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The European Commission announced on March 1 that it has launched an in-depth investigation into the WTO consistency of the granting of compulsory licenses by Taiwan for recordable compact discs (CDRs) under the Trade Barriers Regulation...While Taiwan has agreed to cooperate in the investigation, Philips has gone ahead and appealed to the Taipei High Administrative Court in an attempt to cancel the compulsory licensing of its patents. Either way, this is going to get messy. If you'd like to read more, head on over to DigiTimes. Add a comment
...The case is a result of a July 2004 ruling by the Taiwan Intellectual Property Office (TIPO), under the Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA), that called for the compulsory licensing of five Royal Philips Electronics' CD-R disc patents to Gigastorage, a second-tier optical disc maker in Taiwan. TIPO based its decision on the fact that Philips had refused to renegotiate the CD-R fixed royalty charge rate of US$0.035 per disc, despite the fact that OEM prices had fallen from US$5 in 1997 to US$0.19 in the first half of 2003.
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BenQ confirmed it is discontinuing sales of DVD recorders mainly because it had been overly optimistic about the market and was plagued by disappointing sales. Since prices have been dropping, BenQ has decided to drop the segment when adjusting its product structure, the maker said, adding that it will determine whether to enter the Blu-ray or HD DVD recorder markets based on market demand.I can't say that I'm too surprised. With Lite-On pulling out of the DVD recorder market back in October, BenQ was one of the few Taiwanese manufacturers left. If you'd like to read more, head on over to DigiTimes. Add a comment
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6.1.2.8 2007 03 01According to reports on Slysoft's forum, this version does not make Blu-ray region free. However, their team is working hard to implement this feature. If you'd like to try it out, the beta version of AnyDVD HD can be downloaded directly here. If you find a bug or have a suggestion, leave your comments in Slysoft's forum. Add a comment
- New: Added Blu-Ray support.
- Change: I/O on 64bit OS (WinXP64/Vista64) moved to kernel mode
- Updated ElbyCDIO layer, fixes "cannot get exclusive access" in CloneDVD and CloneCD under XP64 and Vista64
- Change: ElbyCDIO uses less CPU cycles under Windows XP and Vista
- Change: After using CloneCD or CloneDVD, AnyDVD does no longer rescan the disc under XP64 and Vista64.
- Fix: HD DVDs without iHD menus did not work
- Some minor fixes and improvements
- Updated languages
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Samsung CLP-300 Color Laser Printer @BCCHardware
Palit Radeon X1950GT "Super" 512MB Graphics Card @TweakTown
Dell Inspiron 6400 Multimedia Notebook (Centrino Duo) @HardwareZone
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The DVD Forum, the international organization that defines formats for DVD products and technologies, today celebrated its official 10th anniversary at the annual general meeting of its members held in Tokyo. The Forum, which has been hailed as a model for collaboration between the consumer electronics, IT and entertainment industries, was founded in August 1997, to assume and extend the work of the DVD Consortium, the ten-company organization that initially developed the DVD format. When it started its work in developing the DVD format and promoting its widespread dissemination, the DVD Forum could count 86 members. Today, it has about 220 member companies, drawn from all over the world.Technically, the DVD Forum's anniversary isn't until August 7th, but considering all that they've done, they deserve to celebrate. If you'd like to read more, the DVD Forum's entire press release can be found here. Add a comment
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In the last few days a number of Web sites and blogs have reported the format has been submitted for approval to the DVD Forum and some have said that approval has been received, but Toshiba says nothing of the sort has happened.Sorry HD DVD fans. It looks like Blu-ray still has the upper hand in regards to capacity, at least for the time being. If you'd like to read more, the entire article can be found here. Add a comment
"We're puzzled ourself by where these reports came from," said Junko Furuta, a spokeswoman for the company in Tokyo. She said Toshiba hasn't made any further announcements about the disc since CES, and it wasn't submitted to any steering committees during this week's DVD Forum meetings in Tokyo.
When Toshiba first announced the disc in January, it said it hoped to get approval for the disc some time in 2007.
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LightScribe Direct Disc Labelingannounced today that the LightScribe Simple Labeler, an intuitive labeling tooldesigned to enhance customers' initial CD and DVD labeling experience, isimmediately available for free download and is also now bundled with manyLightScribe-enabled PCs and aftermarket drives. LightScribe customers can labeldiscs in a few easy clicks.If you'd like to check it out, LightScribe Simple Labeler can be downloaded for free from the LightScribe website. More information can also be found here. Add a comment
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SplitFish edgeFX Sony PS2 Mouse Controller @I4U
VIZO Propeller Dual-Fan Card Cooler @Futurelooks
Foxconn N68S7AA-8EKRS2H (NVIDIA nForce 680i SLI) @HardwareZone
Noctua NC-U6 Northbridge Cooler @BCCHardware
Samsung SyncMaster 940BW Widescreen LCD Monitor @Tweaknews.net
Samsung 226BW LCD Monitor @Overclockers Online
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Nero, leaders in digital media technology, today announced that the patent infringement suit brought against it by Sonic Solutions in November 2006 has been voluntarily withdrawn. The suit, filed in the United States district court in Marshall, Texas, alleged that Nero's video editing software infringed on Sonic's U.S. Patent No. 6,204,840.If you'd like to read more, Nero's entire press release can be found here. Add a comment
"Throughout this process we were adamant that the allegations were baseless and that Nero is not guilty of any improprieties in the design and performance of its video editing software," said Udo Eberlein, COO, Nero AG. "We commend Sonic for realizing the unwarranted basis of this claim and voluntarily dropping the lawsuit."
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The BDP-S300 is expected to ship some time this summer. More information is available on Sony's website. Add a comment
The new BDP-S300 model can output 1920 x 1080p (progressive) high-definition video, currently the highest resolution high-definition signal available through an HDMI connection. The player supports various video formats, including MPEG2, MPEG4-AVC and VC1.
For those who own an HDTV set without HDMI, an analog component output for 1080i (interlaced) is available as well.
The new BD player is compatible with most standard DVDs and has the added feature of 1080p upscaling through HDMI to 1080p capable HDTVs, improving the picture performance of existing DVD libraries.
