acceleration of the 8600 GTS, and then makes the whole thing even
more efficient as to even allow a passive cooled version (18) for
building an ultra quiet home theatre PC. Nvidia will be releasing a
new GTS card too based on similar changes, so that might even more
more attractive. And while ATI's Radeon HD 2xxx series has been
somewhat of a disappointment, you should never rule them out because
you are only as good as your last GPU.

Now moving onto gaming properly, there was rumours that IPTV was
coming to the Xbox 360 (19) in the Fall update, but Microsoft has
quashed the rumours by saying that it's not in the Fall update, but
will be here soon enough anyway. Another week and another developer,
this time Midway Chicago's studio head Mike Bilder, saying the PS3
is a pain in the ass to work with. But he does offer a solution -
develop for the PS3 first to work around the problems, and then port
over to the other systems. Specifically, he says:

------------------------------------
"Just, to be honest, the hardware differences in memory and
processor on the PS3 vs. traditional PC and 360, it makes it a
challenge, and it's representative. Everybody's having a challenge
in the industry right now.

[And about using the PS3 as the lead development platform]

The difficulty you run into there, at least in the last generation,
was that the Xbox was considerably more powerful than the PS2, and
you found that people didn't always take advantage of the hardware.
Whereas with the PS3 and the 360, it's certainly more of a level
playing field, so I don't think it's necessarily a negative to put
the PS3 first [as the lead development platform]. But it does help
mitigate some of that risk in framerate, memory, technology, just
the hardware differences."
------------------------------------

That's definitely a solution to a problem, find out what you can and
cannot do on the PS3 first, and once the code is done, you can be
sure that it will probably work on the other consoles too because
they are a bit more flexible to work with than the PS3. The quality
will be the same too, according to Bilder, because there's not much
difference between the two main consoles (and the Xbox 360
development is flexible enough to allow ports to it to run quite
well). Of course, smaller developers who don't have the resources of
Midway might simply skip the PS3 to work on platforms that have the
biggest install base and with less development problems.

So that's it then for a week that has been dominated by HD DVD news,
with relatively very little news in other areas. If I didn't know
better, I would say that the HD DVD promotion machine has finally
started rolling, and just in time for the holidays too. Blu-ray will
come back next week with more news to counter, no doubt. See you
then.


Links:
(1)  http://wiki.digital-digest.com/index.php/Blu-ray
(2)  http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=84622
(3)  http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=84603
(4)  http://wiki.digital-digest.com/index.php/HD_DVD
(5)  http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=84671
(6) 
http://kotaku.com/gaming/rumor-update/ps3-firmware-20-coming-within-two-weeks-no\
w-317782.php
(7)  http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=84546
(8)  http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=84661
(9)  http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=84650
(10) http://wiki.digital-digest.com/index.php/1080i/p
(11) http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=84649
(12) http://wiki.digital-digest.com/index.php/H.264
(13) http://wiki.digital-digest.com/index.php/VC-1
(14) http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=84657
(15) http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=84670
(16) http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=84623
(17)
http://www.digital-digest.com/blog/DVDGuy/2007/10/31/geforce-8800-gt-the-card-ev\
eryones-been-waiting-for/
(18)
http://www.sparkle.com.tw/News/SP8800GTpassive/news_SP8800GT_passive_EN.html
(19) http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=84574


*******************************************************

3. Weekly Software Roundup

November 4, 2007   Txt2Sup 42.5 (Freeware)
November 4, 2007   pyTivo Build 205    (Freeware)
November 3, 2007   OpenVIP 1.1.1   (Freeware)
November 3, 2007   Burn4Free 3.7.0.0 (Freeware)
November 3, 2007   ProgDVB 5.11.8 (Freeware)
November 3, 2007   MediaInfo 0.7.5.4   (Freeware)
November 3, 2007   RipBot264 1.6.7 (Freeware)
November 2, 2007   GOM Player 2.1.8.3683 (Freeware)
November 2, 2007   Vista Codec Package 4.5.2 (Freeware)
November 2, 2007   DGMPGDec 1.5.0 Beta 10 (Freeware)
November 2, 2007   x264 full rev. 682 (Freeware)
November 2, 2007   Video DVD Maker Pro 2.6.0.38
November 2, 2007   Video DVD Maker 3.2.0.5 (Freeware)
November 2, 2007   MediaCodeSpeedEdit 1.1.0.10 (Freeware)
November 2, 2007   K9Copy 1.2.0  (Freeware)
November 1, 2007   Miro 0.9.9.9 Public Preview 3    (Freeware)
November 1, 2007   PPT2DVD 4.5.0
November 1, 2007   DVDSubEdit 1.4 (Freeware)
November 1, 2007   DVBcut 0.5.4 Rev. 99   (Freeware)
November 1, 2007   H264TS_Cutter 108 Beta (Freeware)
October 31, 2007   AutoMKV 0.91 (Freeware)
October 31, 2007   AVI to AC3 1.0.4.3 (Freeware)
October 31, 2007   CoreAVC 1.6.0.0
October 31, 2007   Submerge 1.2.1
October 31, 2007   MovieGate 2.65
October 31, 2007   Kiss DajeVu Encoder 2008.R01.1 (Freeware)
October 31, 2007   ffdshow Rev. 1589 (Freeware)
October 31, 2007   KMPlayer 2.9.3.1396 Beta (Freeware)
October 31, 2007   EAC3toGUI 1.37 (Freeware)
October 31, 2007   Muxman Pro 1.0.1
October 30, 2007   XULPlayer 0.2.0.2 (Freeware)
October 30, 2007   MeGUI 0.2.6.1034 (Freeware)
October 30, 2007   DVDINFOPro 4.7.0.0
October 30, 2007   ImTOO Video Editor 1.0.22.1025
October 29, 2007   CDBurnerXP Pro 4.0.022.370 (Freeware)
October 29, 2007   VisualSubSync 0.9.11 (Freeware)
October 29, 2007   DVR-Studio 1.75
October 29, 2007   WAV to AC3 Encoder 0.9 (Freeware)
October 28, 2007   MediaCoder 0.6.0 Build 3932 (Freeware)
October 28, 2007   AvsP 2.0.2 (Freeware)

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


******************************************************

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

Changing subscription status for this newsletter is pretty easy.

To un-subscribe:
- Send an email to liveupdate-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com using the
email account that receives this newsletter.
- Or go to the Yahoo My Groups page to edit your group
subscriptions. More information here:
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- DO NOT reply to this email for unsubscribe requests - it will be
ignored

To change the email address that receives this newsletter:
- Un-subscribe using your current one, and sign up using a new email
address


======END OF LIVEUPDATE NEWSLETTER======

**************************************************************

DIGITAL DIGEST - http://www.digital-digest.com
DIGITAL DIGEST | LiveUpdate Newsletter - Issue 67
11 November, 2007

**************************************************************

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

*******************************************************

1. Introduction

After a quiet week on the copyright front, DRMs and law suits make a
comeback. The HD world is still recovering from the $98 HD DVD
player sale, and I wrote a blog about how this will affect
Toshiba/HD DVD's fortunes and what effects this has on the HD war. I
also took time to update my High Definition DVD FAQ - it was the
first update in over 10 months (I know, I've been lazy), so there
were lots of changes.

Links:
* Sub $100 HD DVD Players - what is Toshiba's plan?
http://www.digital-digest.com/blog/DVDGuy/2007/11/07/sub-100-hd-dvd-players-what\
-is-toshibas-plan/
* The High Definition DVD FAQ
http://www.digital-digest.com/highdefdvd/faq.html

-- DVDGuy


*******************************************************

2. Weekly News Roundup

Once again, it's time for the weekly news roundup on Remembrance
Day, a day where we not only remember those who sacrificed
themselves to preserve our way of life, but also to remember the
futility and wastefulness of war. War is something that should be
avoided whenever possible because it comes with a price that is far
too high.

Starting with copyright news. A lot of news items this week after a
relatively quite last week. A study has found that not only does
music piracy not hurt the music industry, it might actually help
because illegal music sharing leads to higher music sales (1). Of
course, record industry groups around the world has chosen to ignore
or discredit the report. I've always believed that if you do not
distribute content in a way people prefer, they will seek their own
way of obtaining the content, legal or otherwise. And speaking of
bad distribution methods, Macrovision's DRM for games has been found
to have a bug that allows computers to be exploited and hacked (2).
It's bad enough for DRM to make life harder for legitimate
customers, but at the very least, people who make them should ensure
it does no other damage. But as the case with Sony's rootkit
scandal, companies that deploy DRM have absolutely no regards for
their customers anyway, and this is why things like this keep
happening. These companies regard people who crack their DRMs as the
most evilest of all people, because DRM licensing is big money and
other companies are not going to pay if a lone hacker working in his
bedroom can break their multi-million dollar encryption scheme.
Sometimes it's not just lone hackers though. Slysoft has announced
that they have "by-passed" BD+ copy protection (3) for Blu-ray (4)
discs, but it might only be a temporary solution until the loophole
which allows this exploit is fixed. As Doom9 opinioned (5) on his
website in regards to this news:

------------------------------------
Either way, at this point I wouldn't bet much money on this
workaround being permanent, so you should heed Slysoft's advice
about buying HD media and buy HD DVD over Blu-ray - it is the more
consumer friendly format (not to be confused with a consumer
friendly format) and the risk you incur of not being able to
exercise your fair use rights in the future are greatly reduces if
Blu-ray becomes the prevailing format.
------------------------------------

And when DRM is not cracked, then consumers might be the one who
suffers as in the case of US Major League Baseball selling DRM'd
videos to people, then changing the DRM and making all those paid
for videos unplayable (6). That's the real danger of DRM though,
because at any moment, the content owner could decide to do
something like this and you end up having to buy the content all
over again.

Prince is set to sue The Pirate Bay (7) for copyright infringement.
Not sure that's a wise move though, as I'm sure the TBB has a lot
more loyal fans now than Prince ever had in his entire career. And
it appears Demonoid, the popular Bittorrent tracker, is down (8).
Don't know if it's permanent or just a temporary thing, but you can
definitely see a trend now what with the demise of OiNK still fresh
in people's memories.

On to HD news, I wrote a blog (9) in mid-week about the effects of
the $98 Toshiba HD DVD (10) player, so I won't go into it further
except to say I'm extremely jealous and bitter at all the people who
managed to get themselves one of these players. I checked my local
electronics store yesterday and the Australian version of this super-
cheap player was retailing for $AUD 596 (it does have a $100
cashback, which makes it $496 and comes with 3 free HD DVD movies) -
that's $USD 450, which is actually $150 more than the Toshiba retail
pricing (which nobody sells them at), and comes with two less free
movies as well. Cnet Asia wrote an article about Blu-ray 1.1.
profile players and whether it makes you existing BD 1.0 players
obsolete - it's worth a read (11). It's not just consumers that are
a bit confused by all these profiles, even the Blu-ray manufacturers
seems confused (12) about what they should be doing. Sony's CEO has
conceded that the HD war is a stalemate (13) at the moment - it's
certainly a change from the usual "we've won" messages that the Blu-
ray group likes to send out. I've always thought that the eventual
result of this stupid war was going to be a stalemate - even if one
format has 80% of the market, 20% is still quite a lot to just "give
up", not when so much money has been invested already. But the first
casualty of the HD war might not be Toshiba or Sony, but the AV
Science forum, which has closed its Blu-ray/HD DVD section due to
increasing hostility between forum members. My little rant about
fanbois (14) a couple of weeks ago might be relevant here, even
though it was about those of the PS3/Xbox 360 variety.

And on that note, we move onto gaming. Yet another developer has
come out to say what everyone seems to know already, that the PS3 is
not a million times more powerful that the year older Xbox 360 (15),
at least not according to developers. The general feeling seems to
indicate that while the PS3 has a more powerful processor, it's
memory handling is not as good as the Xbox 360 and is harder to
programme for, so in the end, it all evens out. The long awaited PS3
2.00 firmware has been released (16) and it adds a couple of
interesting features, but for Blu-ray fans waiting for Profile 1.1.
compatibility, it was a bit of a disappointment. Not that there are
any movies to take advantage of Profile 1.1 anyway. Is your PS3
sitting in a place where it gathers a lot of dust? If so, you might
want to move it somewhere else because apparently someone was told
by PS3 customer support the excessive dust voids the warranty (17).
Depends upon what "excessive" means though, I guess. And to end on a
more positive note, the changes in the PS3 2.00 firmware (18) and
comments from the DivX Inc CEO (19) seem to suggest that DivX (20)
playback might be coming to a PS3/Xbox 360 near you. I certainly
hope it happens because my Xbox 360 is already quite a nice media
extender devices, and if DivX/XviD (21) support is added, then it
makes playing back these files on my TV a lot easier.

And so this concludes another episode of Weekly News Roundup. What
zany adventures will the MPAA/RIAA get up to next week? Just how
many more forums will be closed "When Fanbois Attack"? And will
scientist finally figure out just how many shades of awesomeness the
PS3 is compared to the Xbox 360? Tune in next week to find out!


Links:
(1)  http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=84727
(2)  http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=84726
(3)  http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=84783
(4)  http://wiki.digital-digest.com/index.php/Blu-ray
(5)  http://www.doom9.org/
(6)  http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=84772
(7)  http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=84798
(8)  http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=84819
(9) 
http://www.digital-digest.com/blog/DVDGuy/2007/11/07/sub-100-hd-dvd-players-what\
-is-toshibas-plan/
(10) http://wiki.digital-digest.com/index.php/HD_DVD
(11) http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=84747
(12) http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=84782
(13) http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=84797
(14)
http://www.digital-digest.com/blog/DVDGuy/2007/10/27/ps3-doesnt-suck-as-much-as-\
fanbois/
(15) http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=84743
(16) http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=84770
(17) http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=84818
(18) http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=84785
(19) http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=84799
(20) http://wiki.digital-digest.com/index.php/DivX
(21) http://wiki.digital-digest.com/index.php/XviD


*******************************************************

3. Weekly Software Roundup

November 11, 2007  InfraRecorder 0.44 (Freeware)
November 11, 2007  GB-PVR 1.1.5 (Freeware)
November 11, 2007  AviDemux 2.4 Preview 3    (Freeware)
November 11, 2007  CodecInstaller 2.8.0
November 11, 2007  NeroLINUX 3.0.2.1
November 10, 2007  ffdshow Rev. 1596 (Freeware)
November 10, 2007  DGMPGDec 1.5.0 Beta 12 (Freeware)
November 10, 2007  Collectorz.com Movie Collector For Mac OS X 2.0.8
November 10, 2007  ProgDVB 5.11.9 (Freeware)
November 10, 2007  MediaInfo 0.7.5.5   (Freeware)
November 9, 2007   Movica Beta 6.4 (Freeware)
November 9, 2007   Plato DVD Creator 3.76
November 9, 2007   Plato Video To Zune 3.68
November 9, 2007   Plato Video To iPod PSP 3GP 3.68
November 9, 2007   QuickTime Alternative (QT7) 1.95 (Freeware)
November 9, 2007   Kiss DajeVu Encoder 2008.R01.4 (Freeware)
November 9, 2007   AutoMKV 0.91c (Freeware)
November 9, 2007   Ulead VideoStudio 11 Plus Power Pack
November 9, 2007   MeGUI 0.2.6.1036 (Freeware)
November 9, 2007   Movie Library ++ 3.2.1 (Freeware)
November 8, 2007   XULPlayer 0.2.1.1 (Freeware)
November 8, 2007   XviD4PSP 5.025 Beta (Freeware)
November 8, 2007   MediaCoder 0.6.0.3945 (Freeware)
November 8, 2007   GOTSent 0.23 beta 4 (Freeware)
November 7, 2007   pyTivo Build 206    (Freeware)
November 7, 2007   Submerge 1.2.2
November 7, 2007   ImTOO Video Splitter 1.0.22.1025
November 6, 2007   RAD Video Tools 1.9a (Freeware)
November 6, 2007   Miro 0.9.9.9.1    (Freeware)
November 6, 2007   SolveigMM Video Splitter 2.0.711.1 Beta
November 6, 2007   J. River Media Center 12.0.363
November 6, 2007   AVI to AC3 1.0.4.4 (Freeware)
November 6, 2007   Womble MPEG Video Wizard DVD October 2007 Update
November 6, 2007   Womble MPEG Video Wizard October 2007 Update
November 6, 2007   ImTOO Video Joiner 1.0.22.1025
November 5, 2007   Net Transport 2.50
November 5, 2007   KMPlayer 2.9.3.1402 Beta (Freeware)
November 5, 2007   DVBcut 0.5.4 Rev. 100   (Freeware)
November 5, 2007   ImTOO Video Cutter 1.0.22.1025
November 4, 2007   Txt2Sup 42.5 (Freeware)

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


******************************************************

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

Changing subscription status for this newsletter is pretty easy.

To un-subscribe:
- Send an email to liveupdate-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com using the
email account that receives this newsletter.
- Or go to the Yahoo My Groups page to edit your group
subscriptions. More information here:
http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/groups/groups-32.html
- DO NOT reply to this email for unsubscribe requests - it will be
ignored

To change the email address that receives this newsletter:
- Un-subscribe using your current one, and sign up using a new email
address


======END OF LIVEUPDATE NEWSLETTER======

**************************************************************

DIGITAL DIGEST - http://www.digital-digest.com
DIGITAL DIGEST | LiveUpdate Newsletter - Issue 68
18 November, 2007

**************************************************************

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

*******************************************************

1. Introduction

A somewhat quieter than usual news week (or maybe just because I
wasn't paying attention). The big news, for me at least, was DivX on
the PS3. I don't have a PS3 (yet), but this might force Microsoft to
re-consider adding DivX to the 360, and earlier comments by the DivX
Inc. CEO sounds promising. The October NPD report also came out for
US game console sales, after NPD first reported that they will stop
publishing the number, and then changed their minds after public
pressure. Nintendo has somehow managed to transform them from 3rd
place in the previous-gen to clear first place this generation. It's
a victory for the good guys, as far as I'm concerned, since Nintendo
tend to stick to their principles and do things the right way.

Links:
* Game Consoles - October 2007 NPD Sales Figure Analysis
http://www.digital-digest.com/blog/DVDGuy/2007/11/17/game-consoles-october-2007-\
npd-sales-figure-analysis/
* DivX on PS3, Free Xbox 360 Stuff and Fall Update
http://www.digital-digest.com/blog/DVDGuy/2007/11/16/divx-on-ps3-free-xbox-360-s\
tuff-and-fall-update/

-- DVDGuy


*******************************************************

2. Weekly News Roundup

"Roundup time, I say, it's roundup time."

I tried really hard to come up with a smart intro for this week, but
the above was all I could come up with. I know it doesn't even make
any sense, but I haven't been getting much sleep lately and so my
brain is kind of fried. And who says this entry needs an intro at
all?

It's been a pretty quiet week in any case.

In copyright news, the MPAA is at it again (1) by lobbying
Washington to introduce tougher anti-piracy measures. Senate
Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and Senator John
Cornyn (R-Texas) introduced legislation that would help the MPAA's
cause. There's only a couple of good guys left in the US Congress
that will actually defend their constituent's basic fair use rights.
It's a shame that US politics is so influenced by money, and this
will never change as long as Hollywood as money to throw at
the "problem".

In HD news, you can now take your expensive PS3, destroy it, and
turn it into a cheap toy. That's right, take out the Blu-ray (2)
laser in the PS3 and make your own Blu-ray phaser (3). People who
earlier purchased the Star Trek TOS HD DVD (4) and a Toshiba HD DVD
player got their own Star Trek style phaser, and even though it
wasn't self-made. I would say that if you have plans to destroy your
PS3, you might as well give it to me since I'm sure I can find some
uses for it. Meanwhile, in the battle of the top-of-the-line Blu-ray
and HD DVD players, the result is … a draw! Reviews (5) of the
Pioneer's DBP-94HD and Toshiba's HD-XA2 have earned a high 91% for
both players. I would really like to have the XA2 due to it's
fantastic DVD upscaling, which instantly extends the life of my DVD
collection. If it drops to half of it's current price, I'll get one
for sure.

DivX Inc has acquired MainConcept, no doubt for their H.264 (6)
technology related products - H.264 really is taking over the world
(7), it seems. DivX HD using H.264 coming soon? Speaking of DivX,
guess which video format is coming to the PS3? That's right, DivX on
the PS3 (8) means the PS3 might just become the world's most popular
pirated movie viewer. Xbox 360's DivX support (9) might not be too
far behind either.

In gaming news, analysts have predicted (10) game developer THQ will
now shift focus towards 360 and Nintendo development, with less
focus on the PS3. Another case of money talks (in this case, the
number of Nintendo/360 consoles sold - see October's US NPD figures
(11)), and something-something walks. Does having excessive dust
void your PS3 warranty (12)? Apparently, somebody was told that this
was the case by Sony tech support. How would you define excessive
anyway? PS3s are finally starting to sell, as the cheaper 40 GB
model becomes available. Will it finally overtake the 360 in the
monthly US NPD figures? We'll find out in another month. The 360 is
celebrating the five year birthday of its Live service (13). Those
that were lucky (or at least read this blog), would have scored
themselves a free Live Arcade game (Carcassonne) on the 15th or
16th. The Fall Update, most likely coming on the 4th of December,
will add downloadable Xbox 1 games (no achievement points though).
Hopefully it will add some other goodies such as DivX playback to
make the media extender functionalities of the 360 something of a
must-have for Windows Media Center users.

Christmas is nearly here, and regardless of your religion, it's a
time to celebrate due to all the sales that will be doing the
rounds. Black Friday sales in the US should see some top bargains
pop up for both HD and gaming, and I'll try to highlight some of the
good ones right here on this blog.

See you all next week.



Links:
(1)  http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=84893
(2)  http://wiki.digital-digest.com/index.php/Blu-ray
(3)  http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=84855
(4)  http://wiki.digital-digest.com/index.php/HD_DVD
(5)  http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=84907
(6)  http://www.h264info.com/
(7) 
http://www.digital-digest.com/blog/DVDGuy/2007/10/26/h264-taking-over-the-world-\
one-codec-at-a-time/
(8)  http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=84869
(9)  http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=84868
(10) http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=84848
(11)
http://www.digital-digest.com/blog/DVDGuy/2007/11/17/game-consoles-october-2007-\
npd-sales-figure-analysis/
(12) http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=84818
(13) http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=84868


*******************************************************

3. Weekly Software Roundup

November 18, 2007   EAC3toGUI 1.40 (Freeware)
November 18, 2007   eac3to 2.0 (Freeware)
November 18, 2007   AutoMKV 0.91f (Freeware)
November 18, 2007   AVStoDVD 1.2.0 (Freeware)
November 18, 2007   Net Transport 2.51
November 18, 2007   x264 full rev. 689 (Freeware)
November 17, 2007   Toast 8.0.3
November 17, 2007   YamiPod 1.7 (Freeware)
November 17, 2007   Vista Codec Package 4.5.3 (Freeware)
November 17, 2007   ProgDVB 4.88 (Freeware)
November 17, 2007   ffdshow Rev. 1611 (Freeware)
November 17, 2007   SVCD2DVD 2.5.3500
November 17, 2007   Winclipdvb 2.9.5 (Freeware)
November 16, 2007   AVStoMPEG 10.2007.1114.0400 (Freeware)
November 16, 2007   pyTivo Build 208 (Freeware)
November 16, 2007   Plato DVD Creator 3.78
November 16, 2007   Plato Video To Zune 3.69
November 16, 2007   Plato Video To iPod PSP 3GP 3.69
November 16, 2007   EMDB 0.55 (Freeware)
November 16, 2007   VisualHub 1.29
November 16, 2007   MediaCoder 0.6.0 Build 3980 (Freeware)
November 16, 2007   MediaPortal 0.2.3.0 (Freeware)
November 16, 2007   GOTSent 0.23 beta 6 (Freeware)
November 16, 2007   MeGUI 0.2.6.1038 (Freeware)
November 16, 2007   Collectorz.com Movie Collector 5.3.1
November 15, 2007   WinMPG Video Convert 6.8.0.4
November 15, 2007   DVBcut 0.5.4 Rev. 101   (Freeware)
November 15, 2007   Photodex ProShow Producer 3.2.2040
November 15, 2007   Photodex ProShow Gold 3.2.2040
November 15, 2007   Photodex ProShow 3.2.2040
November 15, 2007   PowerDVD Ultra 7.3 Build 3319
November 14, 2007   Miro 1.0 (Freeware)
November 14, 2007   FinalBurner Pro 1.24.0.136
November 14, 2007   FinalBurner 1.24.0.115 (Freeware)
November 14, 2007   DVB Dream 1.4d (Freeware)
November 14, 2007   BluffTitler 7.15 (Freeware)
November 14, 2007   BSplayer Pro 2.25.955
November 14, 2007   BSplayer 2.25.955
November 13, 2007   QT Lite 2.0.0 (Freeware)
November 13, 2007   Kiss DajeVu Encoder 2008.R01.5 (Freeware)
November 13, 2007   TMPGEnc XPress 4.4.0.234
November 13, 2007   MP4Converter.net's Apple TV Video Converter 3.1.44.1109b
November 13, 2007   KMPlayer 2.9.3.1408 Beta (Freeware)
November 13, 2007   DGMPGDec 1.5.0 Beta 13 (Freeware)
November 13, 2007   HC 0.22 (Freeware)
November 13, 2007   VisualSubSync 0.9.12 (Freeware)
November 12, 2007   VDownloader 0.61 (Freeware)
November 12, 2007   TVersity 0.9.11.2a (Freeware)
November 12, 2007   Wondershare Flash SlideShow Builder 4.2.0
November 12, 2007   Wondershare Photo Story Platinum 2.6.0
November 12, 2007   AviDemux 2.4 Preview 3.1 (Freeware)
November 12, 2007   Kantaris Media Player 0.2.5 (Freeware)
November 12, 2007   AutoGK 2.48 Beta
November 11, 2007   InfraRecorder 0.44 (Freeware)
November 11, 2007   GB-PVR 1.1.5 (Freeware)
November 11, 2007   CodecInstaller 2.8.0
November 11, 2007   NeroLINUX 3.0.2.1

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


******************************************************

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

Changing subscription status for this newsletter is pretty easy.

To un-subscribe:
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address


======END OF LIVEUPDATE NEWSLETTER======

**************************************************************

DIGITAL DIGEST - http://www.digital-digest.com
DIGITAL DIGEST | LiveUpdate Newsletter - Issue 69
25 November, 2007

**************************************************************

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

*******************************************************

1. Introduction

I was busy this week trying to find HD/gaming deals and bargains to
post online. While I'm sure prices will continue to drop, but the
free stuff being offered right now, mainly HD movies, probably won't
be repeated when the promotional period for these new tech ends, and
we move into the mass adoption period where the low prices will
come. So higher prices with lots of free stuff, or lower prices with
no free stuff - you end up getting similar value anyway, and one
method gives you extra time to enjoy your new purchase. I also took
a look at one of our recent poll results in regards to HD movie
ownership.

And I'm also proud to say that I'm now totally format neutral when
it comes to HD, having purchased a PS3 be able to enjoy Blu-ray
movies as well as HD DVD movies on my Xbox 360 HD DVD add-on. It's a
shame Blu-ray is not region free (although the majority of movies
released so far has been), as otherwise it would mean I will be able
to enjoy every single HD movie released anywhere, which is much
better than being a bitter supporter of a single format.

Links:
* How many Blu-ray/HD DVD movies do you own: Poll Results
http://www.digital-digest.com/blog/DVDGuy/2007/11/21/%e2%80%9chow-many-blu-rayhd\
-dvd-movies-do-you-own%e2%80%9d-poll-results/

-- DVDGuy


*******************************************************

2. Weekly News Roundup

Time again for the weekly news roundup. I've been fairly busy this
week with a few things like looking up Blu-ray and HD DVD bargains
and posting them in the blog and forum, and while I've been
advocating HD format neutrality right here for a while now, I've
finally made myself format neutral by buying a PS3. I will post more
about my shopping experiences and my initial experiences with the
PS3 in my blog (http://www.digital-digest.com/blog/DVDGuy/) later
this week.

Starting with Copyright news as usual, Macrovision, the company
responsible for screwing up the video signal if you did not plug it
straight to the TV, has now purchased the recently hacked/bypassed
BD+ copy protection system (1) for Blu-ray in a deal worth $45
million (so that's how much a cracked copy protection system is
worth!). With DRM at an all time low in terms of popularity, it must
be a big worry for companies like Macrovision which relies on
the "need" for DRM for a profit. Kim Bayley, director-general of the
UK based Entertainment Retailers Association says that DRM (2)
is "stifling growth and working against the consumer interest", and
I think she's right. DRM-Free MP3s are selling very well indeed, and
I don't think music piracy has increased due to these easily
copyable music files. But while the world seems to be united in
fighting DRM and restrictive copyright legislation, France's newly
elected (US commercial interest friendly) right wing government
wants to set up a new body which will monitor Internet usage. ISPs
will monitor the activities of their users and report to the body,
and if someone is found guilty of piracy, they could be banned from
using the Internet. This sounds more like a fight against privacy
than a fight against piracy, in my opinion. And it's not just the
French, the MPAA wants universities to help stop piracy (3) by
monitoring the Internet usages of their students through a toolkit
provided by the MPAA. So governments spying on citizens, ISPs spying
on its customers, school spying on their students … is it me, or
does this all sound very Orwellian. Meanwhile, Hollywood is making
record profits, while not paying it's writers what they deserve
forcing them to go on strike. It's all about the money.

Onto something a bit less frightening now. In HD news, Home Media
Magazine has written a story about the HD format war and the fan's
contribution to it (4). It's a very interesting read, not just
because I'm quoted in it, but it summarises what is going on in
forums and on websites, and how the war seems to be slightly out of
control at times. And the two promotion groups for the formats are
not exactly helping, coming out all the time with misleading
statements and fuel to add to the fire. This time, it's Blu-ray with
a series of viral ads (5) that they've been trying to get websites
to promote. But these ads are quite childish, petty and not all that
funny (apart a scene where Betamax player is seen being thrown away
into the "junk closet", perhaps as a reminder of the fortune of
Sony's last proprietary format), and it certainly doesn't help calm
the two sides of the format war. Sometimes it's hard to not get
caught up in it (although as I mentioned above, I'm now format
neutral), but in the end people love movies, not formats. But the
war does bring some benefits, and there are lots of bargins to pick
up during the holiday sales period. The latest one sees Wal-Mart
offering the 80 GB PS3 plus 10 Blu-ray movies (6) (worth $30 or
less), plus the existing 5 free movie redemption from Sony, for only
$499. It was 2 per store only, and it's over now as it only lasted
one day, but I doubt that it will be the last of the sales. Keep you
eyes peeled for bargains, and just like I've done for the past week,
I'll be posting some of the best online offers here in my blog.

Onto gaming, in an effort to bring more developers to the Sony
stable, they have now halved the price of PS3 development kits (7).
It's a step in the right direction, although if they truly want the
PS3 to be a successful games platform, they need to do a lot more.
For my new PS3, I'm going to be using it more as a upscaling DVD and
Blu-ray players, rather than a games machine, which is not what Sony
wants (since they lose money on each console sold). I will talk more
about this later in the week, but let's just say that my Xbox 360
and Wii, plus the good old PC, provides for all my gaming needs
without the need for the PS3. But it is an excellent Blu-ray and
upscaling DVD players, and even if you use it just for these
functions, the price is still not too bad compared to standalones.
Meanwhile, somebody has leaked the Xbox 360 Fall update list (8),
but I'm highly suspicious of it's legitimacy, let's put it this way.
The PS3 has also been updated again with the 2.01 firmware to fix a
few issues in the 2.00 firmware. The speculation (9) is that the PS3
will get Blu-ray 1.1 profile compatibility before the start of the
new year, as that's why Sony will release its first 1.1 movie.
Another week, and another report of a multi-platform release that
rocks on the 360 and sucks on the PS3 (10) - this time for the
excellently valued Orange Box collection. The developers Valve
apparently decided to concentrate on the 360 version, and dumped the
PS3 development on publishers EA. I know PS3 fanboys will scream at
Valve for being "lazy", but all these companies have limited
resources and if the decision is between making two average
versions, or concentrating on getting at least one version right, I
think they have done the same thing. The alternative is to have a
further 6 to 12 month delay for the PS3 version to get everything
right, but I'm fanboys will be even more outraged if this had
happened. It seems that the PS3 is not doing well at all in the
gaming department, but if you look at the yearly sales figures for
all the consoles, it's not doing too badly (11). But just like with
HD stuff, the console wars will bring discounts over the coming
weeks. For example, this last friday, dubbed Black Friday in the US,
Amazon ran some sales (12) which saw heavy discounts for several
gaming items. Again, I will post some of the better online deals
when I see them.

See you in a week's time.

Links:
(1)  http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=84947
(2)  http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=84975
(3)  http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=85003
(4) 
http://www.homemediamagazine.com/news/html/breaking_article.cfm?article_id=11574
(5)  http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=84957
(6)  http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=85020
(7)  http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=84931
(8)  http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=84945
(9)  http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=84959
(10) http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=84991
(11) http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=84970
(12) http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=84990


*******************************************************

3. Weekly Software Roundup

November 25, 2007   Burn4Free 3.8.0.0 (Freeware)
November 24, 2007   eac3to 2.05 (Freeware)
November 24, 2007   ProgDVB 5.12.1 (Freeware)
November 23, 2007   MPEG StreamClip for Mac OS 1.9 (Freeware)
November 23, 2007   Collectorz.com Movie Collector For Mac OS X 2.0.9
November 23, 2007   RipBot264 1.6.8 (Freeware)
November 23, 2007   Q DVD Author 1.0 RC3 (Freeware)
November 22, 2007   K-Lite Mega Codec Pack 3.5.7 (Freeware)
November 22, 2007   K-Lite Codec Pack 3.5.7 (Freeware)
November 22, 2007   DeVeDe 3.4 (Freeware)
November 22, 2007   XULPlayer 0.2.1.2 (Freeware)
November 22, 2007   XP Codec Pack 2.3.1 beta (Freeware)
November 22, 2007   DivX Codec 6.7.0.26
November 22, 2007   H264TS_Cutter 109 Beta (Freeware)
November 22, 2007   Fraps 2.9.3
November 22, 2007   x264 full rev. 700 (Freeware)
November 22, 2007   SlideshowMovie 1.1
November 22, 2007   AutoMKV 0.92 (Freeware)
November 21, 2007   Collectorz.com Movie Collector 5.3.2
November 21, 2007   Video DVD Maker Pro 2.7.0.42
November 21, 2007   Video DVD Maker 3.3.0.6 (Freeware)
November 21, 2007   Txt2VobSub 3.0 (Freeware)
November 21, 2007   Nero Burning ROM 8.1.1.4
November 21, 2007   MeGUI 0.3.0.0 (Freeware)
November 21, 2007   TitleWriter 4.61 (Freeware)
November 20, 2007   PowerDVD Ultra 7.3 Build 3516
November 20, 2007   Photodex ProShow Producer 3.2.2042
November 20, 2007   Photodex ProShow Gold 3.2.2042
November 20, 2007   Photodex ProShow 3.2.2042
November 20, 2007   VisualHub 1.29a
November 20, 2007   ffdshow Rev. 1625 (Freeware)
November 19, 2007   ImTOO iPod Movie Converter 3.1.45.1116b
November 19, 2007   EMDB 0.56 (Freeware)
November 19, 2007   KMPlayer 2.9.3.1413 Beta (Freeware)
November 19, 2007   Haali Media Splitter 1.7.359.22 (Freeware)
November 18, 2007   Txt2Sup 42.6 (Freeware)
November 18, 2007   EAC3toGUI 1.40 (Freeware)
November 18, 2007   AVStoDVD 1.2.0 (Freeware)
November 18, 2007   Net Transport 2.51

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


******************************************************

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

Changing subscription status for this newsletter is pretty easy.

To un-subscribe:
- Send an email to liveupdate-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com using the
email account that receives this newsletter.
- Or go to the Yahoo My Groups page to edit your group
subscriptions. More information here:
http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/groups/groups-32.html
- DO NOT reply to this email for unsubscribe requests - it will be
ignored

To change the email address that receives this newsletter:
- Un-subscribe using your current one, and sign up using a new email
address


======END OF LIVEUPDATE NEWSLETTER======

**************************************************************

DIGITAL DIGEST - http://www.digital-digest.com
DIGITAL DIGEST | LiveUpdate Newsletter - Issue 70
2 December, 2007

**************************************************************

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

*******************************************************

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


*******************************************************

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


*******************************************************

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


******************************************************

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

Changing subscription status for this newsletter is pretty easy.

To un-subscribe:
- Send an email to liveupdate-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com using the
email account that receives this newsletter.
- Or go to the Yahoo My Groups page to edit your group
subscriptions. More information here:
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- DO NOT reply to this email for unsubscribe requests - it will be
ignored

To change the email address that receives this newsletter:
- Un-subscribe using your current one, and sign up using a new email
address


======END OF LIVEUPDATE NEWSLETTER======

**************************************************************

DIGITAL DIGEST - http://www.digital-digest.com
DIGITAL DIGEST | LiveUpdate Newsletter - Issue 71
9 December, 2007

**************************************************************

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

*******************************************************

1. Introduction

If last week was about me "working" on the PS3, this week has been
about the Xbox 360, as the "Fall" update was released and despite
Sony annoucing DivX support first, Microsoft is the first to add it
into the console forcing Sony to play catch-up once again. I updated
the Xbox 360 DivX, XviD Playback Guide to reflect the new update,
and from early testing the DivX/XviD playback is quite good. It's
been a good week for HD bargains, as Amazon and other places ramp up
their holiday sales campaign. Whether it's a HD DVD player with 10
free movies, or half priced Blu-ray movies, now is a great time to
get into HD (although as with any technology, prices will continue
to drop, although you will get less freebies).

Links:
* Amazon: Blu-ray 2-for-1 sale (US), 3-for 2 sale (UK), 40% off selected HD DVDs
http://www.digital-digest.com/blog/DVDGuy/2007/12/04/amazon-blu-ray-yet-another-\
buy-one-get-one-free-deal/
* More Hot Amazon HD DVD and Blu-ray Deals
http://www.digital-digest.com/news-60825.html
* Xbox 360 DivX, XviD Playback Guide
http://www.digital-digest.com/articles/Xbox_360_DivX_XviD_Playback_Guide_page1.h\
tml

-- DVDGuy


*******************************************************

2. Weekly News Roundup

Welcome to another weekly news roundup. I've been thinking about
changing the name of this weekly feature, as "Weekly News Roundup"
lacks a certain something. Perhaps "Digital Digest's DVDGuy's
Digital Digest", or "DVDGuy's Dazzling Digital Diary". Umm … I think
I will stick with "Weekly News Roundup" for now.

Now for something completely different. Starting with copyright
news, Steve Biddle from New Zealand wrote in his blog (1) about
trying to do something very simply in Vista that Vista's DRM system
would not allow. All he wanted to do was to simultaneously output
5.1 audio through SPDIF and stereo audio output to his TV, but Vista
won't let him (2) and would only allow SPDIF output at the same time
if it carries a 2.0 channel signal. How does having this restriction
prevent piracy, I'll never know. Meanwhile, the troubled Bush
administration has launched a new war on terror front, this time a
war on copyright infringement. All those terrorists sitting in their
caves downloading the latest episodes of Heroes must be quaking in
their boots (if they do indeed wear boots). Seriously, does the
White House have nothing better to do? They should just get back to
what they do best, and that's to make up intelligence to support yet
another war in the Middle East. The MPAA is joining in the fight and
says it's in the best interest of ISPs to filter out "inappropriate"
content (3). Last week (or the week before, I can't remember), I
also reported a story about the MPAA asking Universities to install
software toolkits to monitor student's Internet usages, in a bid to
stop campus piracy. It has now been revealed that the "toolkit" may
have violated copyright terms (4) since it uses many pieces of open
source software, and has modified them without providing the
modified source code. The ISP hosting the toolkit has been sent a
DMCA notice (haha). Perhaps this ISP should have filtered out the
obviously "inappropriate" content. In other words, while the MPAA is
forcing people to respect their interpretation of the copyright
laws, they themselves might have been breaking the same laws to
achieve their aim. Oh the irony.

In HD news, LG has finally launched their dual format drive here in
Australia (5). Their recommended retail price is more than double
the store pricing of the same drive in the US, but some have found
luck in getting the drive at a more reasonable $AUD 450. It's still
a bit too expensive to mark it as a must-have item for your next
computer, but it's a 50% price drop away from becoming just that. I
will probably write another "If I were to buy a new computer today"
blog entry this week, like the one I did back in September (6), and
I must just include this drive in my recommended specs. Staying in
Australia, retailers are saying the HD DVD people are not doing all
they can for the Australian market (7). There is no point in denying
this claim, because HD DVD has had a late and fairly quiet start,
while Blu-ray has been going all guns blazing in the promotional
stakes. Both sides are still doing poorly on pricing and releases
though. The HD DVD side has been relying mostly on the Xbox 360 HD
DVD add-on drive here in Australia, which was the only HD DVD player
until about 3 months ago. But we still end up paying more and
getting less for the add-on drive, as compared to the US in any
case, where the pricing of the drive has dropped to less than $130
(8) (although the price has gone back to $180 on Amazon.com at
least), and includes 6 movies (we only get 1 free movie in the box).
So much for the high Australian dollar. Another problem that people
have been having here in Australia is trouble accessing the web
content on titles such as Transformers. People with the US version
of the movie (thank goodness for region-free HD DVDs) have not had
the same problem, and according to the HD DVD group, the web
features are very popular indeed (9). If you really had to compare
Blu-ray to HD DVD, then on paper, HD DVD wins in everything but
studio support. Early HD DVD release have better picture and sound
quality than Blu-ray (most used VC-1, while older Blu-ray movies
used the less efficient MPEG-2), most HD DVD releases are 30 GB
compared to 25 GB for Blu-ray (BD-50 discs are still a small
minority of releases, and HD-51 is coming soon), all HD DVD players
and movies support advanced interactive features that not even the
newest and most expensive Blu-ray player support and HD DVD hardware
is cheaper too. But it doesn't stop the myth that Blu-ray is
superior to HD DVD, a myth that has been propogated by people (10)
such as Transformers director Michael Bay. Transformers on HD DVD is
probably the best selling movie on either HD format so far, and of
course it might sell more if it was a Blu-ray release too, but then
I'm sure all his older movies would sell more if they were on HD DVD
too. His claim that Microsoft deliberately supports HD DVD to get HD
to fail, is tinfoil hat madness. Microsoft has lots of things
invested in the success of HD (their VC-1 codec, used by the
majority of Blu-ray and HD DVD releases, for one), and their digital
distribution plans (of which is doing quite well in the US through
Xbox Marketplace) is a completely separate issue. Sony also has
digital downloads coming soon for the PS3, so do they wish HD to
fail too? As for his claim that Blu-ray is superior …

There's a lot of HD news this week, so let's start a new paragraph.
Analysts have predicted that there will be parity between the two
competing HD formats (11) for the foreseeable future. I can't see
either format just fading away unless the studios all become
exclusive for one side, so protect yourself by becoming format
neutral. There are always rumours floating around the Warner
Brothers, the only studio to be format neutral, is going to go
format exclusive and supports Blu-ray only (12). You can read about
what I think of this rumour in the link, but suffice to say, I don't
think it will happen (if anything, it might go the other way). HD
DVD is certainly the weaker of the two sides when it comes to sales
figures (although beware that the often quoted Nielsen HD sales
figures do not include Wal-Mart, which came into the HD game quite
late, but is now having an influence on things by being HD DVD
exclusive, the Sony PS3 apart), but I can't help but feel that it
has a more mature strategy, rather than the "let's sell as many PS3s
as possible at a loss so we have lots of Blu-ray players in people's
homes, even if they don't know what Blu-ray is" approach. There is a
nice article that summarises the state of HD DVD (13), and its well
worth a read. Speaking of the PS3, more and more rumours suggest
that it will become Blu-ray profile 1.1 or 2.0 sometime soon (14).
Unless there is some technical problem that prevents 1.1 or 2.0
certification (eg. if the cell processor can't handle simultaneous
multi-track video and audio decoding), then it's a "when" not "if"
in my opinion (that's why I purchased a PS3 as my Blu-ray player).
Still, it might take a while since there are hardly any 1.1, let
alone 2.0, movies on sale. And we're still waiting for DivX support,
which was announced weeks before, but in that time, the Xbox 360
went ahead and added support for it already. YouTube HD (15) coming
soon via H.264? Not so far fetched with the power H.264 (16) can
offer.

On that note, it's on to gaming. Is it me or is the line between
gaming and HD getting blurrier by the minute? Of course, here on
Digital Digest we primarily cover the video aspect of gaming, so
we've already intentionally blurred the lines. The holiday sales
period is an important period to see which console will dominate in
the year ahead. Analysts predict that the Xbox 360 and Wii will be
side by side (17), followed by the PS3 by some distance (although
not as distant as it used to be). Meanwhile, Nintendo has pulled ads
for the Wii (18) because demand is so high. Putting on Michael Bay's
tinfoil hat for a minute - does anybody else think that Nintendo
might be deliberately not producing enough Wii's to keep the demand
up? It's had a whole year to get the production up (Wii was last
Christmas' most wanted gift too), and it doesn't seemed to have
helped (if anything, this year's stock is even less sufficient). And
if you look at the low number of games being released in the same
period, which would have crippled any other console, you do wonder
why demand is still so high. Of course, that's just conspiracy talk -
  the most likely explanation is that Wii is attracting non-gamers,
and that's a huge group of people who suddenly want a Wii for
Christmas. Or that some people are hoarding stock to sell at a
premium on eBay or something.

So that's it for another week. While you are all busy going from
store to store to try and find a Wii, I will be here as usual
gathering the news and writing page fulls of nonsense ready for next
week's Dazzling Digital Diary. See you then.

Links:
(1)  http://www.geekzone.co.nz/sbiddle/
(2)  http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=85165
(3)  http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=85186
(4)  http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=85225
(5)  http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=85149
(6) 
http://www.digital-digest.com/blog/DVDGuy/2007/09/26/if-i-were-to-buy-a-new-comp\
uter-today-september-2007/
(7)  http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=85148
(8)  http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=85164
(9)  http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=85185
(10) http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=85168
(11) http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=85175
(12) http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=85221
(13) http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=85204
(14) http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=85224
(15) http://www.digital-digest.com/news-60829.html
(16) http://www.h264info.com
(17) http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=85153
(18) http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=85233


*******************************************************

3. Weekly Software Roundup

December 9, 2007   AVStoDVD 1.2.1 (Freeware)
December 8, 2007   MediaCodeSpeedEdit 1.1.0.12 (Freeware)
December 8, 2007   VSO PhotoDVD 2.5.2.1
December 8, 2007   K-Lite Video Conversion Pack 1.1.0 (Freeware)
December 8, 2007   ffdshow Rev. 1688 (Freeware)
December 8, 2007   h264tsto 1.3 (Freeware)
December 7, 2007   AviSub 2.2 (Freeware)
December 7, 2007   Txt2Sup 42.7 (Freeware)
December 7, 2007   D2MP 3.92 (Freeware)
December 7, 2007   Txt2VobSub 3.1 (Freeware)
December 7, 2007   Plato Video To Zune 3.70
December 7, 2007   Plato Video To iPod PSP 3GP 3.70
December 7, 2007   Plato Video to iPod Converter 3.77
December 7, 2007   x264 full rev. 709 (Freeware)
December 7, 2007   BurnAware Free Edition 0.9.9.1 beta (Freeware)
December 6, 2007   RioDVD Region Free Player 1.11
December 6, 2007   MediaCoder 0.6.0.3990 (Freeware)
December 6, 2007   K9Copy 1.2.1 (Freeware)
December 6, 2007   MeGUI 0.2.6.1041 (Freeware)
December 6, 2007   ProgDVB 5.12.4 (Freeware)
December 6, 2007   Ulead DVD MovieFactory Plus 6.0 Hotfix
December 6, 2007   Ulead DVD MovieFactory 6.0 Hotfix
December 6, 2007   Ulead VideoStudio 11 Hot Fix
December 5, 2007   Encode360 2.0 RC2 (Freeware)
December 5, 2007   Joost 1.0.3 Beta (Freeware)
December 5, 2007   AVI to AC3 1.0.4.7 (Freeware)
December 5, 2007   J. River Media Center 12.0.380
December 5, 2007   DVB Web Scheduler 5.0.0.16 (Freeware)
December 4, 2007   XP Codec Pack 2.3.3 (Freeware)
December 4, 2007   DivX Codec 6.8
December 4, 2007   TVersity 0.9.11.3 (Freeware)
December 4, 2007   EMDB 0.57 (Freeware)
December 4, 2007   FinalBurner Pro 1.25.0.140
December 4, 2007   FinalBurner 1.25.0.118 (Freeware)
December 4, 2007   Photodex ProShow Gold 3.2.2047
December 4, 2007   Photodex ProShow Producer 3.2.2047
December 4, 2007   Photodex ProShow 3.2.2047
December 4, 2007   Muxman Pro 1.0.2
December 4, 2007   DVDRemaster Pro 4.0
December 4, 2007   DVDRemaster Standard 4.0
December 3, 2007   RipBot264 1.7.0 (Freeware)
December 3, 2007   KMPlayer 2.9.3.1421 Beta (Freeware)
December 3, 2007   DVB Dream 1.4e (Freeware)
December 3, 2007   eac3to 2.08 (Freeware)
December 3, 2007   Comskip 0.79.112 (Freeware)
December 3, 2007   InfraRecorder 0.44.1 (Freeware)
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)

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


******************************************************

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

Changing subscription status for this newsletter is pretty easy.

To un-subscribe:
- Send an email to liveupdate-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com using the
email account that receives this newsletter.
- Or go to the Yahoo My Groups page to edit your group
subscriptions. More information here:
http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/groups/groups-32.html
- DO NOT reply to this email for unsubscribe requests - it will be
ignored

To change the email address that receives this newsletter:
- Un-subscribe using your current one, and sign up using a new email
address


======END OF LIVEUPDATE NEWSLETTER======

**************************************************************

DIGITAL DIGEST - http://www.digital-digest.com
DIGITAL DIGEST | LiveUpdate Newsletter - Issue 72
16 December, 2007

**************************************************************

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

*******************************************************

1. Introduction

Last week felt quite busy for some reason, although having looked
back, it didn't seem I did much. I spent a lot of time looking
through various websites and forums trying to find good HD deals,
mostly for Amazon. I've set up a page where I will continously
updated with the latest sales and discounts (it's for my own buying
needs as well). I also wrote the first ever update for my "If I were
to buy a computer today" feature that I first started back in
September (again, this is for my own buying needs too) - follow my
specs and you can get yourself one power gaming and dual format HD
system for a reasonble price. I also took time to update the MP4
Usage Guide (I did not update the version info, since the update was
a minor one), adding in updated instructions for the new version of
YAMB and a few other minor updates. And just before I went into
weekend mode, the November NPD video game sales figures came out and
I wrote my usual analysis.

Come to think of it, I actually did do a bit of work, which means I
can slack off for next week. Woohoo!!

Links:
* Updated Amazon HD DVD and Blu-ray Deals
http://www.digital-digest.com/news-60825.html
* If I were to buy a new computer today (December 2007 Update)
http://www.digital-digest.com/blog/DVDGuy/2007/12/12/if-i-were-to-buy-a-new-comp\
uter-today-december-2007/
* MP4 Usage Guide
http://www.digital-digest.com/articles/MP4_Usage_Guide_page1.html
* Game Consoles - November 2007 NPD Sales Figure Analysis
http://www.digital-digest.com/blog/DVDGuy/2007/12/14/game-consoles-november-2007\
-npd-sales-figure-analysis/

-- DVDGuy


*******************************************************

2. Weekly News Roundup

Only three more weekly roundups for 2007, assuming I'm arsed to do
them just before and after Christmas. This is the 13th roundup that
I've done, setting a personal record for keeping up with anything
for so long. I hope you've all done your holiday shopping, and that
the shopped items include some of the very things covered by this
blog (HD, gaming, movies). If so, then I think the people that will
be receiving your gift will get a very nice surprise indeed.

The big news in the last couple of weeks, in regards to
copyright/DRM, has been the Western Digital portable hard-drive
scandal. WD apparently added certain DRM provisions in the bundled
software (1) that prevented sharing of popular media files due
to "unverifiable media license authentication", in other words, they
couldn't tell if your files are pirated or not so they basically
assumed so. Now, the actual issue has been exaggerated a bit, some
going as far as suggesting that WD drives have hardware control
built in to prevent media sharing, but this is not the case. The
software that comes with the drive is optional, and the drive
supports other methods of file sharing that is not restricted. The
software itself isn't even very good. But what is clear is that DRM
has gotten so out of control that even large companies such as
Western Digital are too afraid to include software that do basic
things such as media sharing on your own home network. And while the
first step is a simple software control that can be easily bypassed,
if the trend continues, then who knows where we will end up. The
public outrage is a welcomed sight though, because as long as we're
angry enough to demand a DRM-free world, then we will get a DRM-free
world (just look at online music buying and how public pressure,
along with companies that aren't afraid to listen to consumer
demands, have basically killed off DRM in that arena). But if we
don't get angry, then the media owners are going to get more and
more greedy and demand more and more control over "their" content
(or rather, content they've gotten comparatively cheaply from
artists forced into the studio system) - perhaps something like not
being able to rip your CDs to MP3 because the RIAA thinks that's
copyright infringement (2) (even though CDs are not protected, and
even if you don't share the MP3s with anyone other than yourself).

But I did find this news story about porn companies suing a certain
YouTube-style adult video site (3) quite funny for some reason. The
Internet has probably been the worst thing that could have happened
to the porn industry - who needs mail order videos when you could
just log online and get unlimited porn. But it appears the increased
competition has meant every increasing production values of pornos,
umm … or so I've been told.

Moving on quickly, in HD news, Blu-ray player prices have dropped,
for the first time, below the $300 mark (4). Samsung's BD-P1400 (5)
can be had for less than $280 now on Amazon (I just checked), and at
that price and with HD DVD's already low price, as well as PS3s
being discounted all over the place, there's very little reason not
to get into HD now (especially if you already have a HD screen), and
even more reason to project yourself from the format war and become
HD neutral. Be warned though that the BD-P1400 is only profile 1.0
compatible, so I would save up and buy the PS3 instead for about a
hundred dollar more (and for the extra price, you get a pretty
decent media hub, Internet browser and of course, games console).
I've decided to set up a page where I will list and update all the
HD deals on Amazon (6) (including both hardware and software deals) -
  there are some good savings to be had. The war of stats between the
two camps have intensified, with both sides claiming some sort of
victory in the Black Friday sales. The HD DVD people say that they
captured 62% of the market (7) during the sales, most likely not
including the PS3. There is also research from them showing that the
next wave of buyers might favor HD DVD (8) over Blu-ray. I'm sure
the Blu-ray people have similar stats showing the exact opposite. Or
if not stats, than just more rumors about Warner Bros. going Blu-ray
exclusive (9) will do (despite Warner having already denied the
rumors twice - and again, the HD DVD people will find some "clues"
that suggests Warner are going HD DVD exclusive too). But even when
you add both HD DVD and Blu-ray sales, they only amount to 10% of
combined high def and standard def DVD players sales (10) in the
same period - there's still a long way to go before people stop
buying DVD players and start buying high def ones, if we ever get
there. I don't like the notion that somehow high def is fighting a
war against SD (in this case, HD will eventually win, just like
HDTVs won over SDTVs). I think the war is against user confusion and
apathy towards HD - the confusion comes from the format war, and the
apathy comes from the high prices of HD movies. But hopefully, the
confusion will slowly go away we more dual format players, like the
LG BH200 (11), are released. Right now, it's the real dedicated,
early adopters that are getting into HD and confusion and apathy are
not issues, and even life and death is a trivial matter (12) when it
comes to your home theater equipment.

And finally in HD, last week I mentioned something about Michael Bay
saying Blu-ray is superior. Michael Bay seems to like posting on his
forum, and this should be applauded, but there's probably a reason
why famous people like Mr. Bay need to be more careful when it comes
to public speech. His statement about Blu-ray suiting the look of
his movies better (13), apparently irregardless of trivial things
like the video codec, bitrate, transfer process, is funny to the
extreme. By his reasoning, CDs sound better than MP3s because MP3s
don't even have a physical medium. It's like a ghost format, and how
can a ghost defeat something that is real? Unless of course the
ghost uses it's ghostly powers to scare away physical beings -
perhaps this the reason the RIAA is so against MP3s is because THEY
ARE AFRAID OF GHOSTS!!! Well, it makes a little bit more sense than
Mr. Bay's statements anyway. As as for his conspiracy theory about
Microsoft, of course Microsoft has come out to deny all of his
claims (14) (but their response was expected, just like how
government deny the existence of UFOs and yet already have
spacecrafts that can travel thousands of light years to make deals
with alien races in regards to the enslavement of mankind). And to
show that Microsoft cares about HD DVD, they've released an emulator
(15) for testing HD DVD/HDi compatibility, quite ingeniously I might
add - it works simply through the Xbox 360 and an Xbox Live account
(and $2,999 to buy the emulator, of course), no need to purchase
dedicated hardware at all.

In gaming, the November NPD figures were just released and you can
read my full analysis here (16). But to sum up, sales of everything
was up for the holiday shopping season, with the Nintendo DS leading
the way and the Wii following only because of stock problems. Xbox
360 was next, followed by the PSP and PS2. And propping up the whole
group is the PS3 once again, even though sales quadrupled, it was
not enough to even get past the PS2 sales. The Xbox 360 "only"
doubled (or nearly) it's sales numbers from last month, but because
the 360 sells more games per console (6.9 per console), they are the
most profitable (17) when it comes to third-party revenue in the US -
  more than both the PS3 and Wii combined. Which means they can cut
prices even further without feeling it, unlike Sony.

Ok, that's all for this week. I'll be back the same time next week,
just two days before Christmas, to bring you more news updates.
Until then …

Links:
(1)  http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=85254
(2)  http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=85276
(3)  http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=85275
(4)  http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=85244
(5)  http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000TME35W?tag=dvdloc8-20
(6)  http://www.digital-digest.com/news-60825.html
(7)  http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=85256
(8)  http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=85279
(9)  http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=85221
(10) http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=85262
(11) http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=85261
(12) http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=85257
(13) http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=85168
(14) http://www.neoseeker.com/news/story/7427/
(15) http://www.digital-digest.com/news-60840.html
(16)
http://www.digital-digest.com/blog/DVDGuy/2007/12/14/game-consoles-november-2007\
-npd-sales-figure-analysis/
(17) http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=16643


*******************************************************

3. Weekly Software Roundup

December 15, 2007   DVDRemaster Pro 4.1
December 15, 2007   DVDRemaster Standard 4.1
December 15, 2007   DAEMON Tools 4.11 (Freeware)
December 15, 2007   QuickTime Alternative (QT7) 2.2.0 (Freeware)
December 15, 2007   Winclipdvb 2.9.6 (Freeware)
December 14, 2007   BurnAware Free Edition 0.9.9.3 beta (Freeware)
December 14, 2007   ffdshow Rev. 1700 (Freeware)
December 14, 2007   DIKO 2.33 (Freeware)
December 14, 2007   WinFF 0.32 (Freeware)
December 14, 2007   x264 full rev. 712 (Freeware)
December 14, 2007   XULPlayer 0.2.1.3 (Freeware)
December 14, 2007   IsoBuster 2.3 Beta
December 14, 2007   VideoReDo TVSuite 3.1.3.549
December 14, 2007   TitleWriter 4.62 (Freeware)
December 13, 2007   RAD Video Tools 1.9b (Freeware)
December 13, 2007   DGMPGDec 1.5.0 RC2 (Freeware)
December 13, 2007   Videora iPod Converter 3.06 (Freeware)
December 13, 2007   Videora iPhone Converter 3.06 (Freeware)
December 13, 2007   DVD-lab Pro 2.34
December 13, 2007   H264TS_Cutter 110 Beta (Freeware)
December 13, 2007   VisualHub 1.30
December 13, 2007   Wondershare DVD Slideshow Builder 4.2.0
December 12, 2007   QT Sync 0.3.2 (Freeware)
December 12, 2007   Replay A/V 8.41
December 12, 2007   SageTV 6.3
December 12, 2007   Foto2Avi 2.1 (Freeware)
December 12, 2007   DeVeDe 3.6 (Freeware)
December 12, 2007   Media Player Classic 6.4.9.1 (20071206) (Freeware)
December 11, 2007   YAMB 2.0.0.8 (20071210) (Freeware)
December 11, 2007   Video DVD Maker 3.4.0.8 (Freeware)
December 11, 2007   Video DVD Maker Pro 2.8.0.44
December 11, 2007   XP Codec Pack 2.3.4 (Freeware)
December 11, 2007   SimpleMovieX 3.6.1
December 11, 2007   MediaInfo 0.7.5.6 (Freeware)
December 10, 2007   VirtualDub 1.7.7 (Build 28312) (Freeware)
December 10, 2007   KMPlayer 2.9.3.1427 Beta (Freeware)
December 10, 2007   MemoriesOnTV Pro 4.0.0
December 10, 2007   MemoriesOnTV Home 4.0.0
December 10, 2007   Womble MPEG Video Wizard DVD December 2007 Update
December 10, 2007   Womble MPEG Video Wizard December 2007 Update
December 10, 2007   DGAVCDec 1.0.0 alpha 13 (Freeware)
December 10, 2007   Movica Beta 6.5 (Freeware)
December 10, 2007   DVB Dream 1.4f (Freeware)
December 10, 2007   SVCD2DVD 2.5.3600
December 10, 2007   MediaCoder 0.6.0 Build 3993 (Freeware)
December 9, 2007    Net Transport 2.52
December 9, 2007    AVStoDVD 1.2.1 (Freeware)

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


******************************************************

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

Changing subscription status for this newsletter is pretty easy.

To un-subscribe:
- Send an email to liveupdate-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com using the
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address


======END OF LIVEUPDATE NEWSLETTER======

**************************************************************

DIGITAL DIGEST - http://www.digital-digest.com
DIGITAL DIGEST | LiveUpdate Newsletter - Issue 73
23 December, 2007

**************************************************************

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

*******************************************************

1. Introduction

I've devoted most of my time this week to writing the Blu-ray and HD
DVD Buyer's Guide. It's coming along nicely, already 7 pages long,
with lots of information that I think people will find useful. In
fact, there might just be too much information because HD adds so
much that is new, particularly in the sound department. The guide
will be finished early next week, and at that time, you can see what
I mean when you study the 5 new HD audio formats and the 3 ways each
format can be outputted from the HD player. The format war will then
seem like trivial stuff.

And seasons greetings from everyone at Digital Digest. I will save
the New Years best wishes for next week :)

Links:
* Blu-ray, HD DVD Buyer's Guide - Coming Soon
http://www.digital-digest.com/blog/DVDGuy/2007/12/20/blu-ray-hd-dvd-buyers-guide\
-coming-soon//

-- DVDGuy


*******************************************************

2. Weekly News Roundup

Welcome to the penultimate WNR of 2007. I love the word penultimate,
I once thought that it was just a short way of saying the
phrase "the pen is mightier than the sword". I think I know what the
word means now. It's been a relatively quiet week, mainly because I
haven't been paying much attention as I've been writing my
penultimate buyer's guide for Blu-ray and HD DVD.

First up in copyright news is a legal analysis of the Sony BMG
rootkit scandal (1), a look at why a company would try and do
something so stupid and harmful to themselves. Speaking of doing
harm to yourselves, TorrentSpy has lost their case against the MPAA
(2) because they were found to have destroyed evidence. If only they
had been upfront about it, it might have made a more interesting and
penultimately more successful legal battle. As someone who has
personally being involved in a legal battle, I can honestly say that
being truthful is your best weapon, especially if you truly believe
you were correct in doing whatever you did to get you into trouble.
Once you start destroying evidence and being evasive, it becomes a
reflection of your guilt and the lawyers on the other side, as well
as judges, can see it as clear as day.

Next up is HD news. Digital Playground is releasing their first ever
Blu-ray adult title (3) after having released about a dozen ones on
HD DVD. Ironically (or not), the movie "Pirates" is a spoof the
popular Blu-ray hit "Pirates of the Caribbean". Digital Playground
was initial format neutral before giving up Blu-ray due to
resistance within the US to adult Blu-ray disc pressing. They have
now gone back to Blu-ray due to user demand, and Sony's less harsh
views towards pornography. The PS3 has been upgraded to Profile 1.1
(4) as expected (so all those who took my advice about buying the
PS3 for profile upgradability will be happy to read this news). The
same update, also as I had predicted (in a forum post somewhere),
also included DivX/XviD support, although initial tests show that
it's a bit disappointing compared to the 360's support (no GMC/QPel
support, which makes it equivalent to a standalone player from about
2 years ago). Meanwhile, hackers have redirected the Blu-ray website
(5) to point to the HD DVD one. Will Blu-ray supporting hackers
retaliate? Are there any Blu-ray supporting hackers? I would think
not many due to Blu-ray's love for DRM, but you never know. And it's
been a bad week or two for Warner Brothers, as no less than three of
their new Blu-ray releases contain glitches (6) that will require
disc replacement. I wonder how they managed to produce Blu-ray discs
that were actually HD DVDs (don't they use different manufacturing
presses?), and how duplicated discs managed to get past quality
assurance. Putting my Michael Bay Tin Foil Hat® on for a second,
could this be a signal of Warner's decision to go format exclusive
early in the new year? Perhaps they just don't care for Blu-ray as
much as they do for HD DVD. Maybe the extra manufacturing cost and
lower yields for Blu-ray discs means less money and time for QA? Or
perhaps the Blu-ray manufacturing plant has had one hell of a
Christmas party a few weeks ago that people are still being affected
by it. Who knows. It is curious that they have not managed to stuff
up any HD DVD discs, which have had the same number of releases as
Blu-ray ones from Warner. HD DVD had glitches with the first batch
of combo discs, but that was understandable since it was a new type
of disc. Blu-ray's recent glitches also include Disney's "Pirates:
Curse of the Black Pearl", which had framing problems, and a
replacement program (7) is available for the disc.

In gaming news, most gaming sites now have results up for
their "games of the year". Halo 3 is on almost everybody's list, as
is Bioshock. Super Mario Galaxy is a sure thing as well. Mass Effect
has received lots of awards and critical acclaim, and I'm not
surprised at all after discovering the developer's previous effort,
Knights of the Old Republic II, a year or two ago. You can submit
your vote for the game of the year on Digital Digest here (8). And
having just tried the Call of Duty 4 demo on my 3 year old PC, I was
surprised to find that it ran quite smoothly (9) even though I was
barely able to get Call of Duty 2 running in 640×480 on the same
computer a year ago. And it looked quite good too, unlike most new
games that I play on my aging system. And in something I will talk
about more next week, there are a few new GPUs from ATI and NVIDIA
that improves 3D performance and HD video acceleration - will they
take the crown away from the 8800 GT (10), my currently recommended
GPU? Find out next week.

See you next week.

Links:
(1)  http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=85366
(2)  http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=85382
(3)  http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=85416
(4)  http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=85362
(5)  http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=85424
(6)  http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=85417
(7)
http://bluray.highdefdigest.com/news/show/Disney/Technical_Glitches/Black_Pearl_\
Blu-ray_Disc_Exchange_Details_Revealed/1284
(8)  http://www.digital-digest.com/poll.php?pollid=24
(9)  http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=85443
(10)
http://www.digital-digest.com/blog/DVDGuy/2007/10/31/geforce-8800-gt-the-card-ev\
eryones-been-waiting-for/


*******************************************************

3. Weekly Software Roundup

December 23, 2007   HCbatchGUI 13.5 (Freeware)
December 23, 2007   K-Lite Mega Codec Pack 3.6.2 (Freeware)
December 23, 2007   K-Lite Codec Pack 3.6.2 (Freeware)
December 23, 2007   AviDemux 2.4 (Freeware)
December 23, 2007   Real Alternative 1.75 (Freeware)
December 22, 2007   Burn4Free 3.9.0.0 (Freeware)
December 22, 2007   VSO PhotoDVD 2.6.0
December 22, 2007   3ivx Filter Suite 5.0.2 (Freeware)
December 22, 2007   FinalBurner 1.26.0.119 (Freeware)
December 22, 2007   FinalBurner Pro 1.26.0.143
December 22, 2007   Vista Codec Package 4.5.5 (Freeware)
December 22, 2007   BurnAware Free Edition 1.0 (Freeware)
December 22, 2007   IsoBuster 2.3
December 22, 2007   eac3to 2.11 (Freeware)
December 21, 2007   x264 full rev. 714 (Freeware)
December 21, 2007   ffdshow Rev. 1711 (Freeware)
December 21, 2007   J. River Media Center 12.0.399
December 21, 2007   MediaCoder 0.6.0 Build 3998 (Freeware)
December 20, 2007   Videora iPod Converter 3.07 (Freeware)
December 20, 2007   Videora iPhone Converter 3.07 (Freeware)
December 20, 2007   Nero Burning ROM 8.2.8.0
December 19, 2007   EAC3toGUI 1.49 (Freeware)
December 19, 2007   DIKO Gold 2.34
December 19, 2007   DIKO 2.34 (Freeware)
December 19, 2007   Plato Video Joiner 4.66
December 19, 2007   Plato Video Converter 5.71
December 19, 2007   Wondershare Photo Story Platinum 2.6.5
December 19, 2007   h264tsto 1.5 (Freeware)
December 19, 2007   TMPGEnc XPress 4.4.1.237
December 19, 2007   Cuttermaran 1.69a (Freeware)
December 19, 2007   MemoriesOnTV Pro 4.0.1
December 19, 2007   MemoriesOnTV Home 4.0.1
December 18, 2007   QT Lite 2.2.0 (Freeware)
December 18, 2007   FAVC 1.05 (Freeware)
December 18, 2007   AVI to AC3 1.0.4.8 (Freeware)
December 18, 2007   DvdReMake Pro 3.6.3
December 18, 2007   DvdReMake 3.6.3
December 17, 2007   DVB Dream 1.4g (Freeware)
December 17, 2007   KMPlayer 2.9.3.1428 Beta (Freeware)
December 17, 2007   DVD slideshow GUI 0.78 (Freeware)
December 17, 2007   DVBcut 0.5.4 Rev. 110 (Freeware)
December 17, 2007   Comskip 0.79.113 (Freeware)
December 16, 2007   Dr. DivX 2.0.1 Beta 5 (Freeware)

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


******************************************************

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

Changing subscription status for this newsletter is pretty easy.

To un-subscribe:
- Send an email to liveupdate-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com using the
email account that receives this newsletter.
- Or go to the Yahoo My Groups page to edit your group
subscriptions. More information here:
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- DO NOT reply to this email for unsubscribe requests - it will be
ignored

To change the email address that receives this newsletter:
- Un-subscribe using your current one, and sign up using a new email
address


======END OF LIVEUPDATE NEWSLETTER======

**************************************************************

DIGITAL DIGEST - http://www.digital-digest.com
DIGITAL DIGEST | LiveUpdate Newsletter - Issue 74
30 December, 2007

**************************************************************

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

*******************************************************

1. Introduction

Hello to everyone on this new year's eve eve. Hope you've had a nice
week, and getting ramped up for NYE celebrations. Unlike most
people, I've not been able to take a break this week as I had to
finish the Blu-ray and HD DVD Buyer's guide. It was worth the effort
though, because writing the guide allowed me to learn a few more
things too. I also wrote a blog yesterday on the ATI Radeon 3870
versus the 8800 GTS 512 MB, both new GPUs that offer excellent HD
video acceleration and good to great 3D performance.

This week's news roundup is a bit short, so I've padded it with a
brief year in review. Just few paragraphs on what I found memorable
about 2007.

So by the next issue it will have been 2008 already. I hope you've
had a great 2007 and will have an even better 2008. Happy New Year!!

Links:
* ATI Radeon HD 3870 versus NVIDIA 8800 GTS 512 MB
http://www.digital-digest.com/blog/DVDGuy/2007/12/29/ati-radeon-hd-3870-versus-n\
vidia-8800-gts-512-mb/
* The Blu-ray and HD DVD Buyer's Guide
http://www.digital-digest.com/articles/Blu-ray_HD_DVD_Buyers_Guide_page1.html

-- DVDGuy


*******************************************************

2. Weekly News Roundup

So here we are, the very last blog entry of 2007. Not much in the
news recently (not that I've been paying any attention), so I've
supplemented this otherwise short blog with a brief look back at
2007, should be interesting.

But to get the news stuff out of the way first.

In copyright news, Antigua has won a fight against the US <1> which
will now allow it to (once again) become a pirate and gambling
haven. Or something like that. While this decision has a lot to do
with online gambling, it also has copyright implications. While I
can't talk about it directly on this website, many people are aware
that Antigua is home to a particular software that does certain
things to protected video content. It now seem that this software,
and software like it, might have found a safe place to reside
without being subject to copyright laws of other countries. But a
safe home might not be needed for much longer, as DRM in music at
least appears to be dying a quick death. Warner, the last major
holdout, has just agreed to release all their music DRM-free on
Amazon <2>. The next obvious step will be to get rid of DRM on
movies, although it probably won't happen as quickly since the movie
DRMs usually reside on discs, rather than online formats. It's not
like music where DRM obstructs portability, which is the whole point
of digital music downloads. DRM does not, at the moment, interfere
with the normal operation of movie discs, other than being not able
to backup your movies (which you'd be hard pressed to do with Blu-
ray and HD DVDs, what with them being so large in size).

Moving quickly onto HD movies, apparently The Bourne Ultimatum and
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix HD DVDs are outselling all
Blu-ray titles this week <3>, including the Blu-ray version of OOTP.
This is not too surprising because Bourne is a format exclusive hit
movie, and that the Blu-ray version of OOTP has had several
production and distribution problems. In the end though, Blu-ray
still won the week by nearly a 2:1 margin again. All those PS3s are
really helping Blu-ray's movie sales - even if every PS3 owner just
buys only one movie, that will still give Blu-ray a huge advantage
even if HD DVD owners buy 3 or 4 movies per player. What I think
will happen eventually is that the HD DVD movie sales number will go
up due to the people who purchased the cheap $99 HD DVD players (and
subsequent sales) finally starting to purchase some movies. Remember
that all the HD DVD players came with up to 12 free movies, so there
is no immediate reason for people to buy titles until they've
finished watching the free ones. And once Universal and Paramount
start releasing their catalogue titles (older classics, such as Back
to the Future or The Godfather), then the numbers will be more even.
That's my prediction for 2008 by the way, and it's the only
prediction I'm going to make since I suck at them. Speaking of
sales, don't forget to keep looking at our special online sales page
for high def bargains <4>. The current HD DVD BOGOF sale is going
very well, with more than 20 HD DVD titles in the Amazon top 100
movies at times (the top 100 includes DVD, Blu-ray as well as HD DVD
sales). Amazon has even released a statement <5> saying they they
sold so many high-def players that it could have filled seven
(American) football fields. If you're still confused about Blu-ray
and HD DVD, don't forget to read my new Buyer's Guide <6>, which
even if I'm saying so myself, is pretty useful if you still need
more information to make up your mind as to whether to get into HD
or not (or which one of Blu-ray/HD DVD/both).

And that's pretty much it in terms of news.

So onto the yearly review. 2007 has been an interesting year for
myself and Digital Digest. The biggest even happened in March. I
still cannot legally say much about what went on, except to say that
it was a legal matter and that, for a while at least, it appeared
that Digital Digest might not have survived to its 8th birthday
(which was celebrated in July this year). But survive I/we did, and
I think the website is a better one for it - there's no longer any
confusion toward its legal status, and it has forced me to
concentrate on some other parts of the website which has been
neglected (such as the Blu-ray and HD DVD stuff).

But apart from that, I think 2007 is when Blu-ray and HD DVD finally
entered into people's thoughts, if not their homes (I think this
will happen in 2008). This time last year, nobody really gave a damn
about the format war or sales figures. Paramount was still format
neutral, and you wouldn't even think possible that a HD player's
price would fall under $100. But from what I have seen, people are
starting to think about getting into HD, and while it may still take
a year for most people to start caring, I think the trend is there.

Another war that has been brewing is the next-gen games console war,
a three way fight between the Nintendo Wii, the Xbox 360 and the
PS3. You might say that there are really no losers in this war, at
least not for 2007, since in their own way all three consoles have
made significant gains. The Wii has become a fad, attracting people
who have never played games before. The Xbox 360 has held firm
despite RROD problems, while the PS3 looks less like the whipping
boy that it was at the start of the year. 2008 should probably see
the PS3 make more gains, while we might yet see some new innovations
<7> coming the Wii's way.

2007 is also the year music DRM finally died. To be fair, it was a
short and bitter life for music DRM - it never really had any chance
because it's hated by the most important demographics - the actual
consumers. Hopefully, 2008 will be the year video DRM dies too, with
CSS, AACS and BD+ being hacked beyond all recognition, I don't think
DRM will be missed at all, not even by the studios.

So that's it for 2007. I hope you've had an eventful and pleasant
2007, and if not, I hope that 2008 will be much kinder. Happy New
Year from me and everyone here at Digital Digest. See you in 2008.

Links:
<1>  http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=85506
(2)  http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=85533
(3)  http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=85445
(4)  http://www.digital-digest.com/news-60825.html
(5) 
http://www.highdefdigest.com/news/show/Industry_Trends/Amazon/Amazon_Reports_Str\
ong_Holiday_Sales_For_HD_DVD,_Blu-ray_Players/1305
(6) 
http://www.digital-digest.com/articles/Blu-ray_HD_DVD_Buyers_Guide_page1.html
(7)  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jd3-eiid-Uw


*******************************************************

3. Weekly Software Roundup

December 30, 2007   cdrtfe 1.3 (Freeware)
December 29, 2007   Haali Media Splitter 1.7.401.3 (Freeware)
December 29, 2007   AutoMKV 0.93 (Freeware)
December 29, 2007   ProgDVB 5.12.6 (Freeware)
December 29, 2007   MyFilms 4.6
December 28, 2007   J. River Media Center 12.0.403
December 28, 2007   RSHUT PRO 2.8.1.2
December 28, 2007   DivX Codec 6.8.0.19
December 28, 2007   TsRemux 0.0.19 (Freeware)
December 27, 2007   VSO PhotoDVD 2.6.2
December 27, 2007   HCbatchGUI 13.8 (Freeware)
December 27, 2007   Mpeg2Schnitt 0.9 (Freeware)
December 27, 2007   MediaCoder 0.6.0 Build 3999 (Freeware)
December 26, 2007   ffdshow Rev. 1724 (Freeware)
December 26, 2007   PPT2DVD 4.6.0
December 26, 2007   XviD4PSP 5.026 (Freeware)
December 26, 2007   AVStoMPEG 10.2007.1223.2300 (Freeware)
December 26, 2007   DVDINFOPro 4.7.6.0
December 25, 2007   BSplayer Pro 2.26
December 25, 2007   BSplayer 2.26
December 25, 2007   eac3to 2.12 (Freeware)
December 24, 2007   Plato DVD Creator 3.79
December 24, 2007   Plato Video To Zune 3..71
December 24, 2007   Plato Video To iPod PSP 3GP 3.71
December 24, 2007   EasyMPEG MX 3.3.4build88
December 23, 2007   Freevo 1.7.5 (Freeware)
December 23, 2007   K-Lite Mega Codec Pack 3.6.2 (Freeware)
December 23, 2007   K-Lite Codec Pack 3.6.2 (Freeware)
December 23, 2007   AviDemux 2.4 (Freeware)
December 23, 2007   Real Alternative 1.75 (Freeware)

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


******************************************************

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

Changing subscription status for this newsletter is pretty easy.

To un-subscribe:
- Send an email to liveupdate-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com using the
email account that receives this newsletter.
- Or go to the Yahoo My Groups page to edit your group
subscriptions. More information here:
http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/groups/groups-32.html
- DO NOT reply to this email for unsubscribe requests - it will be
ignored

To change the email address that receives this newsletter:
- Un-subscribe using your current one, and sign up using a new email
address


======END OF LIVEUPDATE NEWSLETTER======

**************************************************************

DIGITAL DIGEST - http://www.digital-digest.com
DIGITAL DIGEST | LiveUpdate Newsletter - Issue 75
6 January, 2008

**************************************************************

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

*******************************************************

1. Introduction

Welcome to this side of 2008. A very quiet week turned very noisy
towards the end when Warner Brothers announced they will drop HD DVD
after May 2008. Not good times to be a HD DVD supporter, although as
usual with these type of things, the story probably won't end here
for the "red" format. I've had my own take on this news in a blog
entry, and as someone who believes that what benefits consumers
should come first, Blu-ray's possibly victory cannot be considered
good news, not if you want region-free and fewer, not more, DRM. But
when do consumers even win anyway, especially against the likes of
Sony and News Corp's Fox.

Let's just hope that if the HD DVD backers decide to join up with
Blu-ray, they bring some of the consumer friendlier advantages of HD
DVD with them to the BDA, and the BDA is gracious enough in victory
to accept alternate points of view. But let's not eulogise HD DVD
just yet ... time will tell what will happen eventually.

Links:
* Warner Goes Blu - The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
http://www.digital-digest.com/blog/DVDGuy/2008/01/05/warner-goes-blu-the-good-th\
e-bad-and-the-ugly/

-- DVDGuy


*******************************************************

2. Weekly News Roundup

Welcome to this slightly later than usual weekly news roundup, the
first for 2008. I actually nearly forgot today was roundup day, as
the whole week has been a bit like the weekend.

Starting with copyright news, as reported a bit earlier, the RIAA is
still trying to ban CD ripping <1>, completely ignoring fair use.
CDs do not have copy protection mechanisms, so it's not against the
DMCA since nothing has been hacked or bypassed. And unless someone
rips and upload the music online, nobody's copyright has been
violated either. Content owners have really lost sight of what
copyright enforcement is about, and the constant targetting of their
customers has had the unintended effect of making DRM public enemy
number one. Keep it up guys, you're doing a heck of a job destroying
the reputation of DRM. Speaking of reputations, here's another story
of DRM gone mad, as changing your monitor might mean you lose access
to your paid content <2>. No wonder people prefer pirated stuff. And
sort of in between copyright and HD, PowerDVD Ultra has been updated
to be Blu-ray Profile 1.1 compatible <3>, and it now supports BD+.
Good news, on the surface. But to ensure BD+ cannot be bypassed,
Cyberlink has now made it impossible to playback BD+ titles that do
not have AACS (eg. if you were somehow able to bypass AACS through
third party software, which I will not mention by name here), and
also to playback any HD content (including both Blu-ray and HD DVDs)
from your hard-drive. If you want to keep these functionalities then
you can skip the upgrade, but you will lose Profile 1.1
compatibility. So Blu-ray profiles have some use after all, to force
people to accept harsher DRM or risk not getting to play advanced
interactive content.

And now moving onto HD, and this has been a huge week for HD news.
Well just like the story of the boy who cried wolf <4>, the wolf
finally came. Warner Brothers has finally gone down the anti-
consumer street and abandoned support for HD DVD <5>, becoming Blu-
ray exclusive after May 2008. I've already said what I feel about
this change of stance in the previous blog <6>, suffice to say, the
reaction on some of the forums have been quite hostile. Blu-ray
fanboys gloating, HD DVD fans fighting back, and others selling
their HD DVD players on eBay. I feel the people selling their HD DVD
gear is a bit premature, there are still going to be some twists and
turns before the war is over. It all depends on what the DVD Forum,
Toshiba, HP, Intel, Microsoft, Universal and Paramount decide to do
about it - as you can see, this is a list of some of the biggest
companies in the world (Universal and Paramount added together is
bigger than the entire Blu-ray studio camp, minus Warner), I don't
think they got to where they are by just giving up at the first sign
of trouble. And your HD DVD gear won't suddenly stop working just
because Warner has gone blu - there are still tons of movies you
cannot get on Blu-ray, even some Warner ones. A good time to pick up
cheap HD DVD hardware and movies though. More good news for Blu-ray
though, as the first Blu-ray enabled Mac <7> might premier at Mac
World later this month. For PC users, there is a look at the various
HD acceleration performances <8> of the latest NVIDIA and ATI GPUs,
which is worth a look if you are looking to upgrade or build a new
computer for HD playback.

And on that note, we move to gaming. Xbox Live users would have
encountered some problems during the holiday period, as the Xbox
Live servers were bogged down due to the ever increasing number of
users (the holiday sales figures should be good for the Xbox 360 -
several stores I went to just before Christmas were completely sold
out of 360's and Wii's, with only some PS3s left). Microsoft has
issued a "mea culpa" to Live users, and to make it up, will be
offering a free Live Arcade game to all users <9> (details to be
made available soon). That's nice of them, although it would be
nicer if they had anticipated the increase in Xbox Live demand,
especially so soon after it's five year anniversary promotions.

So that's it for this week. Keep your eyes peeled to this blog for
more fall out from Warner's bombshell, to see how the HD DVD camp
reacts. See you next week.

Links:
<1>  http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=85626
<2>  http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=85643
<3>  http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=85610
<4>  http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=85594
<5>  http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=85650
<6> 
http://www.digital-digest.com/blog/DVDGuy/2008/01/05/warner-goes-blu-the-good-th\
e-bad-and-the-ugly/
<7>  http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=85642
<8>  http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=85576
<9>  http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=85654


*******************************************************

3. Weekly Software Roundup

January 6, 2008     DVD Rebuilder Pro 1.26.6
January 6, 2008     ffdshow Rev. 1751 (Freeware)
January 6, 2008     SubDownloader² 0.7.0 (Freeware)
January 5, 2008     Vista Codec Package 4.5.6 (Freeware)
January 5, 2008     Media Player Classic 6.4.9.1 (20080104) (Freeware)
January 5, 2008     eac3to 2.14 (Freeware)
January 5, 2008     XviD4PSP 5.028 RC2 (Freeware)
January 5, 2008     ProgDVB 5.12.7 (Freeware)
January 5, 2008     BluffTitler 7.17 (Freeware)
January 4, 2008     x264 full rev. 715 (Freeware)
January 4, 2008     Elecard MPEG Player 5.0.71227
January 4, 2008     DVDStyler 1.6.0 (Freeware)
January 3, 2008     X Codec Pack 2.2.0 build 503 RC (Freeware)
January 3, 2008     VoltaicHD 1.0.14
January 3, 2008     SlideshowMovie 1.1.1
January 3, 2008     MediaCodeSpeedEdit 1.1.0.13 (Freeware)
January 3, 2008     Zoom Player WMV Pro 5.01
January 3, 2008     Zoom Player Pro 5.01
January 3, 2008     Zoom Player Standard 5.01 (Freeware)
January 2, 2008     Txt2VobSub 3.2 (Freeware)
January 2, 2008     Net Transport 2.53
January 2, 2008     SimpleMovieX 3.6.2
January 2, 2008     Subtitle Workshop 4.0 Beta (Freeware)
January 2, 2008     WinFF 0.33 (Freeware)
January 1, 2008     K-Lite Mega Codec Pack 3.6.5 (Freeware)
January 1, 2008     K-Lite Codec Pack 3.6.5 (Freeware)
January 1, 2008     HCbatchGUI 14.0 (Freeware)
January 1, 2008     DVB Dream 1.4h (Freeware)
January 1, 2008     MemoriesOnTV Pro 4.0.2
January 1, 2008     MemoriesOnTV Home 4.0.2
December 31, 2007   TVersity 0.9.11.4 (Freeware)
December 31, 2007   AutoMKV 0.93a (Freeware)
December 31, 2007   The FilmMachine 1.6.0.7 beta (Freeware)
December 30, 2007   DAEMON Tools 4.11.2 (Freeware)
December 30, 2007   cdrtfe 1.3 (Freeware)

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


******************************************************

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

Changing subscription status for this newsletter is pretty easy.

To un-subscribe:
- Send an email to liveupdate-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com using the
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- DO NOT reply to this email for unsubscribe requests - it will be
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- Un-subscribe using your current one, and sign up using a new email
address


======END OF LIVEUPDATE NEWSLETTER======

**************************************************************

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

**************************************************************

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

*******************************************************

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


*******************************************************

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


*******************************************************

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    SubDownloader² 0.7.0 (Freeware)

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


******************************************************

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

Changing subscription status for this newsletter is pretty easy.

To un-subscribe:
- Send an email to liveupdate-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com using the
email account that receives this newsletter.
- Or go to the Yahoo My Groups page to edit your group
subscriptions. More information here:
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- DO NOT reply to this email for unsubscribe requests - it will be
ignored

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- Un-subscribe using your current one, and sign up using a new email
address


======END OF LIVEUPDATE NEWSLETTER======

**************************************************************

DIGITAL DIGEST - http://www.digital-digest.com
DIGITAL DIGEST | LiveUpdate Newsletter - Issue 77
20 January, 2008

**************************************************************

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

*******************************************************

1. Introduction

The December NPD game console sales figures are out, as well as
general 2007 figures. It's been a great year for gaming, and none of
the console manufacturers can really say they are disappointed with
how things turned out, although Nintendo and Microsoft will be the
happier of the three.

Links:
* Game Consoles - December 2007 NPD Sales Figure Analysis
http://www.digital-digest.com/blog/DVDGuy/2008/01/18/game-consoles-december-2007\
-npd-sales-figure-analysis/

-- DVDGuy


*******************************************************

2. Weekly News Roundup

Like sands through the hourglass, so are the roundups of our week.
Or something like that.

Let's not waste any time, starting with copyright news, it seems the
studios have finally wised up and have started experimenting with
managed copy. Managed copy is a concept that, instead of letting
people make copies of DVDs and stuff for backup or portable use, the
studios would make these copies available to you (with the cost
included). Fox has demonstrated this feature on some of its new DVDs
<1>, including the Family Guy Blue Harvest DVD which will have a
DRM'd iPod version of the feature on the disc. Last week, you'll
remember Sony demonstrating something similar with Blu-ray discs on
PS3, and copying a version of the feature to the PSP. You have to
say that this is much preferred to not being able to make copies at
all, although I don't think this goes far enough - it would be much
better if perhaps a 1:1 copy of the feature can be made and stored
on networked storage, and to allow standalones to playback
these "ripped" features without the disc being present. I'm sure
this can be done without encouraging casual piracy (for example,
making a copy without owning the original), through some kind of
registration/watermark/DRM system. One of these days I'll have to
write a blog entry on how this could work and why it will benefit
users (and I do remember promising to write a blog on wireless HD
last week, and I haven't). A more disturbing news was the good old
USB system is going to be updated to allow digital video
transmission, to compete with the HDMI standard. The disturbing part
is that DRM will be added (most likely HDCP) to allow this to
happen, which sounds to me like an excuse to add DRM to a standard
that didn't have it before <2>. Why do we even need USB for video
anyway - all new AV devices use HDMI as the standard already.

Onto to HD, Amazon is running a competition where 60 fantastic
prizes are going to be given over a month's period (to US residents
only, unfortunately). There will be 30 packs that include a Blu-ray
player and 100 Blu-ray movies (so 30 players and 3,000 free movies
to be given away), and the same for HD DVD. Entry links found here
<3>. You don't need to buy anything to enter, so if you do live in
the US, why not give it a go? Good luck. While Blu-ray and HD DVD
are fighting a war, Apple has launched a new front in HD downloads
through Apple TV <4>. Microsoft already has something similar
through Xbox Marketplace, and Sony will introduce something similar
too for the PlayStation Store. Will these new distribution methods
beat the good old optical disc? I think the problem is that HD
downloads and HD content on Blu-ray or HD DVD are two completely
different things - one is relatively bitrate limited low quality,
while the other represents the best possible quality in A/V at the
moment. People who have spent thousands of dollars on LCD/plasmas
and surround sound system aren't going to be terribly impressed by 8
Mbps 720p video with 5.1 channel audio, when they have access to 25
Mbps 1080p versions of the same feature with 7.1 lossless audio. And
how will ISPs react to the increase in bandwidth of these new
applications? If the infrastructure has been rolled out, then
perhaps not much will change. But if the infrastructure is not
capable enough of handling such traffic increases, then ISP will
have to raise prices and lower bandwidth, like they have done here
in Australia regularly over the last few years. Could this happen in
the US as well? <5> As for the format war, things continue to
bubble, and Blu-ray still has the upper hands, especially the latest
sales figures show a commanding 85/15 lead <6>, a likely reaction to
the Warner announcement. However, Paramount is still releasing discs
for HD DVD, having just announced their 1st quarter release schedule
<7>, the same with Universal <8>. If HD DVD can hold on to these two
studios, then there will still be many releases that are exclusive
to HD DVD, such as Beowulf, Cloverfield, Bee Movie … of course,
whether these two studios remain HD DVD exclusive is something that
only time will tell. Toshiba is still promoting HD DVD, and they
have just dropped the retail pricing of the HD-A3 to around $150,
and you can pick one up from Amazon (with 7 free HD DVD movies) for
as low as $130 - check out Digital Digest's Blu-ray/HD DVD deals
page <9> for more information on this and many other HD deals. $130
with 7 free movies for a HD DVD player that also does very good DVD
upscaling is a bargain, considering that a good DVD upscaler will
cost about the same without the free movies. Plus you will get
access to whatever exclusives that may still exists for the format,
for the time being anyway.

In gaming news, the December and 2007 NPD results are out and I've
covered it in the previous blog post <10>. Now some (including
myself) have been confused by the numbers, which suggest the Xbox
360 widening it's lead in December over the PS3, but shrinking in
terms of overall market share to Sony's console. This can be easily
explained because while the Xbox 360 still enjoys a 3 to 1 lead,
unless the monthly Xbox 360 sales numbers continue to have the same
ratio to PS3 sales, then market share will continue to grow in PS3's
favor. Of course, if the 360 outsells the PS3 continuously, even if
the margin decreases, all this means it that the PS3 will gain
market share until a certain point and then stop gaining and at
best, all it can look forward to is equal market share with the 360.
Or something like that. The somewhat unexpected surge in 360 sales
has meant a disruption to the usually reliable Xbox Live service. To
make up for it, Microsoft will be giving away a free copy of the
Xbox Live Arcade game <11>, Undertow, to all Xbox Live users (both
Silver and Gold members). The offer is only for a week, and starts
right about now, so don't miss out.

That's it for this week. Hopefully I will write that article about
wireless HD next week, or maybe about managed copy as well. We'll
see.

Links:
<1>  http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=85828
<2>  http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=85830
<3>  http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=85814
<4>  http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=85826
<5>  http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=85876
<6> 
http://www.dailytech.com/HighDef+Sales+Tip+Towards+Bluray+Disc+Following+Warner+\
Announcement/article10385c.htm
<7>  http://news.punchjump.com/article.php?id=5413
<8> 
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/film/news/e3ie7d46e37694ce94\
1f2d65f37f6865fd9
<9>  http://www.digital-digest.com/news-60825.html
<10>
http://www.digital-digest.com/blog/DVDGuy/2008/01/18/game-consoles-december-2007\
-npd-sales-figure-analysis/
<11> http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=85872


*******************************************************

3. Weekly Software Roundup

January 20, 2008   ffdshow Rev. 1798 (Freeware)
January 20, 2008   SUPER v2008.build.24 (Freeware)
January 20, 2008   DVBcut 0.5.4 Rev. 112 (Freeware)
January 20, 2008   RipBot264 1.8.3 (Freeware)
January 19, 2008   Dr. DivX 2.0.1 Beta 6 (Freeware)
January 19, 2008   ProgDVB 5.12.10 (Freeware)
January 19, 2008   XviD4PSP 5.028 (Freeware)
January 19, 2008   DAEMON Tools 4.12 (Freeware)
January 19, 2008   EasyMPEG MX 3.3.4build91
January 18, 2008   x264 full rev. 721 (Freeware)
January 18, 2008   Movie Library ++ 4.0.0 (Freeware)
January 18, 2008   Batch DVD Streams Converter 1.0 (Freeware)
January 18, 2008   VideoInspector 1.12.0.112
January 18, 2008   DVBViewer 3.9.2.0
January 16, 2008   RAD Video Tools 1.9c (Freeware)
January 16, 2008   QuickTime Alternative (QT7) 2.3.0 (Freeware)
January 16, 2008   VoltaicHD 1.1.1
January 16, 2008   AVCutty 3.0 (Freeware)
January 15, 2008   MoKgVm2DVD 1.1 (Freeware)
January 15, 2008   Fraps 2.9.4
January 15, 2008   HCbatchGUI 14.1 (Freeware)
January 15, 2008   IsoPuzzle 1.7 Beta (Freeware)
January 15, 2008   H264TS_Cutter 111 (Freeware)
January 14, 2008   Q DVD Author 1.0 Final (Freeware)
January 13, 2008   DivX Codec 6.8.0.30
January 13, 2008   MediaCoder 0.6.1 Build 4026 (Freeware)
January 13, 2008   PgcEdit 8.6 (Freeware)
January 13, 2008   avi.NET 2.5.7.0 (Freeware)
January 13, 2008   MovieGate 2.66
January 13, 2008   Net Transport 2.54

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


******************************************************

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

Changing subscription status for this newsletter is pretty easy.

To un-subscribe:
- Send an email to liveupdate-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com using the
email account that receives this newsletter.
- Or go to the Yahoo My Groups page to edit your group
subscriptions. More information here:
http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/groups/groups-32.html
- DO NOT reply to this email for unsubscribe requests - it will be
ignored

To change the email address that receives this newsletter:
- Un-subscribe using your current one, and sign up using a new email
address


======END OF LIVEUPDATE NEWSLETTER======

**************************************************************

DIGITAL DIGEST - http://www.digital-digest.com
DIGITAL DIGEST | LiveUpdate Newsletter - Issue 78
27 January, 2008

**************************************************************

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

*******************************************************

1. Introduction

I finally wrote that blog entry about Wireless HD that I promised a
couple of weeks ago. And yes, the picture included in the blog of
the messy wires is from my actual home theater, without any
manipulation of what my cabling actually looks like - sad, isn't it?
It seems that WirelessHD is something that hasn't come too soon for
me at all.

Links:
* The Wireless Home Theatre (and beyond)
http://www.digital-digest.com/blog/DVDGuy/2008/01/24/the-wireless-home-theatre-a\
nd-beyond/

-- DVDGuy


*******************************************************

2. Weekly News Roundup

There comes a time in a man's life when he has to make a decision. A
decision so big, that it could literally alter the course of time,
space and reality. Today is not that time. Today is time for yet
another Weekly News Update.

It seems in the world of copyright, US colleges are public enemy
number one at the moment. The copyright lobby is pressuring the US
congress <1> to pass college funding legislation that will ensure
Internet filtering and monitoring. To threaten something as vital as
education with something as trivial (and rooted in greed) as
copyright protection, is probably exactly what is wrong with the US
political system at the moment. The MPAA has been on the offensive
as well, but perhaps their education wasn't all it could have been
either, as they seemed to have fudged up the numbers <2> in regards
to college kid's contribution to piracy. Their initial figure that
college kids are responsible for 44% of all lost income did sound a
bit strange. If I have to point to one thing a major cause of lost
income, I have to say it's the industry's attitude towards
consumers. When it comes to copyright control, consumers are treated
like convicted criminals. DRM is causing more damage to the industry
than casual piracy. Another example is Apple's QuickTime DRM update
<3> causing other software, such as Adobe After Effects, to be
disabled. Music DRM is dying, and movie DRM seems to be moving in a
more "consumer friendly" direction, taking special note of the quote
around the phrase `consumer friendly'. Fox's new Hitman Blu-ray will
include a digital copy of the film <4> for use on portable devices.
Sounds good, except the recommended price for the title is at
$39.98, which makes it higher than most other Blu-ray releases by a
couple of dollars. So basically, while a (DRM'd) "digital copy" is
provided, the price of this copy has already been included, whether
you want it or not. So basically "fine" you for what you might do
(which might be illegal) before you even do it. Sounds about right.

In HD news, it has all been about HD downloads these last few weeks.
It's strange that immediately after what appears to be a victory for
Blu-ray, people start questioning the need for an optical format.
Apple, Microsoft and Sony all have their movie download services,
and HBO will now launch something similar <5> in limited areas too.
But people look at the cheap prices of purchasing downloads compared
to buying discs, but are they looking at the total cost <6>,
including bandwidth? Maybe in the US and other advanced broadband
nations, it's not much of an issue, but a typical HD download from
iTunes might be 50% of someone's allocated monthly bandwidth
allowance here in Australia, not to mention it might take a day to
download due to our limited broadband speeds. I think for now, the
optical disc is still the best way to deliver high bandwidth movies.
It certainly might still be the cheapest way here in Australia, even
though our HD movie discs are way over priced. Speaking of Blu-
ray's "victory", Toshiba has introduced price cuts here in Australia
<7> for their range of HD DVD players (second-generation players).
The most interesting is the massive price cut for the award winning
<8> Toshiba HD-XE1 <9> (similar to the XA2 in the US), which uses
the highly sought after Reon HQV video processing chipset to achieve
the ultimate video performance, even for upscaled DVDs. Reading
through forums about people's chats with various stores around
Australia, it seems the XE1 (which comes with 11 free movies) is
selling very well indeed. Many Blu boys have been turned purple
(dual format => red + blue => purple) by the amazing value of the
XE1 (a similar DVD upscaling player that uses Reon HQV costs thrice
as much). But on the other end of the quality scale, we have the
Samsung BD-UP5000, which also uses Reon HQV, but is apparently so
problematic that even a class action lawsuit is being considered
<10> (although I doubt it). It certainly it's the best designed
machine, and even Samsung realises it as it will be discontinued
soon and replaced by the BD-Up5500 (does not have Reon HQV), with
the BD-UP6500 (rumoured to have Reon HQV + Blu-ray Profile 2.0)
coming soon too. I hope Samsung do get their act together, as a dual
format player will suit me just fine considering that I'm still
building up my movie collection by buying exclusives in both formats.

On to gaming, there's probably not much time left to get your free
copy of the Xbox Live Arcade game <11>, Undertow. I've played it and
it's pretty good, if not a bit repetitive. Underwater, pseudo 3D,
flag capturing team shooter is probably the best description of it.
Nice graphics and sound though. Sony seems to be dropping their 80
GB version of the PS3 <12>, the last model that has PS2
compatibility. This coincides with news of a new 40 GB white PS3
<13>, as well as a possible price cut to $299. January 28th is
supposed to be the date something happens, so stay tuned for more
updates. Sony is also partnering with HP to provide "Manufacture-On-
Demand" <14> service for their movies, with HP keen to expand MOD to
Blu-ray and HD DVD. Basically you choose a movie and the disc is
made to order. It's a nice idea, although it can't compete with the
lower cost of mass manufacture (although being able to order several
SD movies on a single HD disc, with your selection of extra
features, sounds very attractive).

And Fox News is up to their usual tricks, this time "bending" the
truth as they portray the Xbox 360 game Mass Effect as a deprived
sex orgy simulator <15>. It's funny how people made such a big deal
of GTA: San Andrea's Hot Coffee sex simulation modification, yet
people simply ignored that fact that the game allowed you to do
drive-bys, shot cops, kill civilians and become a drug mule to earn
more money.

And on that family friendly last paragraph, I'll end this news
roundup. See you next week.

Links:
<1>  http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=85901
<2>  http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=85958
<3>  http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=85956
<4>  http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=85972
<5>  http://www.digital-digest.com/news-60905.html
<6>  http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=85876
<7>  http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=85913
<8> 
http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/toshiba-hd-xa2-hd-dvd-player-wins-sound-\
-vision-editors,257457.shtml
<9> 
http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/volume_14_4/toshiba-hdxa2-dvd-player-10-2007-part\
-1.html
<10> http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=85988
<11> http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=85872
<12> http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=85976
<13> http://www.digital-digest.com/news-60909.html
<14> http://www.digital-digest.com/news-60910.html
<15> http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=85993


*******************************************************

3. Weekly Software Roundup

January 27, 2008   YAMB 2.0.0.8 (20080121) (Freeware)
January 27, 2008   CCCP 2008-01-24 (Freeware)
January 27, 2008   Winclipdvb 2.9.7 (Freeware)
January 27, 2008   ffdshow Rev. 1817 (Freeware)
January 27, 2008   DVD-Audio Solo 1.4.3
January 27, 2008   ProgDVB 5.13 (Freeware)
January 27, 2008   MONOGRAM GraphStudio 0.1.4.0 Alpha (Freeware)
January 26, 2008   Movie Library ++ 4.1.0 (Freeware)
January 26, 2008   Subtitle Workshop 4.0 Beta 2 (Freeware)
January 26, 2008   eac3to 2.18 (Freeware)
January 25, 2008   Burn4Free 4.0.0.0 (Freeware)
January 25, 2008   GOTSent 0.23 beta 9 (Freeware)
January 25, 2008   MediaCoder 0.6.1 Build 4038 (Freeware)
January 24, 2008   K-Lite Codec Pack 3.7.0 (Freeware)
January 24, 2008   K-Lite Mega Codec Pack 3.7.0 (Freeware)
January 24, 2008   TMPGEnc XPress 4.4.2.238
January 24, 2008   Got All Media 7.0.0.1
January 24, 2008   Kantaris Media Player 0.3.1 (Freeware)
January 24, 2008   WinMPG Video Convert 6.9.1
January 24, 2008   Camtasia Studio 5.0.2
January 24, 2008   DVD slideshow GUI 0.80 (Freeware)
January 23, 2008   VEMoDe 1.2b (Freeware)
January 23, 2008   Wondershare Flash SlideShow Builder 4.5.1
January 23, 2008   Plato Video To Zune 3.73
January 23, 2008   Plato Video To iPod PSP 3GP 3.73
January 23, 2008   Plato Video to iPod Converter 3.80
January 22, 2008   BluffTitler 7.19 (Freeware)
January 22, 2008   CTpvr 2.2 build 15
January 22, 2008   PPT2DVD 4.6.0.4
January 22, 2008   DVDRemaster Pro 4.2
January 22, 2008   DVDRemaster Standard 4.2
January 22, 2008   MemoriesOnTV Pro 4.0.3
January 22, 2008   MemoriesOnTV Home 4.0.3
January 22, 2008   BurnAware Free Edition 1.2 beta (Freeware)
January 22, 2008   DVDSubEdit 1.41 (Freeware)
January 22, 2008   SolveigMM AVI Trimmer 1.6 (Freeware)
January 21, 2008   Muxman Pro 1.0.3
January 20, 2008   Cut Assistant 0.9.12.2 (Freeware)
January 20, 2008   SUPER v2008.build.24 (Freeware)
January 20, 2008   DVBcut 0.5.4 Rev. 112 (Freeware)
January 20, 2008   RipBot264 1.8.3 (Freeware)

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


******************************************************

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

Changing subscription status for this newsletter is pretty easy.

To un-subscribe:
- Send an email to liveupdate-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com using the
email account that receives this newsletter.
- Or go to the Yahoo My Groups page to edit your group
subscriptions. More information here:
http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/groups/groups-32.html
- DO NOT reply to this email for unsubscribe requests - it will be
ignored

To change the email address that receives this newsletter:
- Un-subscribe using your current one, and sign up using a new email
address


======END OF LIVEUPDATE NEWSLETTER======

**************************************************************

DIGITAL DIGEST - http://www.digital-digest.com
DIGITAL DIGEST | LiveUpdate Newsletter - Issue 79
3 February, 2008

**************************************************************

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

*******************************************************

1. Introduction

My 10 month old Xbox 360 finally died of the RRoD problem. I've
decided to write a series of blogs to follow my experience with
dealing with the repair, it should be interesting and would mean
several blog entries without really having to think of something to
write. Yeah!

Links:
* My Xbox 360 Just Died
http://www.digital-digest.com/blog/DVDGuy/2008/01/28/my-xbox-360-just-died-part-\
1/
http://www.digital-digest.com/blog/DVDGuy/2008/01/28/my-xbox-360-just-died-part-\
2/

-- DVDGuy


*******************************************************

2. Weekly News Roundup

Sometimes I wonder if anybody is actually reading this, and that if
I should bother continue writing this roundup. But I think I will
continue, because I like routine and there's nothing like a Sunday
afternoon spent in front of your computer writing something nobody
reads. No, really, it's good.

In Europe, record labels are now blaming ISPs for music piracy <1>.
ISPs have been fearing something like this for a long time, to be
blamed for inappropriate content that its users are obtaining
online, be it copy protected content or child pornography. They know
that if they are held responsible, they will have to start
monitoring user traffic. The privacy issues apart, it's a huge task
and responsibility to be placed on a company that sometimes has less
than 20 employees. And do we really want a private company to
monitor everything we download and to tell us what is appropriate
and what is not? The targeting of ISPs might be a change of
direction of content owners, since a court has ruled that personal
privacy is more important than upholding the rights of content
owners <2>. It seems like a very reasonable decision to me, but we
now live in a time when reason has fallen victim to corporate greed.
And to no surprise of anybody, The Pirate Bay has finally been
charged with breaking copyright law <3>. I have a feeling the guys
over at TPB have been waiting for this and are prepared for the
battle. It will be interesting to see what happens.

And while not strictly copyright related, the beta version of Qtrax
was finally launched <4>. Qtrax promises access to millions of songs
from record labels free to download in P2P form, with the
playback/download application being advertising supported. I for one
don't think this will work, since Internet advertising is not what
it used to be, and with a few content owners coming out to say they
don't know what's going on <5>and that they have had no dealings
with Qtrax, things are not looking too bright.

HD DVD is still fighting the good (?) fight, and will spend millions
on a 30 second Superbowl ad spot <6>. I just hope they make it funny
like most other Superbowl ads. Toshiba's price cuts to HD DVD
players seems to be having an effect, clawing back some of the
market in player sales after being beaten senseless in the week
following Warner's Blu-ray exclusive decision (although news has now
filtered out that the figures from that week represented a Blu-ray
player give-away plus a plunge in HD DVD player sales, meaning total
HD sales dropped after Warner's announcement, which is not what
Warner had hoped for in choosing to go with a single format). Here
in Australia, the Toshiba HD-XE1 high end player is selling
extremely well, not surprising for a $1,000+ player being sold for
half of its value. Rumours <7> suggest that HD DVD player sales out-
did Blu-ray player sales by 2 to 1 in Australia this last week (led
by the XE1), even with the PS3 is included. Going by some of the
posts I've been reading on Australian HD forums and testimonials
from people who have visited electronics stores to enquire about the
XE1, that's not totally surprising. The US is also seeing HD DVD
player "clearance" sales, although as Circuit City points out <8>,
the "clearance" tag is just used for promotion, and they plan on
continuing to carry HD DVD since sales has been quite good since
the "clearance" started. Low prices sell stuff, it's not rocket
science. Although with Blu-ray in a strong position, will we start
seeing the end of free movie redemption and movie discounts <9>? I
hope not. High definition movies still have a long way to go before
consumers are convinced that it is needed to replace DVDs, and
discounts will definitely help. And speaking of discounts, here in
Australia, we can buy The Jack Ryan HD DVD Collection (four movies:
The Hunt for Red October, Clear and Present Danger, Patriot Games
and The Sum of All Fears) for about $USD 35. This title is part of
Paramount's HD DVD line up for Q1 2008 <10>, and has a retail price
of $USD 99 in the US. People in the US might want to buy from
Australia, since HD DVD is region-free and any disc will work
anywhere. This store <11> in Australia ships to the US for those
that are interested.

A couple of short items in terms of movement between HD camps <12>,
some Italian distributors have gone HD DVD exclusive; rumour suggest
Imation might be scrapping HD DVD production through its TDK brand
(even though TDK has never released HD DVD, and TDK company is a Blu-
ray exclusive backer and became a major shareholder in Imation in a
deal that allowed Imation to use the TDK brand name); ADV Films
(anime) might be going Blu-ray exclusive too. Sonic also announced
that they will stop supporting the HD DVD version of their Scenarist
authoring tool <13>. It's a bit of a kick in the teeth for people
who purchased the HD DVD version of their quite expensive software,
even if a exchange program is going to be made available (I'm sure
people who bought the HD DVD version had specific needs that won't
be addressed by the Blu-ray version, which they might already own
anyway). Oh well, I'm sure other companies will fill the demand, if
they haven't done so already. Microsoft maybe?

And finally, in gaming, a firm release date has been released for
GTA: IV in late April. Rockstar broke the silence on the release
delay <14> (it was supposed to be available back in October 2007)
and as expected, it was the PS3 version that was holding things
back, although only partly responsible. The exclusive downloadable
content will still be available on the Xbox 360 only, but there will
be more downloadable content that will be available on both
consoles. I for one can't wait, and hopefully my RRoD'd 360 will be
fully functioning by then. There is also rumours floating around
that a new PS3 will be available in the autumn <15>, one that is
slimmer and has 120 or 160 GB storage depending on where you found
the rumour. Competition to a new quiter, cooler, 360 SKU to be
released around the same time? And to follow up on the Mass Effect
Fox News Sex Scandal <16> (it sounds a lot more exciting than it
actually is, kind of like everything being "reported" on Fox News),
the Fox News contributor admits she was wrong and that she has now
had a change of mind after actually seeing the game being played for
the first time. Oh dear.

And so this concludes this week's roundup. Hopefully I will have
more updates on my 360 RRoD experience, perhaps an update to a very
popular guide that will allow better video playback on a certain
game console, and maybe I'll write that blog on HD managed copy that
I promised to write 2 weeks ago. Patience, my lovelies.

Links:
<1>  http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=86024
<2>  http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=86070
<3>  http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=86087
<4>  http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=86012
<5>  http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?postid=552784
<6>  http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=86071
<7>  http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?postid=552979
<8>  http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=86083
<9>  http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=86096
<10> http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=86093
<11> http://www.ezydvd.com.au/item.zml/798105
<12> http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=86092
<13>
http://www.engadgethd.com/2008/01/30/sonics-scenarist-now-blu-ray-digital-distri\
bution-format-only/
<14> http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=86016
<15> http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=86097
<16> http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=85993


*******************************************************

3. Weekly Software Roundup

February 3, 2008   Burn4Free 4.1.0.0 (Freeware)
February 3, 2008   MP4Box 0.4.5 Dev (20080201) (Freeware)
February 3, 2008   Dr. DivX 2.0.1 Beta 7 (Freeware)
February 3, 2008   PowerDVD Ultra 7.3 Build 3730
February 3, 2008   Txt2VobSub 3.4 (Freeware)
February 3, 2008   ffdshow Rev. 1839 (Freeware)
February 3, 2008   DVB Web Scheduler 5.0.0.17 (Freeware)
February 3, 2008   MoKgVm2DVD 1.2 (Freeware)
February 2, 2008   Wondershare Photo Story Platinum 2.8.0
February 2, 2008   ProgDVB 5.13.1 (Freeware)
February 2, 2008   MediaInfo 0.7.5.8 (Freeware)
February 2, 2008   GOTSent 0.23 beta 10 (Freeware)
February 1, 2008   DVD slideshow GUI 0.81 (Freeware)
February 1, 2008   DV Media Player Pro 2.0
February 1, 2008   DV Media Player Basic 1.4.0 (Freeware)
February 1, 2008   TV Toolbox 1.0 Beta 4 (Freeware)
February 1, 2008   tsMuxeR 1.2.9 (Freeware)
February 1, 2008   TitleWriter 4.64 (Freeware)
January 31, 2008   RipBot264 1.8.7 (Freeware)
January 31, 2008   FLV Splitter 1.0.0.4 (Freeware)
January 31, 2008   Goldwave 5.23
January 31, 2008   CoreAVC 1.6.5.0
January 30, 2008   MediaCoder 0.6.1 Build 4045 (Freeware)
January 29, 2008   SMSG 1.0.5.0 Beta (Freeware)
January 29, 2008   Kantaris Media Player 0.3.2 (Freeware)
January 29, 2008   Movie Library ++ 4.1.1 (Freeware)
January 29, 2008   Vista Codec Package 4.5.7 (Freeware)
January 29, 2008   Media Player Classic 6.4.9.1 (20080127) (Freeware)
January 29, 2008   x264 full rev. 736 (Freeware)
January 29, 2008   AVI ReComp 1.4.0 (Freeware)
January 29, 2008   Coollector 2.01 (Freeware)
January 28, 2008   mkv2vob 1.5.2 (Freeware)
January 28, 2008   VisualSubSync 0.9.14 (Freeware)
January 28, 2008   eac3to 2.20 (Freeware)
January 28, 2008   ffmpegX 0.0.9y (Freeware)
January 27, 2008   YAMB 2.0.0.8 (20080121) (Freeware)
January 27, 2008   CCCP 2008-01-24 (Freeware)
January 27, 2008   Winclipdvb 2.9.7 (Freeware)
January 27, 2008   DVD-Audio Solo 1.4.3
January 27, 2008   MONOGRAM GraphStudio 0.1.4.0 Alpha (Freeware)

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


******************************************************

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

Changing subscription status for this newsletter is pretty easy.

To un-subscribe:
- Send an email to liveupdate-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com using the
email account that receives this newsletter.
- Or go to the Yahoo My Groups page to edit your group
subscriptions. More information here:
http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/groups/groups-32.html
- DO NOT reply to this email for unsubscribe requests - it will be
ignored

To change the email address that receives this newsletter:
- Un-subscribe using your current one, and sign up using a new email
address


======END OF LIVEUPDATE NEWSLETTER======

Hello All

Just wanted to write a short message to respond to something I wrote
in the last newsletter, in the intro to the news roundup:

-------------What I Wrote:----------------
Sometimes I wonder if anybody is actually reading this, and that if
I should bother continue writing this roundup. But I think I will
continue, because I like routine and there's nothing like a Sunday
afternoon spent in front of your computer writing something nobody
reads. No, really, it's good.
-------------------------------------------

This is just a note to say thanks to all those that emailed me
asking me to stop being such a drama queen with all the threats to
quit writing the newsletter.

But seriously, many did write in with messages of support, and I
would like to thank all who did that because the words of
encouragement are much appreciated. I find writing the intro the
hardest because I never know what to write. So I just wrote
something I thought was quite random, but reading it again, it did
seem like that I was threatening to quit, which was not my
intention.

Anyway, sorry for the confusion. The next issue will be here the
usual time, I promise.

--
DVDGuy

**************************************************************

DIGITAL DIGEST - http://www.digital-digest.com
DIGITAL DIGEST | LiveUpdate Newsletter - Issue 80
10 February, 2008

**************************************************************

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

*******************************************************

1. Introduction

This is the 80th issue of the Digital Digest newsletter. I feel I
should celebrate, but I think I'll wait until the 100th issue. As
for the scare last week when I joked about quitting the newsletter,
I've learnt my lesson and I will post less lies in the newsletter
from now on. 35% less to be exact. And sorry for being not able to
personally reply to every email of support I received, there were
just too many.

Oh, and I got back my Xbox 360 after the RRoD repair, read the last
two parts of my RRoD repair experience to see what the repair
process is like. I must say I'm impressed, although I would be more
impressed if this is the last time my console suffers from the RRoD
problem, and that new consoles won't suffer from it anymore.

Links:
* My Xbox 360 Just Died:
http://www.digital-digest.com/blog/DVDGuy/2008/01/28/my-xbox-360-just-died-part-\
3/
http://www.digital-digest.com/blog/DVDGuy/2008/02/08/my-xbox-360-just-died-final\
-part-4/

-- DVDGuy


*******************************************************

2. Weekly News Roundup

Okay, I've learnt my lesson. No more controversial intros for the
roundup. Just to be clear, if I ever unintentionally mention I might
quit writing this feature in the future, I'm most likely only
kidding, unless I follow up the statement with THIS IS NOT A JOKE!!
In fact, I don't think you should take anything I write here
seriously, since 90% of the stuff I write are actually complete
lies. Or perhaps the last sentence was a lie. Or was the last
sentence a lie …

Copyright vs consumer rights is being fought around the globe, this
time a Japanese perspective on the issue of Digital TV recordings
and copy protection <1>. Sometimes content owners just need to take
a step back and see the bigger picture, because if they had their
way, half of the products on the market would be "illegal", and the
other half will be filled with DRM. The RIAA, being the leaders of
the Senseless Copyright Brigade (SCB), talks about forcing computer
hardware and software manufacturers to implement "piracy filters"
<2> to prevent people from transferring and playing pirated music.
Luckily, the people in the IT industry, who have been affected by
piracy more than anybody else, will take a more sensible approach
and ignore RIAA's request. The most recent example being Verizon
rejecting another SCB member, the MPAA's, request for filtering <3>.
Good for Verizon, and I hope people reading this will buy their
products and use their services to support them.

It's been nearly two weeks since the Blu-ray free movies promo <4>
has ended, and there does not seem to be any signs that a new
promotion will start in place of the expired one. The BDA seems to
have stopped trying on the promotional front, maybe because they
think they've won, or because they are saving up for one big final
push. It's not that great being a Blu-ray owner at the moment, with
only two rather pathetic sales on at Amazon (one for 6 titles only
<5>, the other for 10 titles from Fox, but only a 10% discount on
normal Amazon prices <6>). If this is what we should expect if Blu-
ray wins the day, then I for one hopes the format continues on for a
bit longer so I can buy more cheap movies. Netflix is the most
recent of companies to suggest higher HD movie prices are on the way
<7> once the war is over, so the lost revenue during the war can be
recouped. On the other hand, the HD DVD people have been doing a lot
more on the promotional front, with the Superbowl ad now aired
(although by all accounts, it was a pretty lame effort), player
price drops (which has been better received, with hardware and
software sales both up <8> compared to the horrible weeks following
Warner's announcement), movie discounts at Amazon <9> (a new 140+
title 50% off sale <10> is gathering immense interest) and in store
promotions (at least here in Australia). Microsoft dropping the
price of the Xbox 360 add-on drive <11> is just another part of the
promotion, and sales of the drive at Amazon went up an amazing
71,900% <12> after the price cut. Perhaps some will view it as "too
little too late", but there's still a long time between now and
June, when Warner officially drops HD DVD, and anything could happen
in between. Then there is also the issue of the Chinese market,
which HD DVD has been making huge investments in with both an
official Chinese HD format (CH DVD <13>), and also staying out of
the Chinese HD DVD market <14> to allow Chinese manufacturers to
profit from HD DVD player sales. I know for a fact that the Chinese
government does not like Blu-ray (or HD DVD, for that matter) due to
the excessive royalties and licensing fees, and so going with the
royalty free CH DVD format is their aim, which might be even cheaper
than producing DVDs since DVDs have licensing costs too. For a
comprehensive and detailed view at the HD format war, the Warner's
decision, the CES, the past, present and future, there is a good
article on AV Forums <15> (not to be confused with AVS Forum). There
are lots of good points made in the article, as well as some facts
that weren't so clear before - regardless of which side you're on,
it's worth a read.

And it's not been great time for Samsung, after being threatened
with a lawsuit over their poorly designed BD-UP5000 dual format
player <16>, they are now being sued proper for their
allegedly "defective" BD-P1200 Blu-ray player <17> in a class action
lawsuit. The article goes on about BD+, but the real issue is behind
an update to BD-J, which Samsung promised to provide over a firmware
update, but has not done so for some reason, causing certain discs
to be unplayable. As a owner of a brand new Toshiba HD-XE1 player,
I'm extremely pleased to be able to buy such a player (for $USD 490
with 11 free HD DVD movies, which is a steal for a player of this
quality). There is currently no Blu-ray player that can match the
quality of the XE1 and it's almost identical twin, the XA2 <18>,
even without considering price, and that's something the BDA will
have to address soon. A fully featured Blu-ray Profile 2.0 player
with Reon upscaling, made by a company known for high end equipment
such as Denon or Onkyo, is what many Blu-ray owners are waiting for.
But it will take a long time before such a player can be made
available, since according to a Denon rep, the reason they have not
released a Profile 2.0 player is because Profile 2.0 is not even
finalized yet <19>. The worrying thing is that, because Profile 2.0
is not finalized and new things can still be added to it, the PS3 is
just a proprietary connector away from being ever able to achieve
Profile 2.0 compatibility. For example, if the BDA decides
WirelessHD <20> has to be a mandatory part of 2.0, then the PS3,
which I have recommended <21> to everybody as the safest bet for
Profile 2.0, will never get certified. Let's hope the BDA come to
their sense and allow the PS3 to be 2.0 compatible.

Not much gaming news this week. EA predicts the PS3 will be the top
selling player in 2008, while Activision predicts the Xbox 360.
Microsoft says they "own" GTA IV due to the exclusive content. And
other such PR nonsense, which I won't even dignify with links (you
can search Google News if you're really desperate). There is one
piece of interesting news, reporting that game arcades are suffering
<22> because people can now play the same type of games at home on
the Wii. An unintended victim of the console wars, no doubt.

That's it for this week, same time, same channel, next week (I think
I've used this joke before).

Links:
<1>  http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=86126
<2>  http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=86163
<3>  http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=86144
<4>  http://www.bluraysavings.com/
<5> 
http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html?ie=UTF8&plgroup=1&docId=1000177301&tag=dvd\
loc8-20
<6> 
http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html?ie=UTF8&plgroup=1&docId=1000196931&tag=dvd\
loc8-20
<7>  http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=86154
<8>  http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?postid=553410
<9>  http://www.digital-digest.com/news-60825.html
<10>
http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html?ie=UTF8&plgroup=1&docId=1000195491&tag=dvd\
loc8-20
<11> http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=86146
<12> http://news.punchjump.com/article.php?id=5533
<13> http://www.digital-digest.com/highdefdvd/faq.html#faq410b
<14> http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=86127
<15> http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=86150
<16> http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=85988
<17> http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=86166
<18>
http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/toshiba-hd-xa2-hd-dvd-player-wins-sound-\
-vision-editors,257457.shtml
<19> http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=86125
<20>
http://www.digital-digest.com/blog/DVDGuy/2008/01/24/the-wireless-home-theatre-a\
nd-beyond/
<21>
http://www.digital-digest.com/articles/Blu-ray_HD_DVD_Buyers_Guide_page3.html
<22> http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=86155


*******************************************************

3. Weekly Software Roundup

February 10, 2008  SubDownloader² 0.7.1 (Freeware)
February 9, 2008   Net Transport 2.55
February 9, 2008   Muxman Pro 1.0.4
February 9, 2008   RipBot264 1.8.10 (Freeware)
February 9, 2008   QT Lite 2.4.0 (Freeware)
February 9, 2008   Vista Codec Package 4.5.8 (Freeware)
February 9, 2008   AVStoDVD 1.2.2 (Freeware)
February 9, 2008   TsRemux 0.0.20 (Freeware)
February 9, 2008   ProgDVB 5.13.3 (Freeware)
February 8, 2008   Coollector 2.03 (Freeware)
February 8, 2008   MediaInfo 0.7.5.9 (Freeware)
February 8, 2008   AVIAddXSubs 6.2 (Freeware) (Added in the last 3 days)
February 8, 2008   Comskip 0.79.114 (Freeware)
February 8, 2008   QuickTime Alternative (QT7) 2.4.0 (Freeware)
February 8, 2008   Collectorz.com Movie Collector 5.4.2
February 8, 2008   K-Lite Mega Codec Pack 3.7.5 (Freeware)
February 8, 2008   K-Lite Codec Pack 3.7.5 (Freeware)
February 8, 2008   XULPlayer 0.2.1.5 (Freeware)
February 8, 2008   AutoMKV 0.95a (Freeware)
February 8, 2008   Perian 1.1 (Freeware)
February 8, 2008   RAD Video Tools 1.9d (Freeware)
February 7, 2008   DGAVCDec 1.0.0 alpha 15 (Freeware)
February 7, 2008   MediaCoder 0.6.1 Build 4048 (Freeware)
February 7, 2008   XviD4PSP 5.029
February 6, 2008   BurnAware Free Edition 1.2.5 beta (Freeware)
February 6, 2008   Vegas Movie Studio 8.0c
February 6, 2008   Vegas 8.0b
February 6, 2008   FinalBurner Pro 1.28.0.150
February 6, 2008   FinalBurner 1.28.0.123 (Freeware)
February 6, 2008   Video DVD Maker Pro 2.10.0.50
February 6, 2008   Video DVD Maker 3.6.0.12 (Freeware)
February 6, 2008   SUPER v2008.build.25 (Freeware)
February 6, 2008   ffdshow Rev. 1846 (Freeware)
February 6, 2008   PSPVC 2.1 (Freeware)
February 6, 2008   GOM Player 2.1.9.3752 (Freeware)
February 5, 2008   CodecInstaller 2.9.0
February 5, 2008   EMDB 0.58 (Freeware)
February 5, 2008   DVDINFOPro 4.7.9.0
February 5, 2008   tsMuxeR 1.2.10 (Freeware) (Added in the last 2 weeks)
February 5, 2008   Digital Video Repair 1.02 (Freeware)
February 4, 2008   YAMB 2.0.0.8 (20080203) (Freeware)
February 4, 2008   mkv2vob 1.5.3 (Freeware)
February 4, 2008   Freevo 1.7.6 (Freeware)
February 4, 2008   DVB Dream 1.4i (Freeware)
February 4, 2008   MediaCodeSpeedEdit 1.1.0.14 (Freeware)
February 4, 2008   SolveigMM AVI Trimmer 1.6.803.02 (Freeware)
February 3, 2008   Quick Media Converter 3.4 Beta (Freeware) (Added in the last
week)
February 3, 2008   Burn4Free 4.1.0.0 (Freeware)
February 3, 2008   MP4Box 0.4.5 Dev (20080201) (Freeware)
February 3, 2008   Dr. DivX 2.0.1 Beta 7 (Freeware)
February 3, 2008   PowerDVD Ultra 7.3 Build 3730
February 3, 2008   Txt2VobSub 3.4 (Freeware)
February 3, 2008   DVB Web Scheduler 5.0.0.17 (Freeware)
February 3, 2008   MoKgVm2DVD 1.2 (Freeware)

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


******************************************************

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

Changing subscription status for this newsletter is pretty easy.

To un-subscribe:
- Send an email to liveupdate-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com using the
email account that receives this newsletter.
- Or go to the Yahoo My Groups page to edit your group
subscriptions. More information here:
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- DO NOT reply to this email for unsubscribe requests - it will be
ignored

To change the email address that receives this newsletter:
- Un-subscribe using your current one, and sign up using a new email
address


======END OF LIVEUPDATE NEWSLETTER======

**************************************************************

DIGITAL DIGEST - http://www.digital-digest.com
DIGITAL DIGEST | LiveUpdate Newsletter - Issue 81
17 February, 2008

**************************************************************

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

*******************************************************

1. Introduction

I've written another instalment in my regular "If I were to buy a
computer today ..." feature. I was going to wait until March to keep
with the quarterly nature of the instalment, but because of the new
Intel and AMD CPUs, I thought it might be a good time to discuss
these new chips.

Links:
* If I were to buy a new computer today (February 2008)
http://www.digital-digest.com/blog/DVDGuy/2008/02/15/if-i-were-to-buy-a-new-comp\
uter-today-february-2008/

-- DVDGuy


*******************************************************

2. Weekly News Roundup

I've never completely trusted February. How can you trust a month
that isn't 30 or 31 days, and not only that, seems to change length
every couple of years as well. February is well shifty, I wouldn't
trust it to give me the time of the day, let alone the day of the
month. This issue of the roundup is a bit short of news, just like
February is short of days. Don't blame me, blame February (hey,
that's not a bad slogan).

In copyright news, the "War on Torrents" has been declared a success
<1> by the outgoing Bush administration. In a time when terrorism,
the economy, the environment and many other issues are causing
concern, it's nice to see where the White House's priorities are.
The "War on Canada" continues, with a US Group calling Canada a top
copyright violator <2>. Canada is still deciding on whether to adopt
tougher copyright laws, so the scare campaign is not surprising.
After all, the same tactic has been applied time and time again in
other countries, including Australia. Here, we've been forced to
adopt the same harsh laws as part of our free trade agreement with
the US - no DMCA, no trade, is apparently the message the Bush
administration is sending out on behalf of the MPAA.

But this week really has been about HD news, and actually, mainly
bad news for HD DVD. As I type this, the vulture and their fanboy
riders are circling, as rumours suggest Toshiba will call it quits.
It's probably the right decision *if* Toshiba believes they can't
win or sustain the format war, and I hope they bring their expertise
in producing the XA2/XE1 to bring a cheaper, new Blu-ray/dual format
Profile 2.0 player, that's also region-free. One can still dream,
right? As someone who is format neutral, it's sad to see HD DVD go
along with cheap hardware prices and region-free discs, if the
rumours are true. But on the other hand, being neutral was all about
avoiding and mitigating the potential risks of a format dying, while
being able to enjoy all available HD movies from the get go. I have
a Toshiba HD-XE1 player, the best DVD upscaler you can buy for under
$1,200 (and I got it for $500) and will be my main DVD player and HD
DVD player to service the 30 HD DVD movies that I currently own (and
I will add more titles to my collection if there are clearance sales
and such). My Xbox 360 add-on drive will now become an external
drive for my (as yet un-purchased) new computer for testing HD
stuff. My PS3 remains my main Blu-ray player until something better
comes along (Profile 2.0, bitstreaming/decoding for all audio
formats, fast loading and response like the PS3). All bases covered,
as they say. Anyway, the whole week started on a sour note for HD
DVD when Netflix decided to go Blu-ray exclusive <3>. This was
followed by Best Buy deciding to recommend Blu-ray over HD DVD <4>,
while still stocking both types of players and movies. The biggest
blow came when, previously HD DVD exclusive Wal-Mart, went Blu-ray
exclusive as well <5>. Then the rumour surfaced that Toshiba was
going to drop HD DVD, and this rumour, plus possibly some fact
behind it, is now what's causing the media circus. Monday is
supposed to be the day Toshiba officially announces their decision,
and the official end of the format war, and I will cover whatever
happens in more detail in a blog entry. In between all of this HD
DVD bad news, there was one bit of "good" news for HD DVD in that
Warner has not ruled out still providing movies on HD DVD <6> after
the end of May. Probably a bit pointless now.

In gaming news, I've not yet had the time to go over the January NPD
figures for game sales (next week, I promise). Apparently, the PS3
beat the Xbox 360 for the first time in monthly sales figures <7>,
although it was largely a quiet month in terms of game console sales
compared to the feverish December period. Both the Wii and 360 sold
considerably less units as compared previously, and both Nintendo
and Microsoft <8> has blamed it on stock shortages after unexpected
demand in December forced them to sell January stock ahead of time.
This corresponds with my experiences during December, when store
after store I visit would not have any Wii or 360 stock, while the
only game console available was the PS3. But hardware stock issues
should not affect software sales, and the 360 has another good month
with 4 titles in the top 10, including the number one item (Call of
Duty 4). The Wii also did well 3 titles, while the PS3 only had 1
item (Call of Duty 4 again) at 8th, the remaining two spots
belonging to the Nintendo DS. More details in a blog entry next week.

And so that's it for this week. The next few days will prove
interesting for HD enthusiasts. And by HD, I mean both Blu-ray and
HD DVD. People often forget that Blu-ray is HD (High Definition) as
well. HD DVD is a brand just like Blu-ray, while HD is just a
description of a certain type of video, like SD being used to
describe DVDs.

Links:
<1>  http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=86210
<2>  http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=86223
<3>  http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=86197
<4>  http://www.digital-digest.com/news-60953.html
<5>  http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=86251
<6>  http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=86236
<7>  http://videogamemedia.com/article.php?id=649&cat=News
<8> 
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601101&sid=aFOS_ThBc3vY&refer=japan


*******************************************************

3. Weekly Software Roundup

February 17, 2008   Comskip 0.79.116 (Freeware)
February 17, 2008   Movie Library ++ 4.3.0 (Freeware)
February 16, 2008   VSO PhotoDVD 2.8.3
February 16, 2008   EMDB 0.59 (Freeware)
February 16, 2008   AviDemux 2.4.1 (Freeware)
February 16, 2008   eac3to 2.23 (Freeware)
February 15, 2008   AVStoDVD 1.2.3 (Freeware)
February 15, 2008   DVD Rebuilder Pro 1.27.0
February 15, 2008   Plato Video To Zune 3.74
February 15, 2008   Plato Video To iPod PSP 3GP 3.74
February 15, 2008   Plato Video to iPod Converter 3.81
February 15, 2008   AutoMKV 0.95c (Freeware)
February 15, 2008   Elecard Converter Studio 2.1
February 15, 2008   ChrisTV Lite 5.15 (Freeware)
February 15, 2008   DAEMON Tools 4.12.1 (Freeware)
February 15, 2008   BurnAware Free Edition 1.2.6 (Freeware)
February 15, 2008   RAD Video Tools 1.9e (Freeware)
February 14, 2008   EAC3toGUI 1.85 (Freeware)
February 14, 2008   DVD2oneX 2.1.4
February 14, 2008   DVD2one 2.1.4
February 14, 2008   VisualHub 1.31
February 13, 2008   VirtualDub 1.7.8 (Build 28346) (Freeware)
February 13, 2008   X Codec Pack 2.2.0 build 507 RC (Freeware)
February 13, 2008   DVDStyler 1.6.1 beta 1 (Freeware)
February 12, 2008   DVD-Audio Solo 1.4.4
February 11, 2008   ffdshow Rev. 1852 (Freeware)
February 11, 2008   Collectorz.com Movie Collector 5.4.3
February 11, 2008   ProgDVB 5.13.4 (Freeware)
February 11, 2008   ImgBurn 2.4.0.0 (Freeware)
February 11, 2008   DVB Web Scheduler 5.0.0.19 (Freeware)
February 10, 2008   SubDownloader² 0.7.1 (Freeware)

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


******************************************************

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

Changing subscription status for this newsletter is pretty easy.

To un-subscribe:
- Send an email to liveupdate-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com using the
email account that receives this newsletter.
- Or go to the Yahoo My Groups page to edit your group
subscriptions. More information here:
http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/groups/groups-32.html
- DO NOT reply to this email for unsubscribe requests - it will be
ignored

To change the email address that receives this newsletter:
- Un-subscribe using your current one, and sign up using a new email
address


======END OF LIVEUPDATE NEWSLETTER======

**************************************************************

DIGITAL DIGEST - http://www.digital-digest.com
DIGITAL DIGEST | LiveUpdate Newsletter - Issue 82
24 February, 2008

**************************************************************

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

*******************************************************

1. Introduction

So HD DVD has died. Blu-ray has won. The PS3 outsold the Xbox 360
for the first time. I found a way to break Blu-ray region coding on
the PC. But other than that, nothing much happened. Was your week as
uneventful?

(P.S: Following Blu-ray's victory, I've edited the "If I were to buy
a new computer today" feature slightly to replace the LG dual format
drive with a Blu-ray only drive for those without HD DVD discs -
it's dropped the price of the system by $225!)

Links:
* The Blu-ray Region Free Guide
http://www.digital-digest.com/articles/Blu-ray_Region_Free_Guide_page1.html
* NPD January 2008 Game Console US Sales Figures
http://www.digital-digest.com/blog/DVDGuy/2008/02/21/npd-january-2008-game-conso\
le-us-sales-figures/
* Is the High Definition Format War Over? (Yes, it is)
http://www.digital-digest.com/blog/DVDGuy/2008/02/19/is-the-high-definition-form\
at-war-over/
* If I were to buy a new computer today (February 2008)
http://www.digital-digest.com/blog/DVDGuy/2008/02/15/if-i-were-to-buy-a-new-comp\
uter-today-february-2008/

-- DVDGuy


*******************************************************

2. Weekly News Roundup

Welcome to the first weekly news roundup post the HD format war.
Upon hearing the news of the war's end, did you let your emotions
get the better of you, go up to complete strangers to hug and kiss
them? And did you then get arrested and placed on probation for
being a public nuisance? No? Umm … me neither. I didn't do any of
that, honest.

This week has all been about the end of the HD format war, so either
there has been very little copyright news (or very little news that
would be considered relevant/interesting), or that I haven't been
paying attention as usual. I'm sure the MPAA and the RIAA got up to
their usual tricks, that some politicians took their money to
support a new legislation, and that some hacker found some way to
hack into some DRM. So basically nothing new.

And of course, the big news of the week is that, yep you guessed it,
Apple has dropped the price on the iPhone and iPod touch <1>! Oh,
and Toshiba also dropped something <2>. I think it was called HD
DVD. The news that HD DVD supporters didn't want to hear, but
probably thought was only a matter of time, did come on Tuesday
(Japanese time). I'm sure Toshiba could have held on a little bit
longer, but it would only be to wait for a miracle, that sadly,
won't happen now. You all know how I feel about HD DVD, and Blu-ray,
and if you didn't, you can read my latest thoughts (pre-Toshiba
decision) here <3>. While I'm sad that a consumer friendlier format
like HD DVD didn't work out, I'm not overly fussed as I've been
supporting both formats for a while now. And by supporting, I don't
mean going onto Internet forums and gloating and posting FUD (fear,
uncertainty and doubt) posts, but rather in the more practical way
of forking over cash to buy stuff. So one format that I've bought
into has died, the other has grown stronger as a result, which means
I've not lost anything. In fact, not only have I not lost anything,
I've picked up a few things too - like no less then thirteen HD DVD
titles for an average of $USD 7.01 including postage (titles include
Evan Almighty, Knocked up, Casino, Carlito's Way, Jarhead, Rambo
Trilogy, Deer Hunter, Apollo 13, Spartacus - and a few more items at
the same low price which if not out of stock, includes Shaun of the
Dead, Smoking Aces, The Kingdom and The Thing). The rush for these
discounted Universal titles has created such as storm here in
Australia that it caused disruptions to several leading online
stores, and stock sold out within a matter of minutes. Which just
goes to show that low prices is the most consumer friendly feature
of all.

Anyway, in the aftermath of Toshiba's announcement, the HD DVD
exclusive studios all eventually followed suit and headed towards
the Blu camp. Both Universal and Paramount has announced that they
will now support Blu-ray <4>, with Universal unsure of what to do
with their HD DVD lineup, while Paramount and Warner appears to be
willing to continue releasing movies on HD DVD for the time being.
So the chance of more bargains like the one I listed above from
Paramount and Warner remains high, and my credit card awaits
patiently as well. And for those slightly worried about not having a
player to play their HD DVD discs, then the good news is that LG
still plans on releasing dual format players <5> for the future,
possibly both standalones and computer drives. I suspect Samsung,
which seem to do everything LG does, will continue to do so as well.
And word is that Sharp will release a player too, since I think they
provide the laser diode for these dual format players. What isn't so
clear is the details of Paramount and Universal's switch to Blu-ray,
like which titles will be available and when. I'm guessing 3 to 6
months before we see the first Blu-ray title, and for the Bourne
Trilogy and Transformers to be in the starting lineup. There is also
the chance that if Paramount still has some recalled Blu-ray
versions of Blades of Glory and other titles that were shelved
following their defection to HD DVD, that these might be released
first. What is also not so clear is what Microsoft will do in
regards to a Blu-ray add-on drive for the Xbox 360 <6>. The initial
rumour was that one will be available within 6 months, but then
Microsoft issued a (somewhat soft) denial for a drive being
available in the short term. I guess they don't want to be seen as
supporting a Sony format, not when they're still at war with them in
the game console arena.

So the focus now turns to whether Blu-ray can become the next
digital video format to replace DVDs. Certainly the end of the
format war, and format confusion, will help. I will go over two
Digital Digest polls soon in regards to this issue, but suffice to
say, Blu-ray has a long way to go before it can even call itself a
competitor to DVD. Even with Blu-ray and HD DVD combined, discs
sales have only been half of what DVD did after the same initial
period <7>. While player sales have been fine, thanks to cheap HD
DVD players and the PS3, the low attachment rate of Blu-ray movies
and the generally low rate of sale of HD DVD, has all contributed to
the low disc sale figures. And the high prices when compared to DVDs
won't have helped (remember that when DVDs first came out, there was
no "low price" alternative, because VHS often cost more, not less,
than DVDs).

And while I've harped on about Blu-ray manufacturing costs and such
in the past, a new type of BD recordable could start to lower cost
of BD blanks. Dubbed LHT BD-Rs <8>, and developed by Taiyo Yuden,
Mitsubishi and Maxell, these use organic materials to lower
production costs. Unfortunately, and this has been somewhat of a Blu-
ray trait, is that compatibility problems might occur with earlier
players. Some players can be updated through firmware to read these
new BD-Rs, while others will have to be replaced. Might be best to
hold off buying a BD burner until something concrete materialises.

I've also harped on about Blu-ray region coding and how it sucks,
but there might be a solution now for the PC at least. Read my Blu-
ray Region Free Guide <9> to find tips on possibly making PowerDVD
Ultra <10> and WinDVD BD region-free for Blu-ray playback.

And finally onto gaming, as promised, the January NPD figures <11>
have been released and analysed. While it looks like Blu-ray has
helped the PS3 to beat the Xbox 360 and nearly beat the Wii,
remember that both the Wii and 360 had serious stock shortage
problems thanks to last month's record sales figures for both
consoles. The PS3 took advantage efficiently, but the Wii and 360
are still the consoles to beat, in the US at least. And thanks to
consoles becoming more and more like PCs in terms of functionality
(media sharing, Internet browsing, movie downloading …), PCs are now
struggling to stay in the gaming market <12>, at least here in
Australia. For me, I've not played less games on the PC, but I've
definitely played more on consoles (not surprising, considering the
current 3 main consoles are the first ones I've owned since the
SNES). I still prefer PC gaming, mainly because I prefer strategy
games, and first person shooters using the mouse/keyboard
combination. But I can definitely see the appeal of console games.
And some say that the increased spending for console gaming has led
to decreases for movies, which I would have to agree with. So in
some way, the success of the PS3 as a game console might actually
hurt Blu-ray.

[PLEASE INSERT INTERESTING, IF NOT FUNNY, CONCLUSION TO ARTICLE. AND
DO NOT FORGET TO MENTION "SEE YOU NEXT WEEK"]

Links:
<1>  http://www.digital-digest.com/news-60963.html
<2>  http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=86294
<3> 
http://www.digital-digest.com/blog/DVDGuy/2008/02/19/is-the-high-definition-form\
at-war-over/
<4>  http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=86306
<5>  http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=86305
<6>  http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=86304
<7>  http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=86282
<8>  http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=86329
<9>  http://www.digital-digest.com/articles/Blu-ray_Region_Free_Guide_page1.html
<10> http://www.digital-digest.com/software/PowerDVD_Ultra.html
<11>
http://www.digital-digest.com/blog/DVDGuy/2008/02/21/npd-january-2008-game-conso\
le-us-sales-figures/
<12> http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=86343


*******************************************************

3. Weekly Software Roundup

February 24, 2008   Got All Media 7.0.0.2
February 24, 2008   mkv2vob 2.0.1 beta (Freeware)
February 24, 2008   ConvertXtoDVD 3.0 RC6
February 24, 2008   PSPVC 2.2 (Freeware)
February 24, 2008   ProgDVB 5.13.5 (Freeware)
February 24, 2008   ProgDVB 4.x 4.89.5 (Freeware)
February 24, 2008   Comskip 0.79.118 (Freeware)
February 24, 2008   DGAVCDec 1.0.0 alpha 18 (Freeware)
February 23, 2008   MeGUI 0.2.6.1044 (Freeware)
February 21, 2008   Wondershare DVD Slideshow Builder 4.1.0
February 21, 2008   BurnAware Free Edition 1.2.7 (Freeware)
February 20, 2008   ffdshow Rev. 1862 (Freeware)
February 20, 2008   VisualHub 1.31a
February 19, 2008   MPEG StreamClip for Mac OS 1.9.1 (Freeware)
February 18, 2008   YAMB 2.0.0.8 (20080217) (Freeware)
February 18, 2008   eac3to 2.25 (Freeware)
February 18, 2008   DVBcut 0.5.4 Rev. 116 (Freeware)
February 18, 2008   VoltaicHD 1.1.2
February 18, 2008   Coollector 2.04 (Freeware)
February 17, 2008   Movie Library ++ 4.3.0 (Freeware)

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


******************************************************

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

Changing subscription status for this newsletter is pretty easy.

To un-subscribe:
- Send an email to liveupdate-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com using the
email account that receives this newsletter.
- Or go to the Yahoo My Groups page to edit your group
subscriptions. More information here:
http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/groups/groups-32.html
- DO NOT reply to this email for unsubscribe requests - it will be
ignored

To change the email address that receives this newsletter:
- Un-subscribe using your current one, and sign up using a new email
address


======END OF LIVEUPDATE NEWSLETTER======

**************************************************************

DIGITAL DIGEST - http://www.digital-digest.com
DIGITAL DIGEST | LiveUpdate Newsletter - Issue 83
2 March, 2008

**************************************************************

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

*******************************************************

1. Introduction

My next credit card bill might well run into several pages, although
the total amount may not be too bad. The HD DVD fire sale has
started here in Australia and it may be surprising to hear, but I
feel lucky to be a HD DVD user to be able to take advantage. I know
of several Blu-ray users that have gone "purple" just to buy
Transformers 2-Disc HD DVD edition, and many other titles, for only
$8. There's really no point in waiting for the most likely identical
Blu-ray versions (might be inferior as well, lacking Profile 2.0
features) at five times the price.

Also, there might be a new competition next week on Digital Digest,
where you can win a couple of Roxio's DVD authoring, copying and
conversion products, as well as a grand prize of an iPod (Nano at
this stage, but to be confirmed). All courtesy of Roxio for
providing the prizes, and for providing review versions of the
software so I can write some eagerly needed how-to guides for them.
I'll keep you posted.

Links:
* The HD DVD Fire Sale - Part I
http://www.digital-digest.com/blog/DVDGuy/2008/02/28/the-hd-dvd-fire-sale-part-i\
/
* Roxio
http://www.roxio.com

-- DVDGuy


*******************************************************

2. Weekly News Roundup

The month that can never make up its mind as to how many days it
should have is finally over. Down with February. Long live March. I
love March, not just because it's the month that contains my
birthday, but this is usually the time that I start to feel like the
new year is officially here, and now in transition mode as per
January, or the confused-as-to-how-many-days-it-has mode that is
February.

The fallout from HD DVD's death continues. Analysts have finally
caught onto what I've been saying for months now, that Blu-ray's
victory owes much to the BDA's love for copy protection <1>, as it
does to any other factors like the PS3. With DRM being public enemy
number one these days, it's funny to see DRM winning a major format
war. I think Toshiba should have promoted the more consumer friendly
nature of HD DVD more to the public, in terms of both region coding
and less DRM, but I do understand why they didn't. To do so would
have opened another battlefront with DRM and region coding loving
studios like Fox. It seems Toshiba really did not like the studio's
way of doing things, and they have now officially released DVD
region-free firmware <2> for several of their HD DVD players
(including the HD-E1, EP10 and XE1) on their website (at least their
Australian website). Unfortunately, it was this pro-consumer, anti-
studio attitude that eventually lost the war for them. While as a HD
DVD supporter, Warner was not our best friend in the format war, but
at least you have to commend them for not supporting region control.
Universal and Paramount too. F*ck Fox and their region coded and BD+
discs. Speaking of region control, there is now a new software for
the Nintendo Wii that breaks region control <3> (PAL and NTSC) games
to work on your Wii. Simply insert the disc, it does its work, eject
the disc and insert your game disc. Not sure if Nintendo intend to
close this loophole with a firmware patch, or whether they even care
about enforcing region control or not.

In HD news, the fallout from HD DVD's death … wait, I've already
used this line. Anyway, the big news for HD DVD
<strike>supporters</strike> mourners this week has been Paramount's
(and Dreamwork's) rather harsh decision to pull all their upcoming
HD DVD releases <4>. Just like what they did when they pulled Blu-
ray support, with total disregard for consumers. If it wasn't for
their region-free stance, they have done nothing to help either HD
format with both low quantity and quality releases. In my last blog
entry, I talked about fire sales, and with Paramount stopping HD DVD
releases, I think their fire sale will be coming shortly. I've
started a thread in the forum to talk about HD DVD fire sales <5>,
and I will be posting news of any new fire sales there, and in the
usual places <6>. The fire sales here in Australia have attracted a
lot of buyers (some genuine, while the people who bought 350 discs
and 5 copies of each movie trying to take advantage of genuine
buyers are scum of the Earth), me included. It's surprising, but I
feel lucky that I've bought into HD DVD, as the cheap $8 discs is
something so rare, it hasn't even happened regularly to DVDs yet (at
least no in Australia). For the HD DVD movies I've bought to be
released on to Blu-ray would take months, if not years, and it would
still probably be the exact same content, but at 5 times the price.
The only risk now is having discs, but not being able to source a
player if people's current players die. But that may not be a
problem for long, as HD DVD might live on partly in another format.
The DVD Forum (the official body that controls the DVD format) is
continuing its support for the China-only CH DVD format <7>, which
is basically HD DVD with a different set of software. If CH DVD is a
success, then chances are, one will be able to source a HD DVD
player without too much problem in the future, which bodes well for
those that have dipped their feet into the HD DVD fire sales.

Moving onto Blu-ray now, those worried about price rises now that
Blu-ray has no competition will be startled to see a new Blu-ray
player being priced at nearly $17,000 <8>! Obviously this is not a
sign of things to come, but it's still funny the price some people
are willing to pay. I bet it's not even Profile 1.1. Better news for
those of us who don't earn 7 figure incomes, Sony has announced two
new Blu-ray players <9> to be released in the latter part of the
year. Both might eventually be BD-Live (Profile 2.0) compatible,
although the cheaper of the two players, the BDP-S35, might not have
enough persistent storage <10> to quality as a BD-Live compatible
player, without you adding external storage through a USB thumb key.
Not the most elegant solution, so I think the more expensive BDP-
S550 is the way to go. It even has 7.1 analogue audio output, plus
on-board decoding of all the major HD audio formats, so it looks
like a good one. The more cynical side of me thinks Sony held back
the news of these players until the format war looks to have ended,
as it did not want to upset fellow CE manufacturers in the BDA. Now
that Sony owns the one and only HD format, it looks like they won't
just sit back and let the other companies take advantage. Monopoly
time …

Netflix is also set to take advantage of the conclusion of the
format war. They will quadruple the number of Blu-ray titles
available to rent <11>, but may raise monthly subscription prices as
a result. They've been harping on about raising prices for ages now,
so don't be too surprised when it happens. And while not strictly HD
news, the people over at Secrets of Home Theater and Hi Fi have
released an updated review for the PS3's video playback performance
<12>. The previous review was criticized for only testing the then
most updated firmware, which did not even include DVD upscaling. But
unfortunately, the new result based on the latest firmware did not
improve the scores by much. I've tried to explain the situation in
the link above, and I think most people feel the same way: The PS3
is an excellent Blu-ray player, a more than adequate DVD upscaling
player, but don't expect it to compete with top of the line
dedicated upscaling players as that's not what it is designed to do.

To segue effortlessly from HD/video to gaming, this middle of the
road story about the PS3's new PlayTV <13> (turns the PS3 into a
DVR) feature will be DRM free. Good for Sony for taking a sensible
approach to DRM for once. Let's just hope people don't take
advantage of Sony's lapse and turn the PS3 into the mother of all
video piracy machines.

Segueing now to gaming completely, LucasArts will now produce games
on the PS3 and then port it over to the 360 <14>, as opposed to
doing it the other way. I don't think this is because they luuurve
the PS3 more than the 360, it just make more sense from the
developer's point of view to do this as it will mean better games
for both platforms. Developers have often complained about porting
360 games to the PS3, since the PS3 has several design bottlenecks
that is not easily solve when doing ports. It's much better to
design the game for a system that is more restrictive, and then port
it over to the less restrictive/easier environment. And finally,
Dead Rising, the game I'm still playing at the moment and the game
that I played so much that caused my 360 to RRoD, has been sued for
infringing the copyrights of the Dawn of the Dead franchise. So
let's see, Dead Rising is a game about a zombie outbreak and
survivors holding up in a shopping mall. Dawn of the Dead (both
movies) is about a zombie outbreak and survivors holding up in a
shopping mall. Sorry, but I just don't see the connection.

Over the next week, I will be bringing you details of a new
competition that I will run on Digital Digest, prizes courtesy of
Roxio <15>, the makers of the famous Popcorn and MyDVD series. The
prize includes copies of their latest DVD production, copying and
conversion software, as well as a grand prize of an iPod. More
details when they are available.

Okay, that's it from me for this week - I'm going back to look for
more HD DVD fire sale details, credit card in hand …

Links:
<1>  http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=86396
<2>  http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?postid=554786#post554786
<3>  http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=86410
<4>  http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=86402
<5>  http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=86366
<6>  http://www.digital-digest.com/news-60825.html
<7>  http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=86409
<8>  http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=86387
<9>  http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=86378
<10> http://wiki.digital-digest.com/index.php/Persistent_Storage
<11> http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=86403
<12> http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=86416
<13> http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=86391
<14> http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=86369
<15> http://www.roxio.com/


*******************************************************

3. Weekly Software Roundup

March 2, 2008       MKVBoxer 0.2 beta
March 2, 2008       x264 full rev. 745 (Freeware)
March 2, 2008       PSPVC 2.3 (Freeware)
March 2, 2008       Kantaris Media Player 0.3.4 (Freeware)
March 2, 2008       avi.NET 2.5.8.0 (Freeware)
March 1, 2008       ProgDVB 4.x 4.89.7 (Freeware)
March 1, 2008       ProgDVB 5.13.7 (Freeware)
March 1, 2008       MediaInfo 0.7.6.0 (Freeware)
February 29, 2008   DVRMSToolbox 1.2.11 (Freeware)
February 29, 2008   RipBot264 1.8.11 (Freeware)
February 29, 2008   XP Codec Pack 2.3.5 (Freeware)
February 29, 2008   MLC Lossless Codec 0.4 (Freeware)
February 29, 2008   XviD4PSP 5.030 (Freeware)
February 29, 2008   Comskip 0.79.119 (Freeware)
February 29, 2008   AVIAddXSubs 7.0 (Freeware)
February 28, 2008   Roxio Easy DVD Copy 2.0
February 28, 2008   Roxio Copy & Convert 3.0
February 28, 2008   HCbatchGUI 14.2 (Freeware)
February 28, 2008   VideoLAN 0.8.6e (Freeware)
February 28, 2008   GOTSent 0.23 beta 11 (Freeware)
February 27, 2008   mkv2vob 2.0.5 (Freeware)
February 27, 2008   tsMuxeR 1.3.6 (Freeware)
February 27, 2008   ffdshow Rev. 1873 (Freeware)
February 27, 2008   K-Lite Mega Codec Pack 3.8.0 (Freeware)
February 27, 2008   K-Lite Codec Pack 3.8.0 (Freeware)
February 27, 2008   BurnAware Free Edition 1.2.8 (Freeware)
February 27, 2008   FLV Extract 1.3.0 (Freeware)
February 27, 2008   Pinnacle Studio 11.1.2
February 26, 2008   DVDStyler 1.6.1 beta 2 (Freeware)
February 26, 2008   SimpleMovieX 3.6.3
February 26, 2008   dvdisaster 0.70.5 (Freeware)
February 26, 2008   HDTVtoMPEG2 1.11.94 (Freeware)
February 26, 2008   Kino 1.3.0 (Freeware)
February 26, 2008   TitleWriter 4.65 (Freeware)
February 26, 2008   VirtualDub 1.8.0 (Experimental Build 29393) (Freeware)
February 26, 2008   DVD Rebuilder Pro 1.27.2
February 26, 2008   EasyMPEG MX 3.3.4build92
February 25, 2008   Movie Library ++ 4.4.0 (Freeware)
February 25, 2008   Cole2k Media - Codec Pack 6.1.0 (Freeware)
February 25, 2008   DIKO 2.35 (Freeware)
February 25, 2008   GOM Player 2.1.9.3753 (Freeware)
February 25, 2008   Mp3tag 2.40 (Freeware)
February 25, 2008   Vista Codec Package 4.5.9 (Freeware)
February 24, 2008   K-Lite Video Conversion Pack 1.2.0 (Freeware)
February 24, 2008   Got All Media 7.0.0.2
February 24, 2008   DGAVCDec 1.0.0 alpha 18 (Freeware)

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


******************************************************

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

Changing subscription status for this newsletter is pretty easy.

To un-subscribe:
- Send an email to liveupdate-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com using the
email account that receives this newsletter.
- Or go to the Yahoo My Groups page to edit your group
subscriptions. More information here:
http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/groups/groups-32.html
- DO NOT reply to this email for unsubscribe requests - it will be
ignored

To change the email address that receives this newsletter:
- Un-subscribe using your current one, and sign up using a new email
address


======END OF LIVEUPDATE NEWSLETTER======

**************************************************************

DIGITAL DIGEST - http://www.digital-digest.com
DIGITAL DIGEST | LiveUpdate Newsletter - Issue 84
9 March, 2008

**************************************************************

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

*******************************************************

1. Introduction

The HD DVD fire sales continue, and I've enjoyed them tremendously.
For the most part. My latest experience with the online version of
the Australian budget store JB Hi-Fi has not been pleasant at all.
They have an ordering system that does not have real time stock
checking, and then when they do process orders, they don't appear to
do on a first come first served purpose. In other words, you want to
order something  and get in early to do so, and then miss out
because some guy who ordered 8 hours after you got your item.

The server hosting the Digital Digest website experienced problems
and I barely got any sleep last night. So if you find that I start
dozing off, please give me a shove. Now what was I saying, something
about somsthnff deksd asmd ... zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Links:
* The HD DVD Fire Sale - Part IV
http://www.digital-digest.com/blog/DVDGuy/2008/03/04/the-hd-dvd-fire-sale-part-i\
v/
* The HD DVD Fire Sale - Part III
http://www.digital-digest.com/blog/DVDGuy/2008/03/04/the-hd-dvd-fire-sale-part-i\
ii/
* The HD DVD Fire Sale - Part II
http://www.digital-digest.com/blog/DVDGuy/2008/03/04/the-hd-dvd-fire-sale-part-i\
i/

-- DVDGuy


*******************************************************

2. Weekly News Roundup

Sorry for this slightly later than usual roundup. The server hosting
most of Digital Digest's websites started experiencing some
problems, which were later traced to a bad hard-drive. To avoid any
outages, I had to quickly source a new server and transfer the sites
across, which was not easy at 3am in the morning. I ended up going
to bed at 7am, and 6 hours of sleep later, I'm back again continuing
with the transfer. Ah … the glamour of being a webmaster.

Let's not waste any time, because I have none to spare. In copyright
news, finally a content provider that has the right idea. Instead of
pursuing layers of DRM, the band Nine Inch Nails will release their
new album through P2P using a donation based system <1> … you decide
how much you want to pay for the music, and of course, no DRM. Doing
it this way really "goes with the flow" of how content is
distributed on the Internet, and bypassing the studio system has
many advantages (least of which is getting 95% of your profit back,
which otherwise would have belonged to the studio). Using a system
normally used to distribute pirated content has many advantages, one
of which is ease of use. Jumping through hoops just to buy some DRM
infested crap just doesn't work anymore. And to prove this point, a
new study confirms that piracy is better than the real thing <2>.
Better content, easier delivery are all reasons why people are
choosing the piracy route, rather than through official channels.
Studios are obviously worried, but is it really hurting them? Movie
ticket sales broke new records again in 2007 <3>, despite movie
piracy at an all time high. Is piracy helping to sell movie tickets,
as people watch a low quality version of a film, likes it, and then
decide to watch it proper in the cinema or on legally purchased
discs?

Moving quickly onto HD, BD-ROM is set to take off in 2008 <4>
following Blu-ray's victory in the HD format war. The most
interesting part of the story is a revealing quote which suggested
that BD burner prices are high because of low yield issues. It seems
low yield is a problem that Blu-ray suffers from a lot, with disc
pressing a huge problem causing releases to be pushed back time and
time again due to insufficient manufacturing capacity. To ensure
capacity though, new factories will have to be built. And consumers
will end up having to pay for them. Some reports suggest that both
Blu-ray player and disc prices have gone up since the demise of HD
DVD <5>, and you can't really blame the BDA, studios or CE
manufacturers (and online rental stores) for doing so, because the
format war has been costly on top of the cost of developing a new
format. There is certainly less Blu-ray disc sales than before, and
even the redemption offer for 5 free discs seems to be over now with
no signs of it coming back. Competition is good for the consumer.
But there is no competition to Blu-ray now, apart from competition
from within (which will be somewhat limited, as everyone involved do
not want a price war to drive down profit margins just yet). Further
evidence comes straight from Sony, who says that they do not want to
license Blu-ray technology to Chinese firms <6> in order to lower
prices (their stated reason is "piracy"). Sony has ruled out $200
Blu-ray players coming this year, and they hinted that you might
have to wait until the end of 2009 to see Blu-ray players match the
2007 price of HD DVD players, and even then, it's probably just a
basic Profile 1.1 player that won't play a lot of the special
feature content on the majority of discs released at that time. One
way for player prices to drop is for HD DVD firms to get involved,
and Microsoft is the first to suggest they may join the Blu-ray
bandwagon <7> and release an add-on drive for the Xbox 360. Nothing
more specific than that, unfortunately. Microsoft has also released
the HD DVD emulator for the Xbox 360 for free <8> (used to cost a
few thousand dollars) - with this software, you can test your HD DVD
projects and HDi content without having more specialised equipment
than a Xbox 360.

The HD DVD fire sale continues, although I have a feeling the best
is yet to come. Prices continue to drop, now to as low as $8.50 for
selected titles. I've written a bunch of blog entries on this
already, so I won't waste too much time on it again. Suffice to say
that I'm still pretty mad about JB Hi-Fi Online and their Planet
Earth ordering fiasco - read more about it here <9>. And I guess it
sort of belongs in the HD section - Pioneer has responded to rumours
that it will cease development of plasma screens <10> and move onto
LCD (the plasma vs LCD battle is just as fierce as the Blu-ray/HD
DVD one, along with the numerous unfounded rumours being reported by
allegedly reputed news sites). Pioneer will continue to release
plasma TVs, except that the panel these TVs used will now be
outsourced, instead of being manufactured by Pioneer. The rumour (I
know, I know) is that Panasonic will take over, and Pioneer will
share their design secrets with them. If true, this is good news
because Panasonic's Viera range is already pretty good, and with
some infusion of Pioneer technology, both Pioneer and Panasonic
plasmas will continue to be at the top of the pile in terms of
picture quality. The best plasma screens will always look better
than the best LCDs, and will remain so until new TV technology
becomes available (I'm putting my money on OLED, but not before
2010).

And finally in gaming, PS3 firmware 2.4 will be released in the US
summer <11>, and will feature in game XMB for messaging. There is no
word that it will feature Blu-ray Profile 2.0 support, or DTS-HD MA
decoding - the only two features lacking from the PS3's otherwise
excellent Blu-ray capabilities (but to be fair, no Profile 2.0
player will be available anytime soon, although DTS-HD MA decoding
would be nice to have since many titles now use this new audio
format and it sucks to be limited to plain old DTS 1.5 Mbps). A new
Xbox 360 SKU may also be on the way, perhaps featuring a 60 GB hard-
disk <12>. I think getting rid of stability issues and lowering the
noise level should be Microsoft's main priority, because a quiet,
non RRoD'ing Xbox 360, with a large hard-drive, will be a must-have
even for existing 360 owners, let alone new users.

Okay, so that's it for this week. I have to get back to fixing the
new server. I'll see you next week.

Links:
<1>  http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=86453
<2>  http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=86467
<3>  http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=86481
<4>  http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=86466
<5>  http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=86468
<6>  http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=86476
<7>  http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=86498
<8>  http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=86469
<9> 
http://www.digital-digest.com/blog/DVDGuy/2008/03/08/the-hd-dvd-fire-sale-part-i\
v-jb-hi-fi-stuff-up/
<10> http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=86496
<11> http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=86454
<12> http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=86501


*******************************************************

3. Weekly Software Roundup

March 9, 2008   tsMuxeR 1.4.5 Beta (Freeware)
March 9, 2008   Media Player Classic 6.4.9.1 (20080308) (Freeware)
March 9, 2008   XviD4PSP 5.031 (Freeware)
March 8, 2008   EMDB 0.60 (Freeware)
March 8, 2008   ProgDVB 5.13.8 (Freeware)
March 8, 2008   GOTSent 0.23 beta 12 (Freeware)
March 8, 2008   Total Video Converter 3.12
March 8, 2008   x264 full rev. 748 (Freeware)
March 7, 2008   MediaCoder 0.6.1 Build 4068 (Freeware)
March 7, 2008   Comskip 0.79.120 (Freeware)
March 7, 2008   mkv2vob 2.1.0 (Freeware)
March 6, 2008   iPodifier 1.5 (Freeware)
March 6, 2008   VideoSpec 0.6.0 (Freeware)
March 6, 2008   eac3to 2.28 (Freeware)
March 6, 2008   MKVToolnix 2.2.0 (Freeware)
March 6, 2008   ffdshow Rev. 1882 (Freeware)
March 6, 2008   DVDStyler 1.6.1 (Freeware)
March 6, 2008   StaxRip 1.0.0.3 (Freeware)
March 5, 2008   HCbatchGUI 14.4 (Freeware)
March 4, 2008   BluffTitler 7.20 (Freeware)
March 4, 2008   Collectorz.com Movie Collector 5.4.4
March 4, 2008   DGMPGDec 1.5.0 RC3 (Freeware)
March 4, 2008   KMPlayer 2.9.3.1430 Beta (Freeware)
March 4, 2008   H264info Alpha 0021 (Freeware)
March 4, 2008   Muxman Pro 1.1.0
March 4, 2008   MagicISO 5.4 build 256
March 4, 2008   BSplayer Pro 2.27
March 4, 2008   BSplayer 2.27
March 4, 2008   Submerge 1.4
March 3, 2008   VoltaicHD 1.2.1
March 3, 2008   EAC3toGUI 2.00 (Freeware)
March 3, 2008   Burn4Free 4.2.0.0 (Freeware)
March 3, 2008   J. River Media Center 12.0.450
March 3, 2008   Bitrape 2.8.0 (Freeware)
March 2, 2008   MKVBoxer 0.2 beta (Freeware)
March 2, 2008   PSPVC 2.3 (Freeware)
March 2, 2008   Kantaris Media Player 0.3.4 (Freeware)
March 2, 2008   avi.NET 2.5.8.0 (Freeware)

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


******************************************************

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

Changing subscription status for this newsletter is pretty easy.

To un-subscribe:
- Send an email to liveupdate-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com using the
email account that receives this newsletter.
- Or go to the Yahoo My Groups page to edit your group
subscriptions. More information here:
http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/groups/groups-32.html
- DO NOT reply to this email for unsubscribe requests - it will be
ignored

To change the email address that receives this newsletter:
- Un-subscribe using your current one, and sign up using a new email
address


======END OF LIVEUPDATE NEWSLETTER======

**************************************************************

DIGITAL DIGEST - http://www.digital-digest.com
DIGITAL DIGEST | LiveUpdate Newsletter - Issue 85
16 March, 2008

**************************************************************

TOP NEWS SUMMARY:

1. Introduction

2. Roxio Competition - Win an iPod Nano!

3. Weekly News Roundup

4. Weekly Software Roundup

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

*******************************************************

1. Introduction

I've finally managed to get the server problem sorted, although not
without the usual headaches. The HD DVD sales, for me personally, is
about to end. I only have 7 more titles to order (assuming they drop
in price as expected), and I have received most of the orders I've
made thus far.

You'll also notice an extra section in between this introduction and
the Weekly News Roundup. I've teamed up with Roxio to give you the
chance to win an iPod Nano, as well as copies of Easy DVD Copy 4,
some Roxio T-Shirts and a flash drive.

Links:
* The HD DVD Fire Sale - Part V
http://www.digital-digest.com/blog/DVDGuy/2008/03/11/the-hd-dvd-fire-sale-part-v\
/

-- DVDGuy


*******************************************************

2. Roxio Competition - Win an iPod Nano!

Digital Digest has teamed up with Roxio, the makers of the award
winning MyDVD series, to give you the chance to win some cool prizes:

First prize: iPod Nano, a copy of Easy DVD Copy, a flash drive and a
Roxio T-Shirt
Second prize: A copy of Easy DVD Copy, a flash drive and a Roxio T-
Shirt
Third prize: A copy of Easy DVD Copy and a Roxio T-Shirt

To enter, all you have to do is to answer a simple question and the
winners will be drawn randomly from all the correct answers. As a
reward to newsletter subscribers, you will get to enter this
competition before it becomes fully public, and your single entry
(please only submit a single entry, as multiple entries will be
disqualified) will count as double in the draw. But hurry, since
this special bonus entry will only last for 2 days.

To enter, go to this page (make sure the entire URL is shown in your
browser, copy/paste it into the address bar to be sure):

http://www.digital-digest.com/competition/roxio.php?type=1

Because the competition is not public yet, you need to enter the
following username and password to access the page:

Username: competition
Password: letmein

Good luck!


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3. Weekly News Roundup

What a week it has been. The server problem was finally fixed,
although not without a lot of fixing and tweaking as you would
expect when you do a major server move. Also received a bunch of
cheap HD DVDs that I had ordered in previous weeks, pretty much all
the titles I've ordered have now been received (I just need to find
some time to watch them, that's all). And I also celebrated my
birthday during the week as well. So it's been a busy week, and if
there seems to be less news stories than normal, that's probably why.

So let's not waste any time and start with copyright news. The MPAA
is at it again (I seem to use this phrase quite a lot. But blame the
MPAA, not me). This time, they are against Net Neutrality <1>,
because it might hurt their plans to spy on everybody. Net
Neutrality basically means leaving the Net alone and not placing
restrictions on things like content types, connection modes and
placing priority on certain types of content, while reducing
priority on other "less desirable" content. Obviously, a restricted
and regulated network will benefit the MPAA in their attempt to
control how, when, where and what we download. Having big business
tell us what we can and cannot do is, in my opinion, even worse than
Big Brother type governments doing so … at least government are
elected (in most countries).

On to HD. Now that people have finally gotten around to the idea
that Blu-ray is *the* HD format for the future, questions are
starting to be raised. Even staunch Blu-ray advocates such as Bill
Hunt from The Digital Bits <2> are starting to ask the BDA to make
changes, the very changes that made people choose HD DVD like
prices, profiles. We've been flooded with news of Blu-ray prices
rises <3>, both for hardware and movies, but I think it's too soon
to tell what the general direction Blu-ray will be heading to next.
If the BDA is serious about replacing SD DVDs with Blu-ray, then
prices will drop. If they see Blu-ray as a money maker that is
needed to replaced flagging DVD sales <4>, then prices may not drop
as quickly as one would like. There is a very interesting read on
Gizmondo that highlights some of the problems that Blu-ray will be
facing in the short and long term <5>. It certainly is a pretty
pessimistic look at things, but you would have to agree with their
key points, which are: the cost of the format war means prices drops
will hurt manufacturers and studios, profile confusion, and
productivity problems. On that last point, the article raises
something quite interesting in that they speculate Universal studios
might be having trouble releasing their titles on Blu-ray due to the
entire 2008 production stock already being allocated to other
studios. In other words, Universal can't release movies on Blu-ray
because they can't get production time in the already over capacity
production lines. New lines are being built, but they cannot come
online quick enough. Of course, this might all be speculation, but
one thing is for certain: HD DVD would not have experienced this
problem as all recent DVD production lines are capable of producing
HD DVDs. And speaking of former HD DVD studios releasing titles on
Blu-ray, Paramount is apparently set to re-release their previous
Blu-ray titles <6> (before they went HD DVD exclusive) again next
week. Seems that they kept their Blu-ray stock, as opposed to
pulping them as some rumours had suggested. Unfortunately, Universal
never got into Blu-ray production, so it will be some time before
you see The Bourne Trilogy on Blu-ray. Another problem for Blu-ray
is that upscaled DVD performance continues to improve. Oppo this
week officially announced their new DVD upscaler <7>, the DV-983H,
which early testing has showed to be possibly the best performing on
the market today. From my experience, a fairly average/poor HD
encode is often the same or worse than a decent DVD encode upscaled
(case in point, T2 Extreme Edition DVD vs T2 HD DVD Australian
version). Such decent DVD encodes look very "HD" when upscaled, but
the general rule is that real HD, when given a proper encoding, will
always look better. But just because it is better, doesn't mean
people are prepared to pay extra for it … think DVD-Audio and SACD,
although better video quality is easier to sell than better audio
quality.

Meanwhile, HD DVD is selling quite well <8> (the latest numbers
showed a 10% market share jump for HD DVD in the US, even though the
big sales haven't really started, at least not at
Australian "everything under $10? levels yet). For those that want
to join in, keep an eye on this page <9> and this page <10>, as well
as the blog. I wish somebody would release Australian sales numbers,
because it must be at least 20:1 in HD DVD's favour in the past few
weeks. The Xbox 360 add-on drive is proving particularly popular due
to its low price, but Microsoft this week denied again <11> that
they are working on a similar add-on for Blu-ray.

Before I move on properly to gaming, DivX support is coming to a lot
more Blu-ray players <12> than just the PS3. In fact, their support
will be even better than the PS3's (which is a bit strange). Anyone
who has used the PS3's DivX/XviD playback function will know that it
is somewhat limited, with no DivX Ultra support, no support for
GMC/Q-Pel and has a few other problems as well. But when a file does
work, it plays beautifully. And while the PS3 has had a firmware
update (adds nothing of significance, other than some gaming
compatibility fixes), the next big update will be interesting if
they add enhanced DivX support, as well as perhaps DTS-HD MA
decoding (the one essential Blu-ray feature that the PS3 sorely
lacks) and even Profile 2.0, although I believe the latter two will
be more likely to come only after standalones with similar features
are available.

Now onto gaming proper, February's US NPD figures are out and I will
provide a full analysis in the next few days. Once again, all three
gaming companies are claiming victory. Nintendo's Wii sold the most,
so they're claiming they're the best (with justification, IMO - but
if I'm a bit sick and tired of seeing another story about how the
Wii is helping the elderly, the injured and basically curing all
disease and bringing world peace). Sony's PS3 sold more than the
Xbox 360, so they're claiming victory too (mainly thanks to Blu-
ray's victory, I think). While Microsoft is still saying Xbox 360
stock shortages are affecting sales figures, and that they sold the
most software and made the most profit, which they think is the most
important. If Microsoft is really having stock problems, then what
they say makes sense, since people are still choosing the 360 over
the PS3 when it comes to multi-platform releases (Call of Duty 4,
for example). It will be interesting to see which consoles gains
most from the release of GTA IV, but I believe with the 360 install
base much greater than the PS3 in the US, the 360 version of GTA IV,
with the exclusive content, will probably sell more copies. I've yet
to decide which version I would get (PS3 or 360), although I'm
leaning towards 360 due to not having to buy another controller just
to get rumble capabilities (and the fact that the 360 version was
produced first, meaning it might play a little bit better). Once I
assume 360 stock become plentiful again, Microsoft will fight the
PS3 with further price cuts which will put pressure on Sony to
follow <13>. Expect to see a 360 GTA IV pack for less cost than the
basic PS3, and it will sell like hotcakes.

See you next week.

Links:
<1>  http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=86552
<2>  http://www.thedigitalbits.com/mytwocentsa152.html
<3>  http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=86537
<4>  http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=86515
<5>  http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=86560
<6>  http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?postid=555549#post555549
<7>  http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=86566
<8>  http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=86533
<9>  http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=86366&page=3
<10> http://www.digital-digest.com/news-60825.html
<11> http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?postid=555454#post555454
<12> http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=86540
<13> http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=86532


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3. Weekly Software Roundup

March 16, 2008   myTheatre 3.38.2
March 16, 2008   Net Transport 2.56
March 16, 2008   DVB Web Scheduler 5.1.0.1 (Freeware)
March 16, 2008   DGAVCDec 1.0.0 alpha 19 (Freeware)
March 15, 2008   Roxio Easy DVD Copy 4.0
March 15, 2008   MediaInfo 0.7.6.1 (Freeware)
March 15, 2008   MemoriesOnTV Home 4.0.4
March 15, 2008   MemoriesOnTV Pro 4.0.4
March 14, 2008   RipBot264 1.9.0 (Freeware)
March 14, 2008   VoltaicHD 1.2.2
March 14, 2008   ffdshow Rev. 1897 (Freeware)
March 13, 2008   MediaCoder 0.6.1 Build 4075 (Freeware)
March 13, 2008   Druid 1.0.2 (Freeware)
March 13, 2008   CDBurnerXP Pro 4.0.024.439 (Freeware)
March 13, 2008   Quick Media Converter 3.48 Beta (Freeware)
March 13, 2008   Nero Burning ROM 8.3.2.1
March 13, 2008   SubDownloader² 0.7.2 (Freeware)
March 12, 2008   Free Zune Video Converter 1.0 (Freeware)
March 12, 2008   Video DVD Maker 3.7.0.13 (Freeware)
March 12, 2008   Video DVD Maker Pro 2.11.0.52
March 12, 2008   Vista Codec Package 4.6.1 (Freeware)
March 12, 2008   BurnAware Free Edition 1.2.9 (Freeware)
March 12, 2008   Magix Movie Edit Pro 14
March 12, 2008   x264 full rev. 749 (Freeware)
March 11, 2008   Cyberlink PowerProducer 5.0
March 11, 2008   FinalBurner 1.29.0.125 (Freeware)
March 11, 2008   FinalBurner Pro 1.29.0.152
March 11, 2008   XP Codec Pack 2.3.6 (Freeware)
March 11, 2008   MeGUI 0.2.6.1045 (Freeware)
March 10, 2008   DVDforger 0.6.2 alpha (Freeware)
March 10, 2008   tsMuxeR 1.4.6 Beta (Freeware)
March 10, 2008   Blu-ray Region Code Remover 1.0 (Freeware)
March 10, 2008   eac3to 2.29 (Freeware)
March 10, 2008   Comskip 0.79.121 (Freeware)
March 9, 2008    GB-PVR 1.2.9 (Freeware)
March 9, 2008    Media Player Classic 6.4.9.1 (20080308) (Freeware)
March 9, 2008    XviD4PSP 5.031 (Freeware)

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


******************************************************

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Hi

Just a short note to let people know that I've updated the question on
the competition page because it lead to too many different correct
answers. I've made it a bit more specific.

Don't worry though, all entries so far have been accepted as correct.

I guess this is why you have private dry-runs before making things
public!

Thanks,

--
DVDGuy