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Verbatim is now assembling external hard disk drives in Europe, enabling it to respond more quickly and with greater flexibility to European market demands. The assembly is being undertaken by Rhenus AG & Co. KG in Duisburg Germany and since starting production in December 2008 has been assembling and shipping up to 60,000 units every month.
Rhenus Logistics, which is situated on the Logport Park in Duisburg, has provided the European central distribution warehouse for Verbatim since 2006. With a capacity of 40.000 pallet bays, goods are packed within 24 hours of receipt or order, with orders placed before 4 pm ready for shipment the same day. More than 800 different Verbatim products can be shipped at any time and around 315,000 orders are processed by Rhenus for Verbatim each year.
On December 1st 2008, two new assembly lines were set up at Rhenus for Verbatim, to meet the increasing external HDD market requirements in Europe. 42 new jobs were created, trained staff work in two shifts to assemble 3,5-inch external hard drives on a customised basis in response to orders from Verbatim’s customers. The supplied hard drives are formatted and installed into the enclosures, then checked and packaged. Previously, these services were only performed in Asia.
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Lite-On announces today that their next generation of external slim DVD-writers will be equipped with a smart USB power detection feature.
The eSAU108 external DVD-writer from Lite-On is a USB powered drive. Users don’t need a power adapter to operate the drive, as it will get its power directly from the computer through a USB cable. Most notebooks deliver enough power to operate the drive through a single USB port, but for some notebooks an extra USB port is needed to get sufficient power.
Smart USB power detection is a feature that helps users to determine whether they need one or two USB ports to operate the drive. After plugging in the main USB connector in the computer’s USB port and the mini USB connector into the drive’s port, a LED indicator on the drive will light up. BLUE means that the drive is ready to operate, while RED means that a second USB connector is needed. As the drive is equipped with a USB Y-cable, a cable with two USB connectors and one mini USB connector, a second USB connector can be plugged into the computer very easily.
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NVIDIA today announced that NERO has released an update to its Nero Move it software that reduces video encoding time by up to five times by utilizing NVIDIA's CUDA computing architecture built inside select NVIDIA Graphics Processing Units (GPUs). NVIDIA CUDA technology dramatically reduces the time it takes to transfer video files to portable devices, while freeing up the CPU to perform other tasks.
Nero Move it is designed to allow consumers to effortlessly convert and share digital media content among a variety of popular entertainment devices. It is a complete software solution for collecting, organizing, transferring, and publishing digital media files from one device to another, as well as for uploading digital content to online communities. By using CUDA technology to tap the massively parallel processing power of NVIDIA GPUs, Nero Move it converts videos in a fraction of the usual time, reducing the length of time to perform such tasks as customizing an HD video for an iPod, from hours to mere minutes.
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OCZ Technology Group, Inc., a worldwide leader in innovative, ultra-high performance and high reliability memory and computer components, today unveiled the Z-Drive, a PCI-Express based SSD solution designed to meet the stringent demands of enthusiast computing environments and high-end workstations. First debuted at Cebit 2009 in Germany, the Z-Drive is the latest premium solid state storage solution from OCZ.
“It is our goal to deliver tailored SSD solutions for the complete spectrum of high performance applications,” said Eugene Chang, Vice President of Product Management at the OCZ Technology Group. “Designed for ultra high performance consumers, the Z-Drive takes the SATA bottleneck out of the equation by employing the ultra fast PCI-Express architecture with a RAID controller and four Vertex controllers configured in four-way RAID 0 within an all-in-one product, making this solution ideal for applications that put a premium on both storage performance and maximum capacity.”
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Pioneer Japan sent out a press release this morning, announcing its new slim, portable DVD writer, the DVR-XD08. This USB bus powered drive is capable of 8x DVD±R, 6x DVD±R DL, 8x DVD+RW, 6x DVD-RW and 5x DVD-RAM writing speeds and a maximum DVD read speed of 8x. The DVR-XD08 also includes features like Pioneer's PowerRead and PURE READ technologies as well as a software bundle from CyberLink. The DVR-XD08 is scheduled to ship in early May and is expected to cost about 15,000 Yen ($153US).
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Warner Home Video has launched a new program that will let HD DVD fans trade in their movies for the Blu-ray version. To do so, send in the cover art to Warner's processing center, pay a small $4.95 upgrade fee (as well as $6.95/$8.95 for shipping) and in 4-5 weeks, you'll receive the Blu-ray version of the same title. While you are limited to one copy of each movie and a total of 25 titles total per household, most people will probably be more than happy to rid themselves of the defunct format. Full details can be found at Red2Blu.com.
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DivX, Inc., a digital media company, and LG Electronics, Inc. today announced that LG's new line of digital TVs is the world's first device series capable of playing back full DivX(R) HD 1080p videos. More than 200 models of LG digital TVs have been DivX Certified(R), including the LH50, LH70, LH85, PS70 and PS80 series. In addition, a wider variety of innovative LG TVs are now DivX Certified for playback of full DivX HD. Over 100 million DivX Certified devices have shipped worldwide from major manufacturers, and more than 400 digital TV models from leading consumer electronics manufacturers have been DivX Certified to date.
Available in the United States and Europe in late May and late April respectively, the LG digital TVs will enable consumers to easily playback DivX HD videos from the PC or the Internet through the USB slot. Typical HD video requires a considerable amount of digital storage space, but DivX HD video provides a superior media experience by maintaining the highest visual quality while significantly reducing the video file size. Using DivX technology, users can fit approximately two hours of high-quality DivX HD video on an 8GB media card.
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Expanding consumers’ TV recording capabilities by hundreds of hours, WD® today announced in the U.S. that its My DVR Expander™ is now available with 1 TB capacity. Consumers can instantly and seamlessly expand their TiVo® DVR recording capacity by simply attaching the My DVR Expander to their TiVo DVR.
TiVo Verified™ compatible with TiVo Series3™ and TiVo HD DVRs, the new My DVR Expander is capable of storing up to 140 hours of high-definition (HD) television programming based on 1 TB of hard drive storage. The My DVR Expander, which utilizes an eSATA connection, is perfect for consumers who need more room to store the ever-expanding HD entertainment options offered by their service providers.
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Seagate Technology today began worldwide shipments of a power-thrifty desktop hard drive family that combines the largest storage capacity available with the best power efficiency and performance in its class, using as much as 50 percent less electricity than standard desktop hard drives.
The new line of Seagate Barracuda(R) LP (Low Power) hard drives deliver on the promise of sustainability, energy efficiency and a more eco-friendly footprint by helping organizations cut PC power costs and giving money-minded consumers great performance for their energy dollar. The new family of energy-efficient Seagate desktop drives helps reduce system power costs, runs quieter than traditional drives and operates at lower temperatures, extending the life of system components.
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TDK Corporation announced today the development of the GBDriver RS2 Series of Serial ATA(SATA) II compatible NAND flash memory controller ICs. Sales are scheduled to begin in May.
The new TDK GBDriver RS2 is a high-speed SATA controller IC that supports high-speed access with an effective speed of 95 MByte/second. It is compatible with SLC(single-level cell) memories with 2 KByte/page and 4 KByte/page structures and MLC(multi-level cell) NAND Flash memories, and can be used to create high-speed SATA storage ranging from 128 MByte to 64 GByte. As a result, the GBDriver RS2 series can be used for a wide range of applications ranging from SATADOM and other embedded storage to audiovisual devices and mobile Internet terminals such as Blu-ray disc players and netbooks. The controllers are available in a 120-pin TQPF package and a 144-pin VFBGA package.
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