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Royal Philips Electronics Taiwan confirmed that it has filed a complaint with the European Union against the Taiwan government in response to Taiwan's granting compulsory licensing of Philips' CD-R patents to local firms, which is in violation of the World Trade Organization (WTO) TRIPS (Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights) agreement.It's always amazing to see how far Philips will go to get their licensing fees. Gigastorage probably won't be affected by this anyway, as they no longer export their discs to the US and the European markets, where Philips' patents apply. 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 Philip's 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.
TIPO claimed that under Taiwan patent law, it had to balance the considerations of intellectual property rights with the promotion of domestic Taiwan industrial development, with the perceived unreasonable royalties charges tipping the case in GigaStorage's favor.
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A WesleyTech.com contact in Japan has notified me that porn is indeed already available on the Blu-ray Disc format. At least in Japan, the adult film studio "Glayz" already produces and distributes content on Blu-ray Disc, HD DVD and UMD.Unless there is some prude working at Sony America, last weeks' reports really don't make much sense. With porn on UMD and now Blu-ray in Japan, there's no reason to threaten duplication companies in the US. If you'd like to read more, the entire article can be found here. Add a comment
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The SSM-85H5SX is a streamlined Super AllWrite drive: portable and sleek and capable of reading, writing and re-writing any DVD disc format on the market, including DVD-RAM. Furthermore, the SSM-85H5SX is equipped with LightScribe technology for burning labels directly onto the surface of a CD or DVD. The USB 2.0 connection ensures a fast transfer of data. With the SSM-85H5SX Lite-On IT provides a solution for those who are looking for compact size and good performance of their optical storage device.The SSM-85H5SX will be available on the European market in mid-January for a € 109 including VAT. More information is available on Lite-On's website. Add a comment
"The SSM-85H5SX is especially handy for travelers and great for notebook users and not only because of its portability and lightweight design", says Jelmer Veldman, Lite-On IT's European marketing manager. "Thanks to its compatibility with all kinds of CD and DVD media it is a one-stop archival and presentation solution for anyone with a need of copying and storing data. And thanks to LightScribe support consumers have an efficient way of creating customized and professional labels for CD and DVD discs. That is what differentiates the SSM-85H5SX from other slim external drives on the market."
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The problem stems from the lack of support for HDi, the advanced interactivity technology used by HD DVD. LG has only included support for BD-J, Blu-ray's interactive menu system, in the BH100. Without HDi, only the video content from HD DVD discs will play back; menu systems and other interactive features will simply not be usable.The way I see it, Microsoft has issues because, as the developer of HDi, they're losing out on the licensing fees. That aside, the DVD Forum would be doing a disservice to consumers by blocking a player like this. In any case, it will be interesting to see what LG does. If you'd like to read more, head on over to BetaNews. Add a comment
Kevin Collins, Microsoft's representative for the HD DVD group who sits on all the steering committees, says LG will not be able to sell the product and claim it supports the format if it leaves out HDi. Collins said LG provided no advance notice before announcing the BH100 player at CES, and noted he was surprised by the move.
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An industry insider has informed me that Verbatim has started to outsource their Double Layer DVD production to Moser Baer India (MBI). And while a relationship between Verbatim and MBI is nothing new, it is new that Verbatim has decided to finally start outsourcing their difficult to manufacturer DVD double layer discs. When double layer recordable discs were first released, there were rumors that indicated Verbatim ran into quality issues when attempting to outsource the production of their excellent double layer product.These new "Made in India" discs could hit store shelves as early as February. If you'd like to read more, head on over to WesleyTech.com. Add a comment
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| Writing Speeds:
DVD+R: 18X, 12X, 8X, 6X, 4X, 2.4X DVD+RW: 8X, 6X, 4X, 2.4X DVD+R DL: 8X, 6X, 4X, 2.4X DVD-R: 18X, 16X, 12X, 8X, 6X, 4X, 2X, 1X DVD-RW: 6X, 4X, 2X, 1X DVD-R DL: 8X, 6X, 4X, 2X DVD-RAM: 14X CD-R: 48X,40X, 32X, 16X, 10X, 4X CD-RW: 32X, 24X, 20X, 16X, 10X, 4X | Read Speeds: Access Times: DVD-ROM: 150ms |
The specs on ASUS's website are slightly different than what was in this month's ASUSWORLD catalog, so I'm not sure how accurate they are. Either way, they are impressive. More information can be found on ASUS's website. Add a comment
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"CyberLink PowerCinema lets users turn their PC into a multi-functional media center that combines the best features of today's must-have consumer devices," said Alice H. Chang, CEO of CyberLink Corp. "Users can enjoy premium TV and DVD content as well as work with their personal media files, while plug-in options expand functionality according to their interests."PowerCinema 5 is available now for $99. More information is available on CyberLink's website. Add a comment
PowerCinema's stylish 3D interface and support for remote control operation allow the easy navigation of features, including recording and playing TV programs, watching DVDs and video files, synchronizing music files with portable music players, editing photos, and playing picture slideshows, among many other digital media activities.
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At the 2007 International CES, Hitachi, Ltd. has demonstrated playback of a Blu-ray Disc (BD) with four recording layers at its booth. Featuring 25 GB capacity per layer, a disc can record up to 100 GB data.While four layer discs are still in the developmental stage, this is definitely a good sign. If you'd like to read more, the entire article can be found here. Add a comment
There have been other academic reports of creating four- or six-layer disc media and demonstration of picking up signals from those discs using test players embedded with a special optical head, but, according to Hitachi, "This is the first demonstration of quadruple disc readout using a player based on an optical head generally used in current BD drives on the market."
An optical disc drive based on the "GBW-H10N" supporting 4x speed BD recording, which Hitachi-LG Data Storage, Inc. announced in July 2006, was used for the demonstration. The four-layer disc used in the demonstration was an outside company's product, but a Hitachi spokesperson said, "We cannot tell the name of its supplier."
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This is a U-turn for Joone, who at last year's AVN event had declared his support for the Blu-ray Disc format. Asked about his change of attitude by heise online the director responded: "Sony wants me to publish my films on HD DVD." He then went on to explain that he had in fact wanted to publish his movies on Blu-ray Disc, but that all Blu-ray Disc copying facilities in the United States had refused to cooperate. The companies had unanimously declared that Sony had threatened to withdraw their Blu-ray licenses should they stoop to making HD copies of pornographic films, Joone said. Even though he would have liked to supply with his movies the predominantly male group of Playstation 3 players he had been forced by events, he declared, to switch to HD DVD. The game console has the ability to play Blu-ray Discs built into it. The director said he was puzzled by Sony's attitude, which, he noted, had also turned out to be counterproductive in the case of Betamax.This is definitely a blow to Blu-ray, as the adult film industry can make or break a new format. If you'd like to read more, the entire article can be found here. Add a comment
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NewTech Infosystems, Inc. (NTI), announced today a new version of NTI Ninja, the preferred data security solution for users and manufacturers of USB Flash and other external USB drives. In addition to the user-adjustable partitioning, anti-tamper encryption and password protection that have made NTI Ninja so popular, the new version has been enhanced with a new level of convenience. Users can now access the secured data stored on their private partition from any PC, anywhere - there is no need to pre-install Ninja on the PC to access the users' private data.I downloaded NTI Ninja back in September when NTI was giving it away for free. While it has come in handy, I've had to install it on all of my PC's. Needless to say, I'll be upgrading to this new version. If you'd like to read more, NTI's entire press release can be found here. Add a comment
"Flash drives are ideal for the growing number of business people, students, and consumers who want to keep their digital data with them wherever they go," said Bill Yao, NTI president and CEO. "In addition to being able to store, protect, and share the information on these devices, users also want convenient access, and that is what NTI Ninja delivers. Users can now access the private data stored on their Ninja-protected USB device from any PC without having to pre-load the Ninja software on the PC."
