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VidaBox LLC, an innovator of media center systems, announced today the world's first dual HD-DVD & Blu-Ray Media Center lines. The Dual HD upgrade allows the rack-mountable, premium LUX and MAX systems to play both high definition disc formats.Unfortunately, VidaBox's systems aren't exactly cheap. Prices for the LUX and MAX start at $3499 and $4399 respectively and that's without the Dual HD upgrade. More information can be found on VidaBox's website. Add a comment
"The Dual HD LUX & MAX systems are perfect for those who can appreciate convenience, high-fidelity audio, and high-quality video performance in a single, easy-to-use package," says Steven Cheung, co-founder of VidaBox. "High definition is the new video standard, and many customers want the ability to play both Blu-Ray and HD-DVD discs. Combining that ability with the attractive, rich feature set of media center allows everyone to conveniently use the VidaBox as the center of all their digital entertainment needs. There's no need to buy two separate high definition disc players, nor is there a need to use a PVR/TiVo, stereo, DVD player, etc. when everything - TV, movies, music, pictures, and more - can be easily accessed from a single remote at the touch of a button."
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In the "Micro-Reflector recording" demonstrated by Sony, a laser light emitted from a blue violet semiconductor laser diode is split into two so that one of them irradiates the front side of a medium as a reference light while the other is emitted to the backside as a recording light. By precisely aligning focal points of the two lights with a servo technology, a minute interference fringe corresponding to a 1 bit recording mark is formed. When a laser light (reproduction light) is emitted on the front side of the medium having interference fringes, the recording light is reproduced. This light advances from the fringes to the medium front side as if the fringes reflect the reproduction light. This is why the system is called "Micro-Reflector recording".While this new recording system sounds promising, Sony still has a lot of work ahead of them. If you'd like to read more, the entire article can be found here. Add a comment
The medium comprises a 0.3 mm thick photopolymer sandwiched by 0.6 mm glass substrates. Since the depth of the interference fringes can be controlled by changing the depth of the focal points of the laser lights, multi-layer recording with 10-20 layers can be provided. The recorded interference fringes are small enough to prevent the photopolymer from expanding/contracting due to temperature change. This eliminates the need of adjusting the wavelength of the laser in accordance with the temperature. Therefore, a commercial blue violet semiconductor laser diode is expected to be used as is. Moreover, the setup can easily achieve a reduction in component cost because it requires no spatial light modulators, CMOS sensors or other parts.
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Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd. has developed a 4-layer Blu-ray Disc (BD) medium using Te-O-Pd film for inorganic recording layers. Total capacity reaches 100 GB with each layer having 25 GB storage capacity. This is the company's first report of four-layer BD discs. By revising a Te-O-Pd composite proportion, the company reportedly achieved durability that allows data playback after 100 years.I wouldn't get too excited yet. TDK developed their 100GB disc back in 2005 and the technology still has not made it past the prototype stage. If you'd like to read more, the entire article can be found here. Add a comment
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Lite-On IT has landed an OEM order from Hewlett-Packard (HP) to produced its HD100 external HD DVD-ROM drive with shipments to begin soon, according to the Chinese-language Economic Daily News (EDN). Lite-On IT confirmed the report on October 18 but declined to release any further information.I can't say I'm too surprised by this. As one of the world's leading manufacturers of optical drives, Lite-On is best suited for this sort of thing. If you'd like to read more, head on over to DigiTimes. Add a comment
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Apple joined the Blu-ray Disc Association in March 2005 but has kept largely mum on its support and adoption of the next-generation disc technology. At the time, Apple's decision to put its weight behind Blu-ray was seen as a coup for Blu-ray and blow to the competing HD-DVD format, but documents recently obtained by Think Secret indicate that Apple may in fact be planning to support both formats equally.With there being no clear winner in the format wars, it makes sense for companies like Apple to straddle the line, providing support for sides. Of course, at this point its just a rumor so I wouldn't get too excited yet. If you'd like to read more, the entire article can be found here. Add a comment
While members of the Blu-ray camp, which include Dell, Panasonic, Pioneer, and Sony, have kept their distance from HD-DVD, which is backed by Microsoft, Toshiba, and Intel, among others, Apple would not be the first vendor to side with both formats: Hewlett Packard actively supports both formats.
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Innovative LightScribe technology enables consumers and businesses to burn silk screen-quality labels on to LightScribe-enabled CDs or DVDs right in the driveno printing supplies are required. LaCie¹s LightScribe Labeler for Linux offers direct-to-disc label burning for projects burned with K3b. New Mac software is Universal and supports simultaneous printing to multiple drives. Free software downloads for Mac and Linux are available at www.lacie.com/lightscribe for anyone with a LightScribe-enabled drive.This is great news for anyone that owns a LightScribe enabled drive, especially considering LaCie is making the software available for free. If you'd like to check it out, LightScribe Labeler for Linux and the Mac can be downloaded here. Otherwise more information is available on LaCie's website. Add a comment
LaCie Product Manager Anne Bordet said, "We're the first company to offer an all-in-one data writing and LightScribe labeling solution for all operating systems. LaCie was first to ship a LightScribe-enabled CD/DVD drive for the Mac, and now our user-friendly LightScribe labeling software is available for free to Mac and Linux users with LightScribe-enabled drives. With LaCie¹s complete burning solution, people can easily and simply create professional looking CDs and DVDs on Mac, Linux or Windows."
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Blu-ray Disc burners have been shipping for months now--why is HD DVD taking so long to catch up? Chalk it up to a philosophical difference, not a technological one, says Brzeski. Toshiba, he says, views HD DVD more as a technology for delivering prepackaged (Hollywood) high-definition video, not for creating your own disc-based content. "I honestly don't believe in these early days that many people will be using HD DVDs and Blu-rays to back up content. If you look at the cost per GB to back up to disc, it's not cost-effective."These specs aren't exactly impressive. Hopefully, second generation HD DVD burners will be faster and include support for rewritable HD media. If you'd like to read more, the entire article can be found here. Add a comment
The HD DVD specs of the first drive will be limited to recordable, write-once HD DVD-R media at 1X, to both single-layer 15GB and dual layer 30GB discs; the drive won't support any of the HD DVD flavors of rewritable discs. However, the drive will support writing to standard DVD: 4X DVD±R (2X for double- and dual-layer), 4X DVD±RW, 3X DVD-RAM, and 16X CD-R.
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TMPG, Inc. (www.tmpg-inc.com), the company that makes digital video easy, is set to add its new DVD Source Creator 4 software to its growing TMPGEnc-brand lineup. The product provides effortless editing and enhancing of almost any video file, which it then encodes to standard DVD compliant MPEG files. Multiple clips can be encoded into one file, or separate files can be encoded for each clip. Release date is scheduled for Wednesday, October 18.DVD Source Creator 4 will be available for purchase through TMPG's website on October 18th for $39.95. More information can be found here. Add a comment
"This powerful new software is based on our award-winning TMPGEnc 4.0 XPress engine," commented Kimi Matsuki, TMPG CEO. "DVD Source Creator 4 utilizes the engine's most important features, such as an easy-cut editor, video filtering, and automatic scene-change detection. Furthering its functionality, the TMPGEnc DVD Source Creator 4 is optimized for the latest Intel Core 2 Duo technology."
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InterVideo, Inc. (NASDAQ: IVII) and its subsidiary Ulead Systems, Inc. (TSE:2487), industry leaders in video, image and DVD software, today announced Ulead VideoStudio 10 and Ulead VideoStudio 10 Plus, the company's award-winning consumer video editing products, are optimized for Intel Core 2 Duo processors.Ulead has also added support for HDV camcorder write-back and the newest hard drive camcorders to VideoStudio 10 Plus. If you'd like to read more, then entire press release can be found here. Add a comment
"We are very excited that Ulead has added support for Intel Core 2 Duo and Intel Core 2 Extreme processors to VideoStudio 10 and VideoStudio 10 Plus," said Jason Chen, Country Manager of Intel Taiwan. "VideoStudio's friendly step-by-step workflow makes it an excellent choice for home users and people new to digital video editing. And when it comes time to burn video to DVD, VideoStudio users will love how fast things go with systems featuring Intel Core 2 Duo processors."
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