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Toshiba Corporation announced today that on April 6, 2007, Toshiba and Toshiba America Consumer Products, L.L.C. filed a formal complaint with the International Trade Commission (ITC) against 17 manufacturers and importers of DVD players, DVD recorders and other DVD-related products, as a means to halt infringement of Toshiba's DVD patents. Toshiba's filing requests that the ITC prohibit the importation into the United States of DVD players, DVD recorders and other DVD-related products by the companies named in the complaint. In a related move, Toshiba also filed suit in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California on the same day, seeking damages resulting from infringement of Toshiba's DVD patents by the same 17 companies.If you'd like to read more, Toshiba's entire press release can be found here. Add a comment
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While Fastmac's Blu-Ray optical drive upgrade won't ship for another 10 days, you can pre-order it from www.fastmac.com for a special introductory price of $799.95. More information can be found here. Add a comment
Fastmac today announced the first & only Blu-Ray optical drive upgrade for Apple's PowerBook, iBook & MacBook Pro computers. The new slimline, slot loading drive uses one of the fastest & most compatible Blu-ray mechanisms to provide up to 50 Gb of storage on 1 disk, without sacrificing compatibility with standard DVD & CD recordable media...
...Fastmac's slimline Blu-ray slot loading optical drive supports reading, writing and re-writing to single and dual layer Blu-ray media at 1x 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 2x 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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Sonic Solutions (NASDAQ: SNIC), the leader in digital media software, today released a key set of comprehensive high-definition white papers that provide professional content creators and authoring facilities with the knowledge and expertise required to effectively and efficiently create rich HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc titles. Sonic's white papers cover all aspects of high-definition title production from format technical specifications and capabilities to extensive information on project planning, preparation, and execution. Essential tools for authoring houses initiating high-definition services, the white papers also serve to help firms with high-definition experience establish best practices and streamline their production efforts. The white papers are available direct from Sonic as a free download (www.sonic.com/HD/whitepapers).If you'd like to check them out, Sonic's white papers can be downloaded here. Otherwise, more information is available on their website. Add a comment
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But while abstract ratios and percentages like these have been bandied about for several months now, the Sony report goes one step further, providing the first public release of hard sales figures for HD DVD and Blu-ray discs from Nielsen VideoScan, the home entertainment industry's leading source for competitive sales data.Take note that these numbers do not include include discs sold at Wal-Mart or some online stores. Nevertheless, it does paint an interesting picture, especially when you see that some releases have sold less than 200 copies. If you'd like to read more, the entire article can be found here. Add a comment
Among the numbers revealed: as of March 18, VideoScan put the cumulative number of Blu-ray titles sold since the format's inception at 844,000 units, versus HD DVD at 708,600.
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About 35 European films are available on the HD-DVD format, compared with less than 10 for Blu-Ray. The larger European studios such as Studio Canal and Pathé in France, Filmax and DeAPlaneta in Spain, and Imagion and Nixbu in Germany have all announced plans to use the HD-DVD technology.While HD DVD has a market lead in Europe, this could very well change with the recent launch of the PS3. If you'd like to read more, the entire article can be found here. Add a comment
Although most commentators agree that the deciding battles in the format war will be fought in Hollywood, analysts such as Richard Cooper at Screen Digest say the importance of European independent studios should not be underestimated. European independent films account for only 30 per cent of the market in the UK, but 50 per cent in France, 40 per cent in Germany and 35 to 40 per cent in Spain.
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Japanese electronics conglomerate Toshiba Corp. (6502.T: Quote, Profile, Research) has filed a complaint against a unit of South Korea's Daewoo Electronics and 16 other companies for allegedly violating its patents related to DVD recorders and players.No word on what patents were violated.However, Toshiba has reportedly asked the ITC to investigate Daewoo Electronics America Inc. and the other 16 companies. If you'd like to read more, the entire article can be found here. Add a comment
Toshiba Corp. and Toshiba America Consumer Products LLC filed the complaint with the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) on Friday, according to a document on the ITC's Web site.
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All current Blu-ray Disc players support the BD-Java spec. (BD-Java is the programming language used to design the menus and present interactive content on a Blu-ray Disc.) In fact, says Parsons, this was a requirement from the get-go: "All players introduced since day one must support BD-Java."While first gen players will continue to play titles the same as they do today, PC World points out that they will not play on-demand picture-in-picture commentary nor can they access interactive functions via the internet. Unless you really need these features, its probably not worth upgrading to a second gen player. However, if you haven't bought one yet, I'd save my money and wait until fall. If you'd like to read more, the entire article can be found here. Add a comment
Already, movie titles like Chicken Little and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen are taking advantage of BD-Java's capabilities; in both of those cases, the movie discs offer interactive games.
If BD-Java is shipping today, why the confusion? "This fall," explains Parsons, "is the end of a grace period. Any new Blu-ray Disc player model introduced after October 31 must now fully comply with the full range of existing Blu-ray Disc player specifications."
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There are two problems with making titles for HD-DVD that Blu-ray doesn't have:If you're wondering, jimby_99 was the production supervisor for "Nine Inch Nails: Beside You in Time" which was recently released on both Blu-ray and HD DVD. If you'd like to read more, head on over to the AVS Forum. Add a comment
1. It's not possible to make a full HD-DVD burn yet to check the entire title; you have to preview the title on an emulator, which does NOT give you the ability to QC in various players. This is a huge disadvantage compared to Blu-ray, where you can make a Blu-ray burn and run it in specially modified production players.
Without the ability to burn check discs, there is virtually no way to do proper QC...
2. The verifier software that Toshiba is responsible for is (in my opinion) not currently up to the task. For those who don't know what verifier software is...this is the software that is run when the title is received at the manufacturing plant to verify that the authoring is "legal" and to the specification. It's meant to catch specification-related bugs in the authoring BEFORE the disc is replicated.
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According to Everything USB, the drive operates at 3MB/s for 512KB random read/write and 5MB/s for 4KB which is more than enough for ReadyBoost. InnoDisk's new internal drive is available in 2GB and 4GB capacities with prices starting at $15. More information can be found here. Add a comment
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It has been over a year since we last took a look at DVD burners. One reason for the delay is that there were few developments on which to report ever since the write speeds hit 16X. Manufacturers then focused on value-added features such as built-in disc labeling called LightScribe. Another reason is the incredibly cheap price level: It is absolutely possible to purchase a DVD burner for as little as $25. But there still are differences in quality.Sadly, like most big review websites, Tom's forgets to look at two very important things: writing quality and media compatibility. All the speed in the world doesn't mean much if a disc isn't readable. Anyway, if you'd like to check it out, the entire roundup can be found here. Add a comment
