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Optical Storage
Verbatim's parent company, Mitsubishi Chemical, has announced that they've developed a new type of CD-R media for people with weak or no vision at all. These new discs feature a special surface where information like the type, capacity and rated speed are printed in braille code. Here's part of their press release, translated from Japanese:

Mitsubishi chemical media corporation (head office: The tokyo Minato-ku, president: Otsuka it is heavy virtue and below “MKM”), the Braille attachment CD-R which can grasp the letter of the disk surface with feeling (postscript type) we sell the disk in this year 8 end of the month. Besides the fact that the Braille convex (with densely) by the fact that letter is printed on the disk surface, standard and capacity etc of the disk can be read, the identification of the inside and outside becomes easy.
No word on price or availability. If you'd like to read more, Mitsubishi's entire press release can be found here. Add a comment

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Optical Storage
Good news for our European readers. vnunet.com is reporting that Philips & Lite-On Digital Solutions plans to drop the price of its Blu-ray Disc writer to about €549.
Joint venture company Philips & Lite-On Digital Solutions has announced plans to cut the price of its internal Lite-On Blu-ray Disc Drive LH-2B1S in Europe.

The company said that the move was prompted by the greater availability of Blu-ray lasers.

Lite-On launched its LH-2B1S in November 2006, but due to an early global shortage of the actual Blu-ray lasers, prices of Blu-ray writers remained high relative to alternative systems and pricing had not moved since these were introduced.
Europe isn't the only place seeing price cuts. Here in the US, we've already seen the LH-2B1S go for less than $300. The Taiwanese market has also experienced a 20% price drop. However, due to the price of media, drive sales are still very slow. Add a comment

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Flash Memory
Sandisk recently launched a new line of products inspired by Ducati's motorcycles. Along with a series of CompactFlash and SD Plus cards, the company unveiled the Ducati Edition USB Flash Drive. According to Sandisk's press release, the drive features a 4GB capacity and can read and write speed at speeds up to 20 MB/s.

The true “Ducatisti,” as aficionados of Ducati motorcycles call themselves, will appreciate the attention to detail in the SanDisk Extreme Ducati Edition USB Flash Drive, including the Ducati Corse logo on top of the drive and the red tail light that illuminates whenever the drive is inserted into the USB port of a computer .

On the inside, the drive offers a generous 4 gigabytes (GB) of capacity and front-of-the-pack read and write speeds of 20 megabytes per second - the fastest of the SanDisk portfolio of consumer USB drives. In other words, there isn’t a long wait to fill the drive’s big fuel tank with documents, photos, music and other digital data.
The Ducati Edition USB Flash Drive will be available in August for a suggested retail price of $124.99. Full details can be found here. Add a comment

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Other
In an attempt to give CD sales a much needed boost, Disney's Hollywood Records will start offering a new CD format with extra features. According to Reuters, the CDVU+ (CD View Plus) format reads like a digital magazine, offering extras like song lyrics, photos, videos and access to downloadable content.
Walt Disney Co. (DIS.N: Quote, Profile, Research) music label Hollywood Records is offering a new CD format with extra features to encourage compact-disc purchases in a bid to reverse declining CD sales.

Hollywood Records on Wednesday unveiled its new CDVU+ (CD View Plus) format with digital magazine extras, song lyrics, band photos and other extras to boost fan loyalty.

The new format also replaces the traditional CD booklet and plastic jewel case with recyclable packaging.
While I don't think CDVU+ will give CD sales the boost Disney wants, the switch to recyclable packaging should make the tree huggers happy. If you'd like to read more, the entire article can be found here. Add a comment

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Home Entertainment
For the last few months, Toshiba has been giving away 5 free HD DVD movies with the purchase of one of their HD DVD players. While this promotion was supposed to end on July 31st, Toshiba has announced that it will continue through the month of September.
Toshiba America Consumer Products,L.L.C. ("Toshiba") announced it has extended its highly successful 5 freeHD DVD disc promotion, "The Perfect Offer," until September 30, 2007. "ThePerfect Offer," a strategic promotion started last year by Toshiba toencourage purchase of Toshiba HD DVD players, has been met withoverwhelming demand and consumer response and has contributed to strongsales of Toshiba HD DVD players.

As a result, with the purchase of any Toshiba HD DVD player, consumerswill continue to be able to select five HD DVD titles for free, from aselection of 15, via a mail-in offer. Full offer details are available athttp://www.toshibahddvd.com.
Most likely, Toshiba is responding to the Blu-ray Disc Association's own 5 free movie offer which started at the beginning of the month. If you'd like to read more about Toshiba's promotion, their entire press release can be found here. Add a comment

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Other
Today, CDRLabs brings you an in depth look at LG's new dual-format "Super Multi Blue" drive, the GGW-H10N. This all in one solution combines a Blu-ray Disc writer and HD DVD-ROM drive, giving users the ability to enjoy movies in both formats. The GGW-H10N can also store up to 50GB of data onto a single Blu-ray disc and is one of the first drives with the ability to write to BD-R media at 4x.

In this review we'll take a look at some of the features found on the GGW-H10N and see how it compares to the Blu-ray Disc writers from Sony, I-O DATA and Pioneer. Is support for both Blu-ray and HD DVD enough to put LG's new drive on top? You'll have to read the review to find out.


LG GGW-H10N Super Multi Blue
If you have any comments or questions about this review or the LG GGW-H10N, please post them in the forum. Add a comment

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Home Entertainment
The American HD DVD Promotional Group announced this week that overall HD DVD hardware sales went up 37% from Q1 to Q2. Thanks to Toshiba's price cuts, dedicated HD DVD players have also experienced a 183% quarterly increase. The group was also quick to point out that this has had a negative effect on Blu-ray, pushing their hardware sales down by 27%.
At the Entertainment MerchantsAssociation (EMA) Home Media Expo 2007, the North American HD DVDPromotional Group today announced that overall HD DVD hardware sales wereup 37 percent from Q1 to Q2 2007, while software sales experienced a 20percent increase in growth. The data is based on NPD reports, NielsenNetratings reports and point of sale data from the studios. During the sametime-frame, overall Blu-ray hardware sales saw a 27 percent decline from Q1to Q2, and Blu-ray software sales were down 5 percent.

Driven by major spring marketing efforts which brought standalone HDDVD players down to an industry first $299, dedicated HD DVD CE playersexperienced an astounding 183 percent quarterly increase. There arecurrently more than 180,000 dedicated HD DVD CE players in the market.
In the past, the HD DVD Promotional Group has not included Sony's Playstation 3 in their sales figures. With the recent price drop of the 60GB PS3 and cheaper Blu-ray prices on the way, things could look very different story next quarter. If you'd like to read more, the entire press release can be found here. Add a comment

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Optical Storage
Sony sent out a press release this morning, announcing their latest DVDirect recorder, the VRD-MC5. This new model offers a number of new features including the ability to transfer high-definition videos to DVD.

Sony Electronics today debuted its next-generation multi-function DVDirect DVD recorder which can quickly transfer high-definition home videos and digital photos to DVD discs without using a computer.

The new VRD-MC5 model can now transfer AVCHD quality videos to DVD discs in their native 1080i HD resolution when connected directly to a Sony hard drive or Memory Stick Handycam camcorder. The resulting DVD can be played back on compatible Blu-ray Disc devices, including players and computer drives as well as PlayStation 3 (PS3) computer entertainment systems.

The VRD-MC5 recorder can also transfer standard-definition home videos to DVD without the complexity of using a computer from virtually any camcorder, VCR or digital video recorder. The new model includes Digital Video (i.LINK/FireWire/IEEE-1394), S-Video, Composite Video inputs, and USB (for Sony hard drive, DVD, and Memory Stick Handycam camcorders). DVD video discs recorded in this manner are playable in most consumer DVD players.
Sony's new DVDirect is expected to ship in August for a suggested retail price of $230. Full details can be found here. Add a comment

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