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Corel Corporation (NASDAQ:CREL) (TSX:CRE), announced today that it has entered into a licensing agreement with KDDI Corporation, the largest international information carrier in Japan. Under the agreement, KDDI will use Corel’s DVD burning technology with its high-speed broadband network to provide a new service that enables consumers to download a full two-hour movie from the Internet and burn it directly to a DVD disc in as few as 11 minutes. Launched on September 27, the KDDI DVD Burning service will only be available in Japan.If you'd like to read more, Corel's entire press release can be found here. Add a comment
KDDI’s advanced direct-to-disc movie distribution service is the first of its kind to be delivered anywhere in the world and the first business model to provide CPRM security for network downloading. By incorporating Corel’s DVD burning technology with KDDI’s unique movie download service, consumers can enjoy the movies they want, whenever they want without having to visit a video rental outlet or purchase online and wait for delivery. There are no subscription or monthly fees, no buy/wait/return problems; only a single, low-cost transaction for each movie selected from KDDI’s robust library of titles.
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Quick to respond to the PS3's European price-cut, the HD DVD Promotional Group has issued a statement to say that they believe it will have "minimal impact" on the next-gen DVD market.In my opinion, the HD DVD Promotions Group should be concerned. While they once dominated the high-def standalone player market, they've started to fall behind in recent months due to the introduction of cheaper Blu-ray players. If you'd like to read more, the entire article can be found here. Add a comment
"The European PS3 price cut will have a minimal impact on the adoption of next generation HD formats. The real battleground is in sales of standalone players and HD DVD is out in front by a massive margin." said Ken Graffeo, co-chairman of the Group.
As well as giving Sony a much-needed sales boost in the gaming market in the run up to Christmas, the new 40GB PS3, that will be £299 when it's available later this month, will also be one of the cheapest Blu-ray players on the market.
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Fastmac today announced the first & only 2X Blu-Ray optical drive upgrade for Apple's PowerBook, iBook & MacBook Pro computers. The new slimline, slot loading drive uses the fastest & most compatible Blu-ray mechanism available to provide up to 50 GB of storage on 1 disk, without sacrificing compatibility with standard DVD & CD recordable media...While Fastmac's 2x Blu-Ray optical drive upgrade won't ship for another month or so, you can pre-order it from www.fastmac.com for a special introductory price of $999.95. More information can be found here. Add a comment
...Fastmac's slimline Blu-ray slot loading optical drive supports reading, writing and re-writing to single and dual layer Blu-ray media at up to 2x speeds. The drive is also compatible with standard DVD and CD media and can write to DVD-R and DVD+R media at 8x speed in single layer and up to 2.4x speed in dual/ double layer mode. It can rewrite to DVD-R and DVD+R media at 4x speeds. The drive also supports DVD-RAM reading and writing at up to 5x speeds and standard CD-R and CD-RW burning at 8x speeds.
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In light of better than expected sales of Halo 3, Microsoft has decided to strongly promote sales of Xbox 360 consoles during the traditional peak period prior to Christmas and therefore has placed additional OEM orders, the sources explained.If you'd like to read more, head on over to DigiTimes. Add a comment
To meet Microsoft's urgent demand, Lite-On IT has allocated production capacity solely for turning out one million Xbox 360 DVD-ROM drives a month, the sources pointed out. But the capacity is still not enough, and thus Lite-On IT has dedicated additional capacity, the sources indicated. However, the situation has conflicted with Lite-On IT's production of PC-use ODDs, the sources noted.
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MPEG LA announced today that the first meeting of essential HD DVD patent owners, currently consisting of 16 companies, was held in Los Angeles on September 11 for the purpose of creating a joint license providing fair, reasonable, non-discriminatory access to essential patents, as an alternative to negotiating separate licenses. Initial participating companies include LG Electronics Inc.; Microsoft Corporation; Mitsubishi Electric Corporation; NEC Corporation; Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.; SANYO Electric Co., Ltd.; Sonic Solutions; TDK Corporation; Thomson Licensing; Toshiba Corporation; Victor Company of Japan, Ltd.(JVC); and Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Inc.According to MPEG LA's press release, additional patent holder meetings are planned, and work on the joint license will continue. More information can be found here. Add a comment
“MPEG LA applauds the extraordinary cooperation of so many diverse companies working together to come up with an efficient way for users of the multitude of patents employed in HD DVD devices, discs and related implementations to address their licensing needs,” said MPEG LA CEO Larry Horn. “And the substantial progress made in this initial meeting bodes well for achieving it.”
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Toshiba Corp. and Microsoft Corp. today announced plans to form the Advanced Interactivity Consortium (AIC), an open forum aimed at the promotion of superior interactivity for a wide range of next-generation consumer devices, digital content and distribution scenarios. The newly formed organization’s mission is to maximize consumer satisfaction worldwide by accelerating industrywide adoption of advanced interactivity and interoperability across a broad array of HD DVD products.If you'd like to read more, the entire press release can be found here. Add a comment
In addition to its crystal-clear picture quality and sound, HD DVD, the next generation of DVD, approved by the DVD Forum, is the first platform to include advanced interactivity as a basic feature in high-definition movies and players, substantially expanding the possibilities of high-definition home entertainment.
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While many speculated that BD+ was the cause of these problems, they appear to be an issue with BD-J. Samsung and LG are reportedly aware of the problem and are working on a fix. However, it is unknown when firmware updates will be available. Add a comment
But while the discs have generally been well-received (our own Peter Bracke raved about the audio/video quality in his review of 'Silver Surfer'), what was initially a cause for celebration has become an exercise in frustration for some Blu-ray fans as incompatibility issues with some players have hindered playback of the discs.
The most severe problems have been reported on Samsung's BDP-1200 and LG's BH100, which are both said to be incapable of playing back the discs at all. Less catastophic issues (error messages and playback stutter) have been reported for Samsung's BDP-1000. The discs appear to play back fine on all other Blu-ray players (including the PlayStation 3), although users have reported lengthy load times of up to two minutes.
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Hitachi is also working on an 8 layer disc that can hold 200GB of data. However, they've had problems with reflections decreasing the signal strength across the eight layers. If you'd like to read more, the entire article can be found here. Add a comment
Hitachi has developed a prototype four layer Blu-Ray disc capable of holding 100GB of data.
While companies such as TDK and Panasonic have previously mooted 100GB discs, they have always needed a specially developed optical head in the player to read the disc.
Hitachi, however, claims to have used a standard Blu-Ray drive optical head that's only slightly modified to allow it to read and write data across the four 25GB layers. It's believed this will only require a firmware update to make existing drives compatible.
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Blue Ray Technologies is launching a new television division to serve the burgeoning Hi-Def TV market with Blu-ray discs. With virtually all network and cable shows now shot in High Definition, a new market for Blu-ray DVDs is springing up for TV fans.If you'd like to read more, Blue Ray Technologies' entire press release can be found here. Add a comment
The home market for TV show on DVD is well-established: about 100 "Complete Season" sets, specials and TV movies are released every month - more than tripling new theatrical titles.
Complete Season releases can actually be cheaper to networks and consumers than regular DVDs as 13 episodes will fit into a single 25 gigabyte Blu-ray disc, rather than four DVDs. Boxed DVD sets retailing at $49 -$79 presently could be sold in the $29 -$39 range, with store prices being much less.
