News written by Andre Yoskowitz (December, 2007)

Following the recent, popular trend, Amazon has brought back the buy one, get one free (BOGO) sale on Blu-ray films.

The promotion was launched alongside the new year and features 96 titles from Fox, Warner, New Line and MGM.

There is no set date for how long the promotion will run, but Amazon has warned of limited quantities.

The titles available are as follows:

$17.95
The Last Samurai [Blu-ray] (2003)
Unforgiven [Blu-ray] (1992)

$18.95
Million Dollar Baby [Blu-ray] (2005)

$19.95
300 [Blu-ray] (2007)
Alexander, Revisited - The Final Cut [Blu-ray] (2004)
Beerfest (Unrated) [Blu-ray] (2006)
Blazing Saddles [Blu-ray] (1974)
Blood Diamond [Blu-ray] (2006)
Bullitt [Blu-ray] (1968)
Deliverance [Blu-ray] (1972)
Enter the Dragon [Blu-ray] (1973)
Full Metal Jacket (Deluxe Edition) [Blu-ray] (1987)
Galapagos [Blu-ray]
Good Night and Good Luck [Blu-ray] (2005)
GoodFellas [Blu-ray] (1990)
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets [Blu-ray] (2002)
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire [Blu-ray] (2005)
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban [Blu-ray] (2004)
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone [Blu-ray] (2001)
March of the Penguins [Blu-ray] (2005)
Purple Rain [Blu-ray] (1984)
Rio Bravo [Blu-ray] (1959)
Scooby Doo - The Movie [Blu-ray] (2002)
Species [Blu-ray] (1995)
The Dirty Dozen [Blu-ray] (1967)
The Getaway (1972) [Blu-ray] (1972)
The Last Waltz [Blu-ray] (1978)
The Phantom of the Opera [Blu-ray] (2005)
The Road Warrior [Blu-ray] (1982)
The Shining [Blu-ray] (1980)
The Terminator [Blu-ray] (1984)
The Wild Bunch [Blu-ray] (1969)
Tim Burton's Corpse Bride [Blu-ray] (2005)
Wyatt Earp [Blu-ray] (1994) Read more...

The popular VoIP company Vonage has announced that it has settled ongoing patent disputes with Nortel Networks without paying out any monetary damages, sending its stock surging over 8 percent.

The settlement puts to rest the last of four major suits against Vonage. Earlier this year the company settled with AT&T, Verizon and Sprint Nextel.

"This is the last of them and we're quite happy to put it behind us," Vonage spokesman Charles Sahner said.

Vonage said the "settlement involves a limited cross license to three Nortel and three Vonage patents and will not call for any monetary payments by any party."

The disputes were centered on patents behind click-to-call technology as well as the patents on "911" and "411" call numbers.

Source:
Yahoo

LG.Philips LCD has announced they will be introducing th world's largest multi-touch LCD at the upcoming CES event. The screen, at 52 inches, is 5 inches largest than the next biggest in the category.

Multi-touch screens are different from conventional LCD screens in that they "allow input from more than one spot on the screen" just as the very popular Apple iPhone and iTouch do.

The new display will use an infrared image sensor to gauge input from fingers or other input instruments and can recognize the movement of fingers.

Additionally, the display supports full 1080p HD, a 1920x1080 Resolution.

Source:
Yahoo

The website GearLive has leaked the upcoming 1.1.3 Apple iPhone Firmware update that is rumored to hit users in the upcoming weeks.

The update will allow all iPhone users to shuffle their home screen icons using a drag and drop method. In addition, users will be able to add shortcut web bookmarks to the home screen if they so choose.

A more functional update will be the ability to send SMS messages to more than one recipient, a feature that should have been included since the beginning.

The most intriguing update however, is to the Google Maps application which will add "Locate Me" services. Using Cell phone tower triangulation, the Locate Me service will tell you where you are when you are lost.

Anyone who has unlocked their handsets, or jailbreaked previous firmwares should be careful with this latest update as it seems 1.1.3 will do what previous updates have done, lock unlocked handsets, un-jailbreak phones, and uninstall unofficial third party software.

Source:
pocketlint

It appears that a Beijing appeals court has ruled in favor of the Chinese search engine Baidu.com meaning the company is "not guilty of property rights infringement for posting links to websites offering illegal music downloads."

The ruling, released by state media today brings an end to the case which was brought forth by the Big 4, EMI, Sony BMG, Warner Music and Universal Music.

The search engine had been accused of facilitating unauthorized downloads. The labels had wanted an apology, suspension of those activities and the equivalent of $222,666 USD in monetary compensation.

The report offered no other details on the ruling, but we will keep you updated.

Source:
MarketWatch

According to The New York Times, Apple's upcoming video rental service will debut with more than just Fox onboard. Citing "several people familiar with the negotiations", the paper has said that when Fox appears on stage at "Macworld" on January 14th, they will be joined by a few other companies whose names are not being leaked.

A plausible choice would be Disney for starters as Apple CEO Steve Jobs is on the company's board of directors. Disney is also the only company currently selling new release movie titles on iTunes. Other studios only sell older titles or just television shows.

Rentals have been one of the greatest public demands for iTunes and it seems that even after criticizing rentals in the past, Jobs had to bite the bullet. On the plus side for him though, the rental service should help the struggling Apple TV.

Source:
Electronista

The Board of Directors of Fujitsu have recently passed a resolution agreeing to cease all activities in the "visual display" business, primarily in the Plasma TV division. Fujitsu's VD division has been focusing its efforts mainly on Plasma displays in Europe and North America.

The company also focused on high-end products with concentration on the custom AV market specializing in advanced AV systems and high-end custom installations. The decision to cease activities was based on the fact of dropping profitability margins in the segment to "the point which the company could realize a satisfactory return on investment", the company said.

Fujitsu did note however that will continue its virtual display business in Japan and that it will provide service for its products even after its March 2008 business closure.

Source:
Digitimes

In the latest RIAA lawsuit against a P2P file sharer, some new, disturbing facts have come to light. It turns out the RIAA wants to make CD ripping, the act of copying music from a legally purchased CD to your PC, illegal.

Jeffrey Howell, an Arizona man accused of keeping a 2000 song collection on his computer, is accused of keeping "unauthorized copies of copyrighted recordings", music he ripped from legal, store-bought CDs.

Ray Beckerman, a New York lawyer that has represented clients sued by the RIAA, was shocked by the industry's latest move. "I couldn't believe it when I read that, the basic principle in the law is that you have to distribute actual physical copies to be guilty of violating copyright. But recently, the industry has been going around saying that even a personal copy on your computer is a violation."

Although the law does not clearly state that ripping CDs is illegal, the RIAA has made it clear where they stand. The RIAA website even says "If you make unauthorized copies of copyrighted music recordings, you're stealing. You're breaking the law and you could be held legally liable for thousands of dollars in damages."

CMC Magnetics chairman Robert Wong recently spoke out about Blu-ray manufacturing and why Taiwan disc makers are being conservative over their deployment in the next-generation optical disc standard.

According to Wong, the format has yet to reach mass penetration because high royalty fees and equipment costs have turned off disc makers.

"Although recent sales of Blu-ray optical drives in North America have been stimulated by cut-throat pricing indicating that the Blu-ray market should deliver substantial business potential," Wong cited years of experience in saying that Taiwan optical disc makers should be conservative over their deployment. He spoke of how the rapid expansion of both CD-R and DVD+R/-R disc production led to a drastic average selling price drop and sees the same happening to next gen discs.

Wong estimated that it would take several years for Blu-ray discs to gain a mainstream role.

Source:
Digitimes

According to sources in the LCD TV panel industry in Taiwan, Sony will be upping shipments of its very popular "Bravia" LCD TV line in 2008.

Bravia sales are expected to have been over 10 million for 2007 and growth does not seem to be slowing. In response, the company will boost its shipment target to about 16 million units for 2008.

Although Sony is set to ship more LCD TVs next year, sources have suggested that the gap between Sony and Samsung will in fact get larger. Samsung is expected to have shipped 14 million units in 2007 and executives from the company have said the company plans to ship over 20 million LCD TVs in 2008 thanks to high demand in emerging regions.

Source:
Digitimes

Panasonic has announced that they will be unveiling the thinnest notebook Blu-ray drive in existence at the upcoming CES 2008 event.

Currently, the typical standard DVD drive for a notebook is on average 0.28 inches thick. The average Blu-ray drive is about 0.5 inches thick. Panasonic promises the new ultra-thin drive will measure in at only 0.37 inches thick.

The drive will read and write BD media as well as read and write to CD and DVD. There is no word on any specifications such as drive speed yet but it is safe to assume the BD writing speed will be 2x.

In other news, Toshiba has announced they will unveil an equally thin HD DVD writable drive in the near future.

Source:
Dailytech

In late October the struggling video rental chain Movie Gallery filed for bankruptcy protection and this past week they have filed a reorganization plan in hopes of emerging from bankruptcy in the next six months.

The plan was filed on December 27th and today the U.S. Bankruptcy Court set the hearing to consider approval of the disclosure statement for January 29th.

Movie Gallery plans to "ask the court to confirm the plan early in the second quarter and hopes to emerge from bankruptcy soon afterwards."

The plan will mainly involve converting debt owed to creditor Sopris Capital Advisors into equity in the reorganized company in which current CEO Joe Malugen will remain director while everyone else on the board is designated by Sopris.

Source:
Video Business

Venturer's SHD7001 standalone HD DVD player has finally become available in the UK on the shopping channel QVC for £169.62.

The SHD7001 offers 1080i output as well as Dolby TrueHD (5.1 channel) sound and Upscaling for standard definition DVDs. The player will come bundled with an HDMI cable, "Hulk" and "Troy" on HD DVD and the opportunity to get five more free in the mail.

Thanks to all the free movies and the HDMI cable, not to mention the low price, HD DVD seems to be hoping to get a foot in the door in Europe where are they are struggling.

Source:
pocketlint

According to the Consumer Electronics Association, 50 percent of US households now have a digital television and the growth will not be stopping anytime soon.

Manufacturers are expected to take in $25 billion USD in DTV sales for the year, an 11 percent increase from 2006. The CEA also projected that in 2008 there will be a 17% increase in unit sales and 13% growth in revenues.

The latest milestone is important as it has been federally mandated that broadcasters will have to distribute all content digitally in 2009.

HDTVs have been growing in sales as well with HDTVs expected to accountfor 79% of DTV shipments in the United States next year.

Source:
Yahoo

We recently reported that a press release published by Digital Music News claimed that Limewire, the popular P2P program, was installed on over one-third of all home PCs; 36.4 percent to be exact.

TorrentFreak however, citing the raw data from which the press release was built upon, is saying that DMN actually misinterpreted their data and the real install base is just under 18 percent.

The data, collected by PC Pitstop explains that Limewire holds a 36.4 percent market share as compared to other P2P clients meaning that of all the PCs that have a P2P client installed, 36.4 percent have installed Limewire.

Those figures mean that the real install base of Limewire is almost 18 percent, still a large number, but nowhere near the 36.4 percent reported.

Source:
TF

The popular video rental service Netflix has begun testing a new feature of its online Streaming video service which they hope will "combine the strengths of physical movie rentals and online streaming."

The company has offered a few of its users access to an unlimited version of its Watch Instantly feature. Once "unlocked", movie titles "can be seen as often as the customer likes", Netflix says.

Currently the catalog of titles that support the unlocking feature is Limited but has expanded to 6000 titles. "The service requires a Windows XP or Vista system with Internet Explorer, Windows Media Player, and high-speed Internet access but is likely to be available to all of Netflix' user base sometime in 2008. The company is not expected to offer a Mac version or DVD burning due to copyright restrictions from most studios."

Source:
Electronista

AOL has announced that it will be effectively killing off the historic Netscape browser in February by discontinuing development and active support.

The company will continue to deliver updates and security patches up until February 1st, 2008 after which all active support will be cut off. The announcement comes via the official Netscape Blog and Tom Drapeau, lead developer for Netscape.com.

"AOL's focus on transitioning to an ad-supported Web business leaves little room for the size of investment needed to get the Netscape browser to a point many of its fans expect it to be," Drapeau wrote. "Given AOL's current business focus... we feel it's the right time to end development of Netscape branded browsers, hand the reins fully to Mozilla and encourage Netscape users to adopt Firefox," Drapeau added.

As of December 2007, Netscape only held a 0.6 percent of the browser market, far behind Internet Explorer at 77 percent and Firefox with 16 percent.

Source:
Yahoo

Marantz has announced the debut of a new projector, dubbed the VP-11S2 DLP projector.

The new projector features full 1080p HD Resolution, (1920 by 1080) and comes with a myriad of inputs including component, composite, s-video, RGB, and two HDMI 1.3 inputs. Another interesting feature is the projector comes with two control ports, one of which is a RS-232C port.

The company also says the projector will be the first model to "be fitted with Texas Instrument’s new DarkChip4 chipset. This chipset will help boost the 11S2’s brightness and contrast, giving it 800 ANSI lumens and a 12000:1 contrast ratio."

No details on price are available yet.

Source:
AboutProjectors

After taking a week off for the holiday season, the official HD disc sales data are in from Nielsen VideoScan, and the results are not surprising.

Despite very strong sales of the HD DVD-exclusive "Bourne Ultimatum", Blu-ray won the week ending December 16th by a 61:39 margin. "Ultimatum" outsold Blu-ray's best title, "POTC: At World's End" by an almost 2:1 ratio, but Amazon's Blu-ray BOGO (buy one get one free) sale helped bring old favorites such as "300", "Spider-Man 3", and "Casino Royale" to sales they haven't seen in a while.

This upcoming week should be interesting to see considering Amazon and Best Buy have had BOGO sales running on HD DVD titles.

Source:
EngadgetHD

Nokia has once again delayed the launch of its mobile gaming service N-Gage due to delays in software testing.

The latest delay puts a damper on the progress Nokia had been making in its Internet services ambitions. The mobile phone company had hoped to join the gaming service with a music shop and a mapping service and release it under its new "Ovi" brand.

Nokia unveiled the service in August with plans for it to be available globally in November. In Novemebr it was delayed into December and recently it was delayed into January. Nokia spokesman Kari Tuutti has now said the service would be opened "in early 2008."

"We found one more issue which had to be solved before we could open the service," Tuutti said.

Source:
Yahoo

According to a company press release, Amazon had strong sales for next-gen disc players, helping the e-tailer to its best holiday shopping season ever.

Amazon even went as far as to say that "it had sold enough high-disc players during November and December to cover seven football fields."

Basing disc sales on those hardware sales, it has not been surprising the past few days to see HD DVD and Blu-ray discs dominating Amazon's real-time list of top-selling DVDs.

"We are very grateful to our customers," said Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon.com. "On behalf of Amazon.com employees around the globe, we wish everyone happy holidays and best wishes for 2008."

Source:
HD Digest

The Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT), a consumer rights group, has published a list of 30 MP3 download sites that sell music but do not have licensing deals with major U.S. music labels.

The sites, which mainly charge $20 to $35 USD for unlimited subscriptions claim they offer music from artists signed to the major labels, which they do, none of which is actually licensed however.

Some of these sites simply provide P2P software that would otherwise be free. Customers using the software could possibly face a lawsuit from the RIAA even though they wouldn't know they had done anything wrong.

"People might get the false impression of what they paid for was legal," a CDT rep said. "If you pay $25, you might think that $25 goes to compensate the rights holder."

The CDT attempted to contact the operators of each site but were ignored. Many of the sites were registered outside of the US and seem to be run by the same people.

CDT uses the example of AllCoolMusic.com which claims all its dealings are legal. "Today, there are 240 million users trading MP3s on legal file-sharing networks. Sharing is not illegal as long as you obey all relevant copyright laws. Sharing copyrighted material, without permission to do so, is illegal. Purchasing a membership in AllCoolMusic.com does not give you license to download or upload copyrighted material. AllCoolMusic.com implores you to respect all copyright laws."

Wal-Mart has quietly canceled its online video download service, less than a year after the retailer began the service.

The download site was shut down last week after HP discontinued the technology that powered the site and service. A Wal-Mart spokesperson said the retailer will not be looking for another partner.

A spokesperson for HP said the company discontinued the technology "because the market for paid video downloads did not perform as expected."

Visitors to www.walmart.com/videodownloads were greeted by a meesage stating that service was stopped on December 21 and that the retailer will be giving no refunds for the downloaded videos.

Wal-Mart's online store must have failed miserably. Currently, download sales equal about 1 percent of the $24.5 billion in DVD and home video sales and rentals in 2006 but the number is expected to grow substantially over the next decade. Perhaps then, Wal-Mart will jump into the online movie download business again.

Source:
Yahoo

Warner has announced that it has signed a deal that will allow Amazon to sell its catalogue DRM-free through its online music store.

The new deal brings Amazon MP3's total number of DRM-free tracks to 2.9 million, more than any online music service by far. Warner joins EMI, Universal and dozens of independent labels who are offering their music DRM-free through Amazon.

Besides being DRM-free, Amazon MP3 offers all its tracks in MP3 format and at 256kbps Bitrate. Many of its tracks are also priced at 89 cents, 10 cents cheaper than its massive rival, Apple's iTunes.

"As DRM-free music, which does not come with all the annoying and ineffectual restrictions of copyright-protected tunes, becomes more popular, you can expect the labels to use their acquiescence as a bargaining chip with Apple," Erick Shonfeld wrote for TechCrunch.

Warner also added that they would be making exclusive "special bundles" available through the service but offered no pricing structure on the bundles.

Samsung has said that they will have a 31-inch active-matrix OLED display to show off at the upcoming CES 2008 in January.

The company declined any further comment on the commercial availability of the display but said that its availability would be dependent on TV makers’ plans. Currently, large OLED screens are pretty expensive to manufacture and therefore supply and demand have been low.

Samsung says the new display "is only 4.3mm thick and uses less than half the power required of a typical 32-inch TV." The panel has a lifespan of 35,000 hours, meaning it has the best lifespan of all current OLED panels.

Source:
dailytech

Following the recent trends on HD DVD sales, Amazon is offering a "buy one, get one free" (BOGO) deal on HD DVD discs from Universal and Warner.

The promotion began today and lists 39 popular titles as qualifying.

You can view the whole list here but a few of the hits offered are 'Knocked Up' 'Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire,' 'Serenity,' 'Hot Fuzz,' and 'The Big Lebowski'.

No word on how long the deal will last.


Source:
HD Digest

The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) has approached EU parliament with recommendations on how to "develop cooperations with ISPs", something that it hopes will lead to P2P filtering and blocked access to torrent sites such The Pirate Bay.

Basically, the IFPI had this in mind; ISPs should use acoustic fingerprinting-based filtering to block any unauthorized music transfers. This would, in effect, filter traffic through P2P apps such as Limewire. ISPs would also be asked to block any BitTorrent traffic.

"It is (...) possible for ISPs to block their customers' access to specific P2P services that are known to be predominantly infringing and that have refused to implement steps to prevent infringement, while not affecting regular services such as web and email."

Despite all its legal hassles, The Pirate Bay had a strong year, seeing its number of torrents quadruple and peers using the tracker double.

In December 2006, TPB had 570,000 torrents and 4,300,000 peers using its tracker. As of last week, TPB now has 914,000 torrents and 8,400,000 peers.

To keep up with the demand, TPB has continually added hardware to their server park and more recently migrated from Hypercube to the open source Opentracker software which they claim is "more stable, uses less resources and supports UDP tracking."

Brokep, an admin at TPB had this to say: “Since the last performance tweaking and router-tweaking we’ve removed all bottlenecks.” He added that he expects the tracker to hit 10 million peers before the next big holiday.

Source:
TF

Hitachi has officially confirmed reports that it will be selling stakes in its LCD business to both Canon and Matsushita, meaning each firm will have almost a 25 percent shareholder stake in the company.

The company cited "intensifying competition" in the LCD field for the move. Now, with the new capital, the company plans to refine its In-Plane Switching (IPS) technology for LCDs and improve its resulting Woo HDTV line.

According to Hitachi, Canon and Matsushita plan to use the stakes differently. Canon "intends to focus on small LCDs for its digital SLR cameras and other portable devices but will also work with Hitachi to develop ultra-thin OLED screens as well." Matsushita will continue to produce TVs under its Panasonic brand and the company "claims the deal will keep the technology of its LCD HDTVs advancing at the same pace as the plasma sets that form the backbone of its TV business."

The deal should be financially completed by the end of March.

Source:
Electronista

Japan's Daily Yomiuri is claiming that Panasonic is developing a 150-inch plasma HDTV, the world's largest TV.

The paper cites anonymous sources, and claims that the TV will be the largest home TV, regardless of class. The screen itself will stand taller than the average adult.

The story also claims the TV will have a public debut at the upcoming CES show in January, and that the TV will reach 1080p Resolution. Although it will debut next month supposedly, the paper suggests that consumer models wont be ready until 2009.

Source:
Electronista

In September it became common knowledge that nearly 700mb of MediaDefender's, the anti-piracy group, emails had been leaked to the public by “MediaDefender-Defenders“.

The leak gave away huge amounts of sensitive details on how MediaDefender sabotaged, and planned to sabotage torrent trackers as well as other file-sharing networks. The emails also detailed how the company collected millions of dollars from the entertainment industry who hoped the company could protect their content.

Initially the leak had no effect on the company's stock price but that all changed in late November. At that time, the company announced that leak had cost them $825,000 USD and "it turned out that MediaDefender’s parent company ArtistDirect spent $600,000 to compensate their customers and the rest of the money was used to cover legal expenses."

This clearly did not sit well investors and the stock price has fallen over 60 percent from a high of $2.40 in September to $0.65 this week.

Will this be the end of MediaDefender?

Source:
TorrentFreak

Although it has been in public beta since July, the BBC iPlayer service has finally officially launched today.

The BBC is set to start a multi-media campaign for the iPlayer, and the service already has a tagline, "BBC iPlayer. Making the unmissable, unmissable."

Kerry Moss, Head of Marketing, BBC iPlayer, explains: "With BBC iPlayer, audiences will be able to go online to watch or download around 250 different BBC programmes from the last seven days. The launch campaign aims to bring BBC iPlayer to a mass, mainstream audience."

"We recognise that, for a large part of our audience, the 'net is not currently somewhere they're used to going to watch or download TV programmes and so we have developed a campaign that highlights the ultimate benefit of BBC iPlayer – that the audience no longer has to miss out on their favourite BBC programmes."

Source:
Pocketlint

Cinea,a division of Dolby Laboratories, has quietly phased out the Cinea S-View, the DVD player custom-made for tens of thousands of Oscar voters since 2004.

The S-View was used as a piracy-busting fixture that worked "with DVDs encrypted so that the discs only could play on a machine registered to each particular voter."

"Cinea remains committed to anti-piracy, changing focus from the S-View platform to support of its watermarking technology, Running Marks," said a Cinea spokesman. "This business decision had nothing to do with lack of studio support."

Despite what the spokesperson said however, sources have indicated that Cinea is killing off the device due to million of dollars in losses that have mounted since its inception. Major studios have gotten comfortable with the DVD watermarking standard and therefore have given little money to experimental technologies such as the S-View.

Since its introduction in 2004, Cinea and the S-View have been stumbling. The company has faced increased costs due to its pledge "to distribute machines to new members of the guilds it was servicing." Voters also complained at the impracticality of the machine, angrily pointing out the fact that they must lug around the machine while on vacation during the holiday season. Even more embarrassingly, in 2006 the drama "Munich" was omitted from that year's "Orange British Academy Film Awards", due to a technical glitch that prevented screeners of that film from being viewed by BAFTA members.

According to results of an online survey, in a little over a year, the number of internet users file sharing in Japan has surged by 180 percent. The average number of files downloaded increased by over 250 percent. The survey has basically conveyed that "the numbers of internet users in Japan sharing music, movies and software has increased dramatically to reach an all-time high."

The survey was carried out online and was financed by the RIAJ (like the RIAA), the Japanese MPAA and the ACC. It concluded that "the number of internet users sharing authorized media climbed from 3.5 per cent in June 2006, to 9.6 per cent by September 2007."

Winny was the P2P app of choice with 27 percent of users citing it. Limewire was second with 19 precent and WinMX close behind at 15 percent. Suprisingly, BitTorrent placed fourth with a measly 7.4 percent.

Source:
TorrentFreak

Digeo Inc., makers of digital media recorders (DMR), have announced a new application, Moxi TV for PC, a "software application enabling PC users who have a TV tuner card and Windows XP to use their personal computer as a DMR."

Users can then watch, record and play TV content from their PCs. Making the software even more unique is the Moxi Menu, which allows users to "explore two weeks worth of TV programming, watch live TV, schedule recordings and access other multimedia features including music, photos and DVD viewing."

For those interested, the company is offering a beta, free for download at the Moxi homepage. The Moxi TV for PC beta program will be available to a select group of participants for a limited time only, and candidates will be considered on a first come, first serve basis.

Source:
Press Release

The very popular torrent site Mininova has announced the official launch of its Content Distribution service, giving indie publishers an easy and free way to share their content with a wide audience.

Mininova will basically do all the work for you. All the files published with the new Content Distribution (CD) service will be placed on the frontpage as featured content. The publishers do not even need any prior knowledge of P2P or BitTorrent as the site will create the torrent and ensure that is seeded.

The service should save publishers a ton of bandwidth as well as help them reach a massive audience. Mininova has 27 million unique visitors a month and is among the top 50 most visited sites on the entire internet.

“The reason we developed this service is that we’re used getting quite some emails from (mainly indie) content producers. Many of those are interested in publishing their content on Mininova, but that’s not an easy job. Most content producers have no technical knowledge of P2P and BitTorrent at all. We’re changing this with the introduction of CD.” writes Niek on the Mininova blog.

The Scottish government announced today that it would be paying to insert advertisements discouraging drinking and driving into video games on the Xbox 360.

The $20,000 USD trial project will see the advertisements appearing on virtual billboards in the games. The games, appearing on the 360, will be "Need for Speed: Carbon," "Project Gotham Racing 4" and "NBA Live."

Scottish transport minister Stewart Stevenson said that "road accidents" were increasing and that innovative approaches are needed to reach the youth population. The government estimates that 73 percent of Britain's 15- to 24-year-olds have access to a gaming console at home.

"The technology is non-intrusive, subtle, but the message can be seen in the background, loud and clear," Stevenson said.

Officials expressed that if the trial was successful, the program would be expanded to include other road safety messages.

The trial is not the first example of a government targeting young Britons with in-game ads. In October, GCHQ, the intelligence agency said it was seeking out new recruits placing job ads in games such as "Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Double Agent."

Source:
Yahoo

For the week ended December 16th, sales of the Sony PSP handheld have more than doubled in Japan, with the system selling 184,610 units for the week as compared to 91,481 units the previous week.

Making the numbers even more surprising is the fact that the boost comes without any significant new PSP software releases during the period. In fact, only three PSP games had spots in the top fifty best-selling softwares.

Not surprisingly however, the Nintendo DS still lead the way with 222,144 units sold in the past week, backed by 28 games in the top fifty.

In console news, the ever popular Wii moved 170,558 units, with the PlayStation 3 (63,720) and Xbox 360 (8,561), lagging behind.

Source:
GI.biz

According to new data compiled by market research firm Gfk and commissioned by Sharp, we all want bigger televisions, and we are using the excuse of the digital switchover to buy a new television.

The data, captured in October, says that sales of flat screen televisions have risen by 182% year-on-year. In the last 12 months, sales of televisions large than 46 inches have grown by 272%.

“Big screens are no longer for just shop windows or shiny office receptions," said Mike Gabriel, head of marketing and communications for Sharp. "With living space at a premium, our 42 inch range of AQUOS TVs have been designed to occupy the same space as its 37-inch predecessor once stood."

Sales of 37 inch TVs also rose 308 percent, reads the study.

Tommaso Monetto, Sharp product manager AQUOS LCD TV, said: “The growth in the popularity of larger screen TVs is underlined by the fact that last year our most popular range was the 42-in. Although we have seen a growth in sales of 46% in this range since January 2006, this has now been eclipsed by the 46-in range in 2007 - sales of which have shot up a whopping 150%.”

Source:
Pocketlint

Best Buy has begun offering a year end "buy two get one free" deal on HD DVD discs.

The company is advertising over 200 eligible discs, meaning most, if not all, of the HD DVD movies the retailer carries qualify for the deal. Prices range from $24.99 to 34.99 USD and after the discount the effective per disc price is lowered to between $16.00-24.00 USD, making it as cheap as new release standard definition DVDs.

You can view the complete list here, but a few of the new release blockbusters available are 'The Bourne Ultimatum,' 'Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix' and 'Transformers'.

The deal is scheduled to run through Saturday, December 29th and both offline and online. As an added bonus, there is also free shipping on all HD DVD discs.

Source:
HD Digest

Vonage and AT&T have announced that they have settled their dispute over two alleged patent infringements by Vonage's voice-over-IP (VoIP) service.

Both companies declined to provide details of the agreement for the time being but the deal ends several weeks of negotiations.

The settlement would most likely include both a lump sum payout and royalties for the patents.

To date, Vonage has made similar deals with Sprint and Verizon, allowing the service to continue without significant modifications.

Source:
Electronista

The Danish luxury HDTV maker Zepto has announced that their latest Helios LCD sets will come with a "built-in wireless media center that picks up nearby Windows XP Media Center or Vista Home Premium computers on the local network, allowing the TV to stream video or other content without a separate Set-Top Box." All you will need is the bundled TV remote, says Zepto.

The new Helios sets will come in the 32-inch and 40-inch varieties.

A DVB-T (Freeview) tuner is standard for picking up over-the-air HD broadcasts, "as are dual analog tuners for capturing both airborne and land-based conventional TV."

Each set has a static 2000:1 contrast ratio and 8ms pixel response time. The 32 inch model has 720p output capability while the 40 inch can output full blown 1080p.

Zepto only sells in Europe, but the TVs have USD equivalent prices of $3,084 and $3,855 respectively.

Source:
Electronista

This morning, Britain's 81-year-old Queen Elizabeth II, launched her own special "Royal Channel" on YouTube.

The Queen has said she will use the video sharing site to send out her 50th annual televised Christmas message. Buckingham Palace has also added archive and recent footage of the queen and the royal family to the channel and hopes to add new clips regularly.

"The queen always keeps abreast with new ways of communicating with people," Buckingham Palace said in a statement. "The Christmas message was podcast last year."

The palace continued, "She has always been aware of reaching more people and adapting the communication to suit. This will make the Christmas message more accessible to younger people and those in other countries."

The channel has video clips of state visits, garden parties, footage of the queen's 1957 Christmas TV broadcast and even rarely seen silent news footage of the 1923 wedding of the queen's parents, then known as the Duke of York and Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon.

Source:
Yahoo

According to The Market Intelligence Centre, Taiwan most likely shipped 6.2 million "smart handhelds" during the 4th quarter, up 81.7 percent from last year, thanks in part because it produces the Apple iPhone.

The country will also ship a similar number of devices for the first quarter 2008, meaning a 150 percent year-on-year increase.

"This growth is being driven by several factors, one being the introduction of several new mass-produced models by High Tech Computer Corporation," the centre said in a report, referring to the island's leading smart phone maker.

"Another factor is the rise in procurements by North American and European operators to satisfy traditional peak season demand in the fourth quarter," it said.

The report also added that new Palm and HP models had been outsourced to Taiwan.

"Major growth momentum for the Taiwanese smart handheld device industry in the third quarter came from increased contract production of the Apple iPhone," the report added.

Source:
Yahoo

According to the NPD Group, during the first three weeks of the holiday shopping season, US sales of portable media players, with the exception of the Apple iPod, were down by a considerable margin.

For sales between November 18th and December 9th, dollar sales were down 16% compared to the same period last year while units sales dropped 9%.

NPD believes the declines are due to the fact that manufacturers faced a market with fewer first-time buyers. "The market is in a position where most of the people who want an MP3 player have one," NPD analyst Stephen Baker said.

Even the clear market leader, the iPod, was not selling the way it was in the past. "The iPod is not exactly a blistering growth segment," Baker said. "It's a good segment, and you'll still make money on it, but it's not growing 75% a year."

Revenues for media players have dropped in the recent past because more and more consumers are choosing to purchase cheaper, small capacity flash based players. "Most people don't have enough music and video files to justify paying more for a device with 80-plus gigabytes of storage," Baker added.

Last night, the official Blu-ray Disc Association website was hacked, and anyone trying to visit the site was redirected to the official HD DVD site.

Any internet user attempting to visit blu-raydisc.com were instead redirected to the HD DVD camp's lookandsoundofperfect.com web site. So far, no one has claimed responsibility for hacking the site and neither the BDA nor the HD DVD Promotions Group have made an official response.

All I can say is I hope that the hack was not started by a company in the HD DVD camp.

Source:
HD Digest

The IFPI has said that a Beijing appeals court has upheld a ruling against Yahoo China over its search engine's links to outside Web sites that carry unauthorized music.

The industry group had previously accused Yahoo China of helping online music pirates. The IFPI is representing Warner Music Group Corp., Sony BMG and Universal Vivendi and the suit accused Yahoo China "of violating copyrights because of links between its search engine and Web sites with 229 illegally copied songs."

In April, the Beijing No. 2 Intermediate People's Court ruled that Yahoo China had indeed facilitated the copyright infringements and awarded the record labels 210,000 yuan ($27,000) in damages.

Yahoo China appealed but apparently the decision has been upheld. The courts did not confirm or deny the report however.

Source:
Yahoo

Research analysts from the financial group GMP Securities have "confirmed" the ongoing rumors that Research in Motion will be releasing a touchscreen 9000-series BlackBerry device sometime in the near future.

The BlackBerry 9100, dubbed the "Touchscreen 1.0", will offer a "slide-out Qwerty keyboard under a large touchscreen display" giving users the best of both worlds.

So far, online reports vary on the other specs of the phone with some suggesting 3G connectivity and others implying it will be a 2.5G handset.

More updates as soon as the phone is officially announced or denied.

Source:
Pocketlint

According to Universal Studios Home Entertainment, the fourth quarter HD DVD releases of the "The Bourne Ultimatum" and "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" are outpacing their Blu-ray counterparts.

In its first week of sales, beginning December 11th, the Bourne HD DVD sold 60,000 units, double what Blu-ray's "Spider-Man 3" sold during its first week last month.

So far, there is no sales data on the HD DVD Bourne Trilogy set which will certainly add sales just like the Spider-Man trilogy pack did for Blu-ray.

Additionally, Warner's HD DVD release of "Order of the Phoenix" is, somewhat surprisingly, beating out its Blu-ray counterpart which was released on the same day by a 55-to-45 ratio. Generally, BD sales trump HD DVD sales by a 2-to-1 ratio.

Ken Graffeo, Universal executive VP of marketing and co-president of the North American HD DVD Promotional Group added, “I think the fourth quarter is going to be interesting. If you break out the hits, I think we will be even. But the aggressive discounting, with catalog [of buy one, get one free offers], can inflate the numbers.”

Vuze, the internet startup that runs a peer-to-peer Internet video distribution service has announced that it has raised $20 million USD in capital.

The latest round of funding brings Vuze's total raised to $34 million USD. A few of the investors included Redpoint Ventures, Greycroft Partners, BV Capital and CNET chairman Jarl Mohn.

Vuze, the HD reincarnation of Azureus, claims that it has signed more than 100 premium-content partners, including Showtime Networks, Starz Entertainment, BBC, A&E Television Network's Biography Channel and A&E, and Rainbow Media's IFC.

Source:
Video Business

Originally planned for November, the official N-Gage blog has revealed more delays, meaning gamers wont see the service until at least next year.

"We know all of you are eager to get started with N-Gage First Access, and we are just as eager to get it into your hands and start hearing your feedback. We have teams of people around the world, literally, working overtime to deliver this experience to you.

Unfortunately, as can sometimes happen in software development, unexpected difficulties can occur. We have been doing an internal run with more than 1,000 global testers this week, and during this process we uncovered an issue we feel we need to address. Overall, the games and service are working smoothly, but because of this issue, we feel we could not release N-Gage First Access before the holidays as planned.

As we work on a solution, we will continue to polish the overall experience, ready more games for N-Gage First Access, carry on our extensive internal testing over the holidays, and prepare for the new year and the new wave of mobile play," read the blog.

More updates as they become available.

Source:
pocketlint

In its "HD World" newsletter, Sony has revealed that Europe will be seeing a new model of the PlayStation 3.

The newsletter implies that the European market will see a larger hard drive capacity model. "In Western Europe by the end of 2008, "Understanding & Solutions" predicts average player prices (as opposed to entry level model pricing), for HD DVD and Blu-ray of $275 and $475 respectively, with the yet-to-be-launched European 80GB PS3 retailing at just over $500."

Currently, only the stripped down 40GB, and 60GB units are available in Europe. This brings fuel back to the ongoing rumors that the 60GB model will be phased out in favor of a larger capacity model.

A Sony Europe spokesperson did however, deny what the newsletter stated. "The HD World newsletter is written by external sources, and the report quoted is from independent analysts. There is absolutely no 80GB version of the PS3 planned for Europe in 2008".

Source:
pocketlint

With competition becoming fierce in the LCD TV market, Toshiba and Sharp have announced the expansion of their pre-existing accord in production in an effort to keep their market share.

For example, Toshiba "will use Sharp's LCD panels in its 32 inch and larger sets, while Sharp will use Toshiba's computer chips in its own televisions."

Both companies have agreed to share more technologies pertaining to the LCD market over the next couple years although details on specific components are still in negotiations.

With the deal, "Toshiba will officially suspend its efforts to build a next-generation display based on its own OLED technology, instead opting to use technologies from Sharp, already one of the biggest manufacturers of LCD panels."

Source:
betanews

According to data compiled by Chart Track, sales of game software in the UK will reach 78 million units by the end of the year, setting a new record in the process.

The UK saw a record-breaking third quarter as revenues rose 36 percent year on year, up from GBP 233.5 million last year.

"2007 has been a fantastic year for our industry as all the latest generation of consoles and handheld devices have become fully established," commented Paul Jackson, director general of ELSPA.

"Interactive entertainment is now truly mass market, and this is just the beginning of a period of real sustained growth."

The data also revealed that software units sold were up 33 percent for the Q3 and console revenue was up 45 percent.

Source:
GI.biz

HD DVD-exclusive adult film distributor Digital Playground has announced that it will be going dual format, with its first Blu-ray release, "Pirates", coming in early January.

Early this year Digital Playground founder "Joone" made this quote, "Sony wants me to publish my films on HD DVD." His quote was in reference to the fact that all Blu-ray Disc copying facilities in the United States refused to accept his business. Although the BDA denied his accusations, Digital went HD DVD exclusive and has released almost a dozen films so far.

In explaining his company's move to dual-format support, Joone said "A lot of people were emailing that bought a PlayStation and they were basically saying, 'When are you guys going to release Blu-ray?'"

The company says the Blu-ray release will include the full-length film and tons of extras including bloopers, casting videos and behind-the-scenes footage. Yes, Blu-ray users can enjoy porn bloopers in full 1080p resolution.

There are two new AfterDawn guides available, each using the fantastic freeware, open source program Audacity.

The first guide will guide you on how to create your own ringtones for your mobile phone. That guide is available here:

How to create you own ringtones using Audacity

The second guide is on how to record music streams from sites such as Myspace. That guide is available here:

How to record music from Myspace

We hope these new guides are of use to you, and if you have any issues be sure to visit the Discussion Forums.

Happy holidays :)

A federal judge has ruled against TorrentSpy and in favor of the MPAA, accusing the torrent site of tampering with evidence.

The court found that the site deleted or renamed certain threads and categories that infringed on copyrights as well as deleted the IP addresses of its users.

A $30,000 USD fine had already been levied against the site for violations of discovery orders.

Both the MPAA and the courts believed that without the evidence in question, a fair trial could not occur. The judge went on to call TorrentSpy's conduct during the discovery as "poor" as it willfully destroyed evidence and lied under oath.

The MPAA, of course, applauded the decision. "The court's decision is a significant victory for MPAA member companies and sends a potent message to future defendants that this egregious behavior will not be tolerated by the judicial system," piracy chief John Malcolm said.

"The court clearly recognized that defendants engaged in evidence destruction because they knew that such evidence would prove damaging to them."

Justin Rattner, Intel's the company's chief technology officer, has suggested in an interview that the next generation of the Nintendo Wii will not have controllers.

"We imagine some future generation of [Nintendo's] Wii won't have hand controllers", Rattner said.

Rattner also suggested that camera technology using sensors around a room to detect player movement would replace the hand controllers.

He explained: "You just set up the cameras around the room and wave your hand like you're playing tennis".

The interview went on to talk about ongoing discussions between Intel and leading games and computer manufacturers including Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo.

Source:
pocketlint

A recent US survey has showed that more and more internet users are watching videos, films and TV episodes online.

Over the course of the last year, YouTube has widened it lead as the top site for online video although TV networks have seen a large increase in video seeking visitors.

The study, which surveyed 2500 US adults, said that approximately 65% of those surveyed had watched a video on YouTube over the last year, compared to only 42 percent last year.

"Viewing videos online seems to inspire a sense of adventure, particularly among younger viewers", Joan Barten Kline, a spokeswoman for the company, said in a statement.

"They seem to take particular pride in their finds online and share them with friends", Barten Kline added.

Source:
Pocketlint

The German Usenet provider United Newsserver has won an appeal in a suit that was initiated by EMI.

The large record label had wanted to block access to music on the provider through an injunction but a German court has found that the company is not legally repsonsible for the misdeeds of Usenet users.

In May 2007, the court sided with EMI and the IFPI was quick to praise the decision. People "who make illegal content available on the Internet cannot bail out of their resposibilities", said local IFPI boss Peter Zombik at the time.

As could be expected Newsserver CEO Heinz-Dieter Elbracht was very content by the decision. "Usenet has become a platform for the exchange of all kinds of information. It should be in the interest of all users, providers and rights holders to find solutions to act together against inevitable cases of people breaking the law on Usenet."

The new video on demand service Vudu has announced that they will be giving away their set-top boxes for free with the purchase of select Sharp AQUOS LCD TVs.

The deal is part of a new special partnership between the service and Sharp, an electronics manufacturer.

Starting this week, and ending January 5th, 2008, any buyer who purchases a 42" or larger Sharp Aquos 1080p LCD TV will get the Vudu box for free as well as $50 in free download credits. Vudu values the package at $450 USD.

Currently, there are 7 Aquos models available larger than 42 inches with price ranges of $1,799 to $7,999 USD.

Source:
betanews

Dell has announced that it is releasing a 30-inch display which includes a plethora of input options, including DisplayPort.

The display sports a 2560 x 1600 resolution and includes two DVI ports, an HDMI port, DisplayPort, analog VGA, composite video, component video and S-video connectors.

Dell New Zealand "lists the 3008WFP’s response time at 8ms and quotes 178-degree viewing Angles. Brightness for the monitor is 370cd/m2 and the dynamic contrast ratio is 3000:1. The stand has tilt, swivel, and is height adjustable. Pricing for the 3008WFP on the New Zealand Dell site is NZ$2,699 delivered, equating to about $2,040 USD."

The display is set to be officially announced at the CES show in January.

It is important to note however that to use the DisplayPort on the monitor you will need a DisplayPort equipped video card.

Take Two has announced that it will be releasing more exclusive Grand Theft Auto IV episodes for Xbox 360 owners in 2009.

The company has already agreed to supply two extra episodes in 2008 but this marks the first time they have spoken of extra content since that initial deal.

"In fiscal 2009 we'll also be offering additional episodic content for Grand Theft Auto IV on Xbox 360," confirmed Ben Feder, CEO of Take-Two.

Feder also took time to reiterate that the game would see no more delays and would be released in 2008.

"We're eagerly anticipating the release of Grand Theft Auto IV in our second quarter. The game looks terrific and we're confident it will be every bit as ground-breaking as previous titles," added Feder.

Source:
GI.biz

In a huge entertainment deal, Microsoft and Viacom will be joining up on both the web and Viacom's broadband network for at least the next five years.

Although the exact financial terms were not released, Microsoft officials have projected a base value of over $500 million USD "in financial considerations and business services over the first five years of the pact, including revenue sharing provisions, guarantees, and content licensing agreements."

The agreements also "contemplate the potential for expansion of the contracts," said Microsoft.

One of the major components of the pact is that Viacom will "work with Microsoft on opportunities to become a preferred publishing partner across Microsoft's casual gaming platforms," according to a Microsoft statement. Microsoft will license long and short form TV and movie content from Viacom's cable and movie sectors on a non-exclusive basis.

Microsoft will also purchase advertising on Viacom's broadcast and online networks. Finally, the companies will join together to promote Viacom's MTV Networks and BET Networks award show.

Source:
Betanews

Although unannounced by Sony, GamesIndustry.biz has found that the recent firmware updates for the PlayStation 3 and PSP will give gamers "the ability to remotely play any PS One game on the PSP handheld."

For the remote play to work, you will need PS3 firmware 2.10 and PSP firmware 3.80. Currently, only some PS One titles are available for sale via the PlayStation Store but the update will allow all titles to be played on the PSP using the PS3's remote connection.

GI.biz also says the updates "lets PS3 owners play purchased PS One titles remotely from the hard drive, rather than requiring them to be downloaded to a PSP memory stick."

Sony has yet to confirm.

Source:
Gi.biz

Today, Universal Music (UMG) became the first RIAA member to settle with the satellite radio company XM over receivers that have the ability to record content.

UMG signed a multi-year agreement with XM making its music available for recording on current and future hardware. Additionally, UMG withdrew itself from the RIAA's suit against XM.

The suit was filed in early 2006 when the RIAA deemed that the Pioneer Inno XM receiver was actually a form of copyright infringement. The device can record up to 50 hours of XM content in either MP3 or WMA format.

In its suit, the RIAA is seeking $150,000 in monetary damages for every song copied by XM subscribers. That number could easily be up in the hundreds of millions, but XM "alleged the RIAA was just using the lawsuit as leverage" in the deal.

Source:
betanews

Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime has stated that his company is not happy with retailers that have decided to "bundle" the Wii console with software and accessories in an effor to make higher margins.

File-Aime feels "bundling" lessens the advantage the Wii holds overs it more expensive competition, the Sony PlayStation 3 and Microsoft Xbox360.

"Retailers have already been given feedback that we are not big fans of that," Fils-Aime told Reuters.

"We think it masks some of the price advantage we have versus our competition and, frankly, the consumer should decide what they want," he added.

He did note however, that the company would not take any legal action against the retailers but hoped that his company had built strong enough relationships that they would be mindful of bundling.

"We don't have to remind retailers of the strength we have right now. We are simply making an observation and that reinforces our point quite nicely with retailers," he finished.

Source:
GI.biz

It appears that DoCoMo and Softbank, two of Japan's largest cell phone carriers, are vying for an exclusive Apple iPhone contract, but Apple's intense revenue sharing ideals seem to be holding off any progress.

These complaints are nothing new however. In France, carrier Orange and Apple had public disagreements over revenue sharing and other carriers in the US and Europe have complained as well. In China, both China Mobile and China Unicom dropped negotiations due to revenue sharing disputes.

To date, over 1.5 million phones have been sold and Apple has said it hopes to sell 10 million by the end of 2008.

Sources have explained that Apple is seeking a 10 percent cut on all data revenues, a figure neither DoCoMo or Softbank will accept. Despite these issues, Apple is "still confident that it will be able to find a partner in the country eventually."

Source:
betanews

In response to the news that China will be blocking American films, MPAA Chairman and CEO Dan Glickman released the following statement:

"It is increasingly clear that China may have instituted a block on the import of American films into their country. Although we have not received official confirmation of such a ban from the Chinese government or China Film, the indicators are strong that our information is correct. If such action has been taken, or is in the process of being taken, it would represent an enormous step backwards in terms of China's efforts to develop a strong and most importantly, legitimate film exhibition and distribution market. We are working with top officials in the US government, including the Treasury Secretary, as well as the Trade Representative and Secretary of Commerce, both of whom are in China at the moment. If these reports are true, it is unacceptable that China has taken this action and we will bring all our resources and leverage to bear to address this situation."

More news as it becomes available including any other statements regarding the matter.

Media and communications firm SNL Kagan has released a study claiming that total video-on-demand (VOD), pay-per-view (PPV) and near-video-on-demand (NVOD) revenue will will top $6 billion USD by 2013.

According to the study, "average revenue per user is expected to top $5 per month in 2010 and $6.56 per month (or nearly $79 annually), including cable, satellite and telco video offerings."

"We're starting to see factors align that can enable operators to translate the rise in on-demand traffic into more significant sales," said Ian Olgeirson, senior analyst for SNL Kagan.

A somewhat not surprising fact, according to the study, is that the largest expected contributions will come from pornography and event pay-per-view such as wrestling and boxing.

Source:
dailytech

The Chinese government, in apparent retaliation for America's decision to file a case against China at the WTO over video piracy, has banned US movies from being shown in Chinese cinemas.

Currently, China restricts the amount of American releases allowed in the country to 20 per year but that number is now 0.

Carlos Gutierrez, the US Commerce Secretary, added: “My understanding is that there is a suspension, which has happened in the past, and there’s certain times of the year where they will suspend foreign movies.”

The blackout seems likely to remain until at least February but most likely May. The ban is the first of its type in China since the mid 90's.

American studios only recently became aware of the ban when their applications to distribute new films began being rejected. A few of the movies rejected were "Enchanted", "Stardust", "Beowulf", and "The Pursuit of Happyness".

Although they are banned, you can be sure that the movies will find their way to street corners all around the country, if they are not already available.

Source:
Times Online

This morning, the Sony UK PlayStation website leaked the new features of PlayStation 3 Firmware upgrade 2.10 that should hit consoles tomorrow.

The main updates will be big news for those who enjoy Blu-ray movies. The PS3 will finally support Blu-ray Disc Profile 1.1 meaning the PS3 will support picture-in-picture and audio mixing features. Also included will be the new BD Data Utility.

Additionally, support for DivX and VC-1 encoded files as been added, which should please users who have felt the console's video playback is lacking. There are however, a few issues. The PS3 still wont play copyright-protected files, files encoded by using DivX 3.11, or that are 2GB or larger.

Finally, a "voice changer" option will be added to allow users to "mask the sounds of their voice when chatting on audio or video chat over the PlayStation Network."

Source:
dailytech

For those interested, many prominent retailers have begun selling the Sony's BDP-S300 Blu-ray player at record-low prices despite recent Sony quotes that their Blu-ray players would not dip below $400 USD this year.

The player can be found at Amazon, Circuit City and Best Buy for $299 USD, a hundred dollar price cut off its suggested retail price.

The new price drop follows a trend recently in which Blu-ray standalones have dropped in price, especially the Samsung's BDP-1400 which was selling for $270 USD as of last week, down from its $400 suggested retail price.

Although still more expensive than most rival HD DVD players, the new lowered prices means added competition, which is always good for the consumer.

Source:
HD Digest

AT&T has announced that its U-verse TV package will now include 8 additional HD channels, meaning the service will have a total of 40.

After a slow period, AT&T has reaffirmed its commitment to the package, saying it anticipates one million subscribers by the end of the year.

The new additions are: Animal Planet HD, CNN HD, Discovery HD, Science Channel HD, Starz Kids & Family HD, Superstation WGN HD, TLC HD, Versus HD, and Golf Channel HD.

The base cost for U-verse TV is $59 USD to $114 per month and the addition of the 40 HD channels will cost you $10 USD extra.

AT&T currently provides U-verse service in San Francisco, Oakland, San Jose, Santa Clara, Riverside, and Orange County California, Indianapolis, Detroit, Kansas City, Cleveland, Oklahoma City, Milwaukee, Austin, Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston, San Antonio, and Fairfield County, Connecticut.

Source:
betanews

Console sales in Japan continue to surge as we get into the holiday season, with the DS, Wii and PSP all seeing week on week double digit growth.

The DS continues to be king, with 168,267 units sold for the week ending December 9th, a hefty 35 percent increase from the previous week. Wii sales were up 54 percent to 115,057 and PSP numbers were up 24 per cent to 91,481. All data was compiled by Media Create.

Sales for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 remained flat, with the PS3 selling over 38,000 units and the Xbox 360 moving just over 9000 units.

In Japan, the DS has sold over 20 million units to date with the PSP second best at 7 million.

Source:
GI.biz

Toshiba has announced that it is shelving plans to construct large OLED televisions because the current, and short-term costs are too high.

The company will however, continue its plans to commercialize small OLED displays in cellphones. Toshiba spokesman Keisuke Ohmori said the company would continue to monitor the market and technological developments to see whether the displays would be commercially viable.

Sony has been selling 11-inch OLED TVs since November, but the high cost of manufacturing has limited shipments to under 2000 per month.

OLED displays may be the wave of the future, as they "produce brighter images, use less power, and are thinner because they do not need the backlights used in liquid crystal displays."

Source:
arstechnica

In what could possibly be the best HD disc offer to date, the giant retailer Best Buy has begun offering a buy one get one free (BOGO) offer on both HD DVD and Blu-ray top hits.

Although BOGO offers on HD discs are not a new strategy, the new offer is unique in that newly-released and top hits are included in the offer.

There are a total of 30 qualifying discs at prices ranging from $19.99 to 34.99. The promotion is set to run through Saturday December 22th and is available in-store and online.

As an added bonus, all online buyers will receive free shipping on any orders of HD DVD or Blu-ray discs.

The full list of movies available in both formats is as follows:

Blu-ray:
28 Weeks Later ($29.99)
300 ($29.99)
Are We Done Yet? ($29.99)
The Condemned ($29.99)
Crank ($29.99)
The Departed ($29.99)
Fantastic 4: Rise Of The Silver Surfer ($34.99)
Harry Potter & Order Of The Phoenix Blu-Ray ($32.99)
Hostel: Part II ($29.99)
Mr. & Mrs. Smith ($34.99)
Mr. Brooks ($34.99)
Ocean’s Thirteen ($29.99)
SAW III ($29.99)
Spider-Man 3 ($29.99)
Underworld: Evolution ($29.99)

Sony has announced it has made five partnerships with music download services across Europe including HMV in the UK, FNAC Music in France, Musicload in Germany, Terra Pixbox in Spain and Planet Music in the Netherlands.

The partnerships will mean Walkman MP3 player users will be offered 3 months' free trials for "unlimited" music subscriptions from those services.

“These exclusive partnerships confirm Sony’s commitment to supporting an open standard with Windows Media Technology”, said Jeffry van Ede, Vice President Sony Audio Marketing Europe.

The announcement continues the strategy Sony has been following for months now in which the company is moving towards support of an open platform and include Windows Media Technology on its MP3 players.

Source:
pocketlint

According to Nintendo America president Reggie Fils-Aime, the Wii may eventually get some type of voice chat.

Speaking during a conference call, Fils-Aime confided that there id nothing technically stopping voice chat in online play on the Wii and it is only a matter of Nintendo putting the money aside to support it. "...what it comes down to is finalizing the peripheral," he added. "I would not be surprised to see that capability come to this system."

Currently the Microsoft's Xbox 360 employs voice chat and even comes bundled with a headset that even allows "sending delayed messages" in addition to regular in-game chat.

Film-Aime did however, shut down any speculation that the Wii's Virtual Console could be adding online multiplayer. "We do not anticipate making online gameplay for Virtual Console games," he concluded.

Source:
Electronista

According to local reports, Taiwan's Industrial Technology Research Institute has assembled an ultra thin, flexible 10.4 inch display.

"Closely resembling e-paper, the ITRI's prototype is actually a new form of cholesteric LCD, with thickness reduced to half at less than 0.4 inches."

The "flexibilty" of the display comes from using two plastic substrates instead of glass, allowing the display to curve.

The monitor does have its drawbacks, however. Blank spaces may appear and it uses a 57 percent NTSC gamut, a gamut much less than that of conventional desktop monitors.

Source:
electronista

The movie studio Lionsgate has announced two new films it plans to release on Blu-ray in which it promises to "push the limits of next-gen interactivity." The movies, "War" and "Saw IV" will include new features never before seen on Blu-ray titles.

For "War" the studio announced the disc will include a network-connected game in which fans will be able to play each other online. For "Saw IV", "MoLog" (short for Movie Blog) "will enable consumers to create and share their own added value content via blog entries."

There could however, be a road block It is still not clear which Blu-ray players are even compatible with the new features and Sony has yet to release a firmware update for its PlayStation 3 console that would unlock web-enabled features.

Source:
HD Digest

According to Pocketlint, the low cost Venturer SHD7001 HD DVD player will hit the UK on December 29th with added incentives courtesy of the European branch of the HD DVD Promotional Group.

The player will come packaged with a free HDMI cable as well as the HD DVD movie hits "Hulk" and "Troy". The player will also now come with a voucher allowing consumers to redeem five more free HD DVDs by mail.

Although the list is not available yet, customers will have until January 31st 2008 to select the five movies from a "large" list of HD DVDs. Postage and handling will be completely free as well.

"We're committed to ensuring that the HD DVD is the best value format for consumers and as such, we're delighted to be able to offer an amazing five disc free campaign to the Venturer HD DVD player promotion on QVC," said a spokesperson of the European HD DVD Promotional Group.

More updates when the SHD7001 price is revealed and the HD DVD redemption list is available.

Source:
pocketlint

To date, Sony is overwhelmingly dominating Blu-ray standalone sales, but new LG and Panasonic players are hoping to steal part of the market.

As of December 1st, Sony owned 60 percent of all BD unit sales (not even including the PlayStation 3) and Samsung is second at 32 percent. Panasonic and LG each command a small 5 percent share.

According to DisplaySearch, BD standalones "represent 37% of all high-def units sold. HD DVD-only was at 62%, and dual-format, less than 1%."

Panasonic and LG however, have new players coming that should boost their brands. The Panasonic DMP-BD30 was the first BD player capable of supporting picture-in-picture, the "bonus feature in which a separate video stream runs concurrently with the main film."

“We just introduced the Panasonic DMP-BD30 into the market in November, which from a timing perspective put us at a bit of a disadvantage versus products [such as Sony and Samsung players] that had already been in the market for more than a few months,” said Gene Kelsey, VP of entertainment group at Panasonic. “But we feel there is a strong opportunity to grow based on being the only Final Standard Profile player [encompassing picture-in-picture] already on the market. With the good notices that we have been receiving and the future introduction of [accompanying picture-in-picture] software, we will be able to have more impact on the market.”

Thanks to the previously reported record breaking sales of 'Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End,' Blu-ray sales topped HD DVD by a hefty 3:1 margin for the week ended December 9th.

According to Nielson, but not confirmed by Disney, the latest "Pirates" film sold 160,000 units in its first week setting a new Blu-ray record. The movie even sold 3 times as many units as Sony's Blu-ray title "Superbad" did and almost 8 times as many as the top selling HD DVD title, the ever popular "Planet Earth" box set, for the week.

The strong showing helped Blu-ray take a 76% share of disc sales for the week, a decisive number that has not been seen in some time. The week ending December 16th should be more interesting however. "Bourne Ultimatum" sales are said to be very high for HD DVD and the long awaited dual-format release of all the Harry Potter films should heat up the competition some.

More updates when the final numbers come in.

For those who are interested, large retailers Best Buy, Circuit City, Kmart, Sears, Target, Toys “R” Us and Wal-Mart each say they will have dozens of Nintendo Wii consoles available in the upcoming weeks.

If you cannot get one of those consoles, Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime has said gaming retailer Gamestop will be offering a "Wii rain check", where on December 21st buyers can pre-order the console and expect it by the end of January. You will have to leave the full price for the deposit however.

Nintendo currently produces 1.8 million units per month, with over half of those units being sold to American consumers.

Source:
Dailytech

According to NPD Group sales data, sales of the Sony PlayStation 3 rose 285 percent from October to November, the largest sales increase of any console for the time period.

More the month of November, Sony sold "466,000 PS3 consoles, 496,000 PS2 consoles, and 567,000 PSP handhelds" in the US.

Despite the stellar increase in sales and the fact that two new PS3 titles, Activision's Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare and Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed, ranked in the top ten software list for all consoles, the sales were still barely half of the rival Nintendo Wii.

Sony also went on to provide up-to-date information on PlayStation Network usage.

According to Sony, "there are now more than 1.8 million registered PlayStation Network users in North America. Together, they have downloaded more than 34.5 million pieces of content. Worldwide, more than 3 million users are registered and have downloaded more than 60 million pieces of content."

Source:
GI.biz

Remote PC access software company Orb has announced that they have added support for the Apple iPhone and iPod touch, allowing users to "stream their music, movies, and TV without being locked into iTunes."

To use the software, users must install it on all "always on" Windows machine (sorry Mac or Linux users) and allow Orb access through any anti-virus program or firewall. "It then displays the media in the Windows default folders: My Documents, My Music, My Videos and My Photos. Other folders can be added at will by the user."

You can then access these directories through the Safari browser on either of the devices and "with an appropriate media player, any music and video files can be played." In theory, any connected device, may it be a laptop, PDA or even game console can access the content.

Source:
betanews

According to NPD Group sales figures, the Xbox 360 HD DVD add-on hit its 270,000th unit sold in November, representing a small 3.4% attach rate to the console itself which has sold over 9 million consoles.

Last month the HD DVD Promotions Group reported that all "dedicated HD DVD players" including the add on, had sold about 750,000 players through November 25 and these latest figures seem reasonable.

Source:
HD Digest

According to research from Goldman Sachs, Apple will be releasing 2 revisions to the iPhone in 2008, one minor and one major, as well as a complete revision to the Apple TV.

The 2nd gen iPhone will have "a similar form factor as the current version although it could have a different look and will probably include 3G capability".

According to GS analyst David Bailey, the 3G iPhone will be launching in the third quarter of 2008, but that in the first quarter, consumers will see "a smaller upgrade with more flash memory earlier in the year".

Bailey also write that "Apple will be making changes to Apple TV" in the second half of 2008 "which could include an LCD display".

More updates as they become available.

Source:
pocketlint

In an effort to further promote development for HD DVD, Microsoft is making an emulator software available for $2,999 USD.

The company believes that by offering a way to test HD DVD movies for playability before they are burned to disc should in turn, reduce many playback issues. All that is needed is an active connection to Xbox Live and a 360 to use the emulator with.

The emulator should successfully "emulate results for any certified player in testing the content" says the company.

Developers will also "have three options to test content: the content can be played directly from a network storage share or USB drive, or from an optical disc within the Xbox 360's hard drive."

Microsoft found that during tests, the emulator helped reduce development time and costs by bringing down the number of needed test discs by over 75 percent.

"We are committed to supporting and advancing the HD DVD ecosystem," Microsoft HD DVD Jordi Ribas said in a statement.

Source:
betanews

According to Video Business, the final installment in the "Pirates of the Caribbean" series is set to break Blu-ray sales records after selling an estimated 160,000 copies in its first week.

Disney has so far declined comment, but if the numbers are correct it will smash the previous sales champ, Sony's "Spider-Man 3", which moved 130,000 copies in its first week.

As always however, the sales were tiny compared to standard definition sales, where "At World's End" sold 8 million copies in its first week.

Source:
HD Digest

According to research published by Digital Music News and BigChampagne, the popular P2P application Limewire can now be found on one-third of all PCs worldwide. For the report, the companies collected the data though voluntary systems scans and surveyed more than 1.6 million systems.

Although the number is impressive, and unrivaled, growth has slowed since news that they were involved in a legal battle with the RIAA hit the press.

"LimeWire continues to be the iTunes of P2P by a wide margin ... but growth has remained flat over the last several months," said Richard Menta, research analyst at Digital Music News.

If you would like to purchase the whole report, which reports on the market penetration of most ecommerce, jukebox and torrent applications, you should visit the Digitalmusicnews website.

Source:
emediawire

ReplayTV, the struggling DVR company has sold off all its assets to DirecTV, the US' largest satellite provider.

"Although we valued this asset and the business was profitable, the sale of ReplayTV to DirecTV makes the most sense for this business, its employees and us," D&M Holdings CEO Eric Evans said in a statement.

The sale marks the third time in the last four years that the company has changed hands. The company originally started in 1997 and was acquired in 2001 by SONICblue before having its assets sold to D&M in 2003 after having to file for bankruptcy.

The company's future is now uncertain and David Zatz of Zatz Not Funny said in a blog post that he feels DirecTV is "more interested in the technology than the actual service."

"I suppose it's possible they could think about using the ReplayTV interface on their satellite DVRs, re-enter the stand-alone hardware business, or just hang onto Replay's patent portfolio for a rainy day, or to prevent that rainy day," he added.

Source:
betanews

NBC Universal continues to move away from iTunes, this time signing a deal with SanDisk to provide content for its new "Fanfare" service.

Fanfare will complement SanDisk's TakeTV video player which "allows consumers to play downloaded content on their television sets", almost exactly like how the AppleTV works.

SanDisk has said the content will be protected, so the consumer should expect some type of DRM but both companies said that there will be flexible pricing.

NBC Universal's shows, including hit shows from NBC, USA, Sci-Fi, and Bravo will all hit the service next month.

"SanDisk is taking a leadership position within the consumer electronics industry with its commitment to protecting content, which marks an important advance for television entertainment in the digital landscape," NBC Univerisal digital distribution chief JB Perrette said.

Source:
betanews

Blinkx, the popular video search engine that features almost 20 million hours of searchable video and has over 200 partnerships already, has announced they have made a new one, with the Raindance Film Festival.

Raindance, the UK's largest independent film festival, was created in the early 90s and is responsible for creating the British Independent Film Awards.

The agreement means Blinkx will "host, transcribe, and index top independent shorts, features and documentaries from the independent Raindance Film Festival."

Blinkx is unique in that it does not use tags to define its material but instead uses speech recognition and video analysis "to find and qualify online videos." Blinkx even has 111 patents for the technologies used in their service.

The engine uses an AdHoc advertising platform which means that "any time the video is embedded on MySpace, GoogleVideo, YouTube, Revver, Metacafe, Veoh, DailyMotion, Break, FunnyOrDie, Vimeo, JibJab, iFilm, and CollegeHumor, the video will have contextually relevant ads placed near or on it." Whenever that ad is clicked, Blinkz and Raindance will split the revenue 50/50.

Source:
betanews

Although the year is not over yet, Nintendo senior VP George Harrison has predicted, and with good reason, that its DS handheld will be the top-selling video game system of 2007.

Through November 30th, 6 million handhelds have been sold, converting to a rate of one sold every seconds.

"There's no letup in sight," says George Harrison, Nintendo of America's senior vice president of marketing and corporate communications. "Nintendo DS appeals strongly to both core and casual gamers, and its momentum is set to propel us into 2008."

For the Thanksgiving week, 650,000 DSs were sold, breaking the all-time record for the week, previously held by the Game Boy Advance, which moved 600,000 units two years ago.

Source:
gameindustry.biz

After a year of existence in the US, the Xbox Live Video Marketplace has finally, officially, expanded to five new countries, Canada, UK, Ireland, France, and Germany.

However, users in Canada and Europe will not have the same selection that we do in the US. Currently, hundreds of TV series and movies are available in the US but the new territories will only have barely 30 movies available.

Microsoft must secure individual rights for the content available on their marketplace and so far there have language and licensing issues, meaning a smaller selection of content for the new territories.

“Any time we bring something new to Xbox Live Marketplace we want to make sure that it’s an amazing consumer experience,” said Scott Nocas, Global Marketing Manager for Xbox Live. “We make sure we have a ton of content and we make sure we have local content. We also want to bring it to multiple countries and, right now, we really wanted to focus on the movies because we felt that was really one of the better offerings that Xbox in the U.S. had.”

Speaking about the Canadian market, Nocas added, “We’ll be updating movies on a monthly basis. As new releases come in from our partners, we’ll put them up on the same day that everyone else has it, and we’ll be adding to the Library titles. At launch, the U.S. Video Store had 37 titles, but we now have over 300 movies. So, for Canada, we plan to aggressively add movies as fast as we can.”

Universal has finally signed a deal with the popular social playlist site imeem, becoming the last of the big four record labels to do so.

imeem, by its own description, is "an online community where artists, fans & friends can promote their content, share their tastes, and discover new blogs, photos, music and video."

User can upload their own content or "browse and add catalog content." imeem also makes it easy to embed original content hosted by imeem on other sites such as Myspace and blogs.

The new deal opens up Universal's full music and video catalog to imeem users. The deal however, may not have been cheap. imeem is "said to have paid cash up front as well as given Universal stock in the website."

Around since 2004, imeem now boasts 19 million unique visitors daily with 50000 becoming members daily.

Source:
dailytech

The IPTV service Vudu has just announced that they will be releasing the Universal movie The Bourne Ultimatum as a 1080i HD download, on the same day as its retail DVD release.

The announcement is the first time that a studio has simultaneously released a DVD and an HD download. Vudu has content from many major studios through its broadband-connected set top boxes. The studios are as follows; Lionsgate, New Line Cinema, Paramount, Sony, 20th Century Fox, Walt Disney Studios, Warner Brothers, and Universal Studios.

Vudu has about 5000 movies currently but the majority are in standard definition. Many studios are beginning to offer HD version however because the release of a movie in HD, while not having to place it on "format war media" Blu-ray and HD DVD can be very advantageous and reach more consumers.

The service works using P2P technology somewhat similar to torrents. "When a user purchases or rents a film from the service, the beginning of the movie is streamed directly from Vudu's servers while the rest is downloaded in the background. Streams are MPEG-4 and converted to HD, so only a 1.2 Mbps connection is required for viewing. Faster connections result in no delay."

Microsoft has announced they have filed 52 more lawsuits against alleged sellers of pirated copies of its software. The company has also referred 22 separate cases to law enforcement.

Back in July, Microsoft successfully broke up a Chinese piracy syndicate and Microsoft noted that fifteen of the lawsuits were based on activity surrounding that syndicate.

Actions were filed worldwide including in Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Turkey, South Africa, the United Kingdom and the US.

Microsoft has also set up a "Microsoft Buying Guide" on eBay to help users purchase genuine software and how to look out for counterfeit software.

"Microsoft is committed to taking the legal action necessary to protect consumers around the world from the dangers of counterfeit software, and we encourage consumers to look to the legitimate channel -- both online and offline -- when seeking genuine Microsoft software," associate piracy counsel David Finn said.

Source:
betanews

Nintendo has pulled its holiday advertising in the UK for its popular Wii console in hopes consumer attention will move to the DS and demand will drop somewhat for the Wii.

“We have been running the campaign all year round, but we want to take a responsible stance this Christmas and not fuel demand,” said a Nintendo UK spokesperson.

Nintendo will be using that ad space to promote the DS instead, a console of which it has higher supply of.

The move is contrary to what the North American branch is doing which is putting extra advertisement for the holiday season.

“We're still expecting some shortages in December. But we're not going to be pilling back on our marketing,” explained George Harrison, Nintendo of America’s marketing chief. “So even though we'll be selling everything we can get, we'll continue full-blast with our outreach through PR, and through paid advertising and other things.”

Source:
Dailytech

For those that are interested, the large internet retailer Amazon as well as electronic giants Circuit City and Best Buy have dropped the price on the Samsung BD-P1400 Blu-ray Player to under $300 USD, making the player the lowest priced Blu-ray standalone ever. The break is a $200 USD cut from the original list price of $499.

Besides being the cheapest standalone available, the BD-P1400 is also the first player to support DTS-HD Master Audio decoding. DTS-HD Master Audio is a "lossless Compression scheme that is able to provide audio quality on par with PCM tracks but at the expense of less storage."

Despite the price drop, Blu-ray standalones still cost a fair amount more than HD DVD standalones which normally retail for under $300.

According to Pocketlint, Apple is set to release a "significant" firmware update to the iPhone on December 11th, firmware version 1.1.3.

One of the new notable feature updates include a "disk mode of storing general data and a voice recording mode for capturing voice memos."

The feature will behave similarly to the iPod and block users from "simply dragging and dropping content to load on the phone with playable music."

If the new update is true, then it will most likely break the current "jailbreak" firmwares that allow users to install third party software and unbrick bricked devices.

Source:
pocketlint

According to an article published in Business Week, the magazine believes Warner Bros will be dropping support for HD DVD and going with Blu-ray, possibly as soon as CES 2008 next month.

The article brought together rumors from the internet as well as internal sources and suggested that both Toshiba and Sony are trying hard to woo Warner from its current dual format stance.

"The rumour is that Warner is coming aboard soon," Michael Burns, vice-chairman of studio Lionsgate (LGF) told the magazine. "That will make it awfully tough for HD DVD to stay in this game."

If Warner were to back Blu-ray solely, then the Blu-ray camp would control about 70% of the market.

The article goes on to warn, "On the other hand, if Toshiba were to win Warner's hand, the two forces would divide the market between them. That could create mass consumer confusion and potentially strangle a new technology that the studios hope will give a lift to flagging DVD sales."

The infamous torrent tracker The Pirate Bay is no longer running on Hypercube and has moved to Opentracker, which TiAMO from TPB says uses less resources as well as supports UDP tracking.

TPB has been testing Opentracker for over a month and have now switched their trackers, all 16, over to the new software.

TiAMO explains a bit further, “Well it’s faster than hypercube and uses less resources. Also it supports UDP tracking which hypercube did not.”

Opentracker is a "lightweight BitTorrent tracker which uses minimal resources (it runs fine on your WLAN router). The software does not store any data or log any IP-addresses and is more stable and efficient than most other tracker software."

TPB, alongside with denis.stalker.h3q.com now track more than 9,000,000 peers and 1,000,000 torrents on Opentracker.

Source:
TF

In an interview before he got up on stage in Oslo, Curtis Jackson, better known as the rapper 50 Cent, made a few notable comments about file-sharing, even going as far as to say “What is important for the music industry to understand is that this really doesn't hurt the artists!”

It is important to mention that 50 Cent is not some small, up and coming artist. He has sold over 20 million albums as a solo artist and owns his own record label, G-Unit Records.

During the interview, 50 was asked “How are G-Unit Records doing in these times of file-sharing?

“Not so good.” he responded. “The advances in technology impacts everyone, and we all must adapt. Most of all hip-hop, a style of music dependent upon a youthful audience. This market consists of individuals embracing innovations faster than the fans of classical and jazz music.”

“What is important for the music industry to understand is that this really doesn’t hurt the artists.”

For years now, anti-piracy groups such as the RIAA have gone on about how file-sharing hurts not only the industry, but the artists as well. 50 Cent clearly does not agree.

“The concerts are crowded and the industry must understand that they have to manage all the 360 degrees around an artist. They, (the industry), have to maximize their income from concerts and merchandise. It is the only way they can get their marketing money back.” Read more...

Despite widespread rumors that it had been delayed, Samsung says it is shipping its BD-UP5000 dual-format HD player and that it will be retailing for cheaper than previously announced.

A Samsung spokesperson said that due to "recent activities in the marketplace," the player's suggested retail price has been dropped to $799 USD, a $200 price cut from the original price announced in September.

The BD-UP5000 will be the second dual format player to hit the market, following the LG's BH100 which was released in January.

Samsung says the player will be 1.1 profile compliant and support BD-Java and HDi as well as any web-enabled supplements from both formats.

Source:
HD Digest

The final build of Adobe Flash Player 9 Update 3, also dubbed "Moviestar", has finally been released, adding streaming high-definition video support.

Flash, the dominant delivery method for Web video for years now, is actually adding support for the H.264 video Codec, one of the standard encoding choices for Blu-ray and HD DVD movies. For audio, Flash will now support High Efficiency AAC.

Another new feature is that "Adobe has enabled the hardware acceleration mode of many graphics cards, when going to full-screen mode." Previous versions relied on software acceleration and therefore the player's ability to scale a video in the best quality possible was hindered.

Online video startup Hulu will be the first partner to offer Flash video in high-definition although its HD library is small at the moment.

Source:
betanews

For anyone familiar with the piracy scene, for years the name maVen has usually meant very high quality telesyncs. However, after investigations by the FBI and Canadian authorities, Geremi Adam (aka maVen) is facing up to 6 months in jail.

From 2004 to 2006, maVen released telesyncs of the blockbusters ‘Bourne Supremacy’, ‘Collateral’, ‘Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire’, ‘Chronicles of Narnia’,‘Underworld Evolution’, ‘Mission Impossible 3′, ‘X-Men: The Last Stand’, ‘Cars’ and ‘Superman Returns’, all usually within a couple of days of the theatrical release.

In July 2006 however, maVen releases disappeared and we may now why know. According to reports, an FBI investigation in the US was handed over to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) in April 2006.

“He was referred to us by the FBI,” said RCMP Staff Sgt. Noel St-Hilaire. “They had an investigation in the States.”

In September 2006, thanks to information from the Canadian Motion Picture Distributors Association, the RCMP arrested the 25 year old Adam outside a Montreal theater after allegedly camming the movies “How to Eat Fried Worms” and “Invincible.” His laptop was seized along with his camcorder and other equipment but Adam released. He was arrested again just a month later at another theater.

One of the original online movie download services, MovieBeam, will be shutting down next week after failing miserably despite over $100 million USD in funding.

Since being created by Disney, the service has failed on a mass consumer market, mainly due to its very expensive cost and unique delivery method that limits the service to only 31 metropolitan areas.

Movie Gallery bought the service last year for $10 million USD, a tiny fraction of the $70 million USD Disney reportedly spent on the project.

MovieBeam "receives the content over the air with an antenna connected to a Set-Top Box. A phone line is also required for billing and ordering purposes." In addition to buying a $250 USD set-top box, all customers also have to pay a $30 activation fee. All this is before you can even view one movie. Prices range from $3.99 to $11.99 USD, with a $1 added fee for high-definition content.

It seems those crazy prices, along with strong competition from CinemaNow, iTunes, Amazon Unbox, NetFlix and Vudu finally sank MovieBeam.

Transformers director Michael Bay has made some bold statements on his website, claiming that Microsoft is purposely promoting confusion in the HD format war in an effort to destroy both formats and usher in digital downloads.

"Microsoft wants both formats to fail so they can be heroes and make the world move to digital downloads," said his forum post.

Late in August, Bay posted angry, aggressive responses to the news that Paramount had went HD DVD exclusive and even threatened to not deliver a Transformers sequel. He retracted his threat a week later however.

"That is the dirty secret no one is talking about. That is why Microsoft is handing out 100 million dollar checks to studios just [to] embrace the HD DVD and not the leading, superior Blu-ray. They want confusion in the market until they perfect the digital download.

"Time will tell and you will see the truth."

Source:
GI.biz

Dropping the price for the second time in recent months, Microsoft has slashed the price of its HD DVD add-on player for the Xbox 360 by 30 percent to $130 USD.

As of today, the price drop was seen at giant retailers Amazon and Toys-R-Us. Each unit sold comes with five free HD DVD movies, a media remote, and "King Kong" as well.

The add-on had its price dropped from $199 USD to $179 USD in the fall and the new cut most likely reflects continued drops in manufacturing costs.

Source:
Betanews

Yesterday, at the Nokia World 2007 Conference in Amsterdam, the large mobile phone company announced its new "Comes With Music Program," a program which offers free music which you can keep forever, as long as you purchase a Nokia device.

Anssi Vanjoki, Executive Vice President and General Manager, Multimedia, Nokia elaborated: "We set out to create the music experience that people are telling us they are looking for - all the music they want in the form of unlimited downloads to their mobile device and PC. Even if you listened to music 24 hours a day, seven days a week, you would still only scratch the surface of the music that we're making available. Comes with Music fulfills our dream to give consumers all the music they want, wherever they want it, while rewarding the artists who create it."

So far only Universal Music Group is signed up but Nokia assures that they are in talks with all the other major record labels as well as indie labels.

Universal CEO Lucian Grainge added, "It's fantastic to work with Nokia on Comes With Music. We feel it's an innovative way for people to discover and enjoy new artists, while at the same time having access to the amazing depth of the Universal catalog. Comes With Music allows our artists to reach new audiences in a very easy and affordable way."

Microsoft has finally announced that the European launch of Video Marketplace on Xbox Live will take place on December 11th.

The service, for those not familiar, allows users to rent movies in Standard Definition and High Definition for about 250 Microsoft points each. That is the equivalent of GBP 2.13 / EUR 2.91 for standard definition films and 380 MS Points, GBP 3.23 / EUR 4.42 for high definition versions.

After December 11th, the service will be available in the US, Canada, UK, Ireland, France and Germany. There is however, a catch. The films are only usable for 14 days after download or for 24 hours after the first viewing.

According to GI.biz, the full list of launch films are as follows:
300
Analyse This
Clash of the Titans
Dead Calm
Demolition Man
Eraser
Executive Decision
Eyes Wide Shut
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
Lethal Weapon 3
Lethal Weapon 4
Looney Tunes: Back In Action
Mars Attacks!
Ocean's Eleven
Risky Business
Space Cowboys
Superman III
Swordfish
The Fugitive
The Matrix
The Matrix Reloaded
The Matrix Revolutions
The Perfect Storm
Three Kings
Training Day
Zodiac

After having its own video download service for the last year, AOL has cited sluggish sales and will be ending the service while outsourcing its videos to Amazon's Unbox.

The companies said there would be a revenue splitting model for videos sold through AOL. No financial details were released however.

According to Compete.com, AOL video only had a tiny 6% market share, clearly not enough to compete with iTunes or Unbox.

Source:
Betanews

According to Nintendo, the Japanese market will soon be getting a full licensed DS cartridge that will accept microSD memory cards, allowing for the legal viewing of video, images, music and texts on the handheld.

The cartridge, dubbed the DSvision will be the same size as a normal DS game and fit into Slot-1 of the DS or DS Lite. Users will also have the ability to use a download service to download TV shows and e-books.

The DSvision will come packaged with the cartridge, a 512 MB microSD card, and a microSD-to-USB adapter for the relatively cheap price of 3,980 yen ($36 USD). There are already tons of devices like the DSvision, but none are licensed by Nintendo because they make pirating of DS games very easy.

“We are keeping a close eye on the products and studying them. But we cannot smash all of them,” a Nintendo spokesman said, referring to the R4 and M3 cards currently sold.

To be honest however, I feel like this will just give people a legal alternative to begin pirating with but at least Nintendo will get the money for the DSvision itself. If you cant beat 'em, join 'em.

Source:
Dailytech

According to Japanese press reports, Sony Computer Entertainment will be launching an on-demand high-definition video service for Japanese PlayStation 3s beginning early next year.

PS3 owners will with internet connections will be able to download the content to their hard drives. Each download will cost an average of $1.85 and will include offerings from the BBC and motor-racing videos.

In an effort to promote the service as well as GT:5, the company will be "offering free downloads of "The GT-R Legend Inside Story I," the first of a three-part docu about Nissan's GT-R racing car" for free.

Source:
VB

The parent company of Blizzard, the company behind the massive hit "World of Warcraft", will be acquiring a 68% stake in Activision, the world's "first independent game console software" company.

Under the new acquisition it is being presumed that current Activision CEO Robert Kotick will be put in charge of the venture. In his words, the deal will make the new venture the "largest pure-play interactive entertainment publisher in the world." The new company will be even take the name Activision Blizzard, as a tribute to the equal importance both companies will have.

The merger in itself is more complicated then usual mergers are. Before the end of the year Vivendi, Blizzard's parent company will be handing over its complete Vivendi Games division "in a deal which converts those shares to Activision shares. Vivendi thus becomes a 52% owner in that new, temporary venture."

By using its then stake as majority owner, Vivendi will acquire more stock in Activision until it becomes a 68% owner. That however, may require approval from both US and European federal regulators.

Source:
BetaNews

AT&T has confirmed that a 3G version of the Apple iPhone will be hitting stores in 2008, but with no set month for release as of yet.

"You'll have it next year," said CEO Randall Stephenson. Stephenson could not elaborate on how fast the new device would be but it will be faster than the current HSPA network, which can theoretically run at speeds up to 3.6Mbps. When asked about the price, Stephenson said that Apple CEO Steve Jobs "will dictate what the price of the phone is."

In the past, Jobs has announced that 3G was "highly sought-after" but that the iPhone would not have it included until the battery life was not as severely affected. "So as you know, the handset battery life used to be 5-6 hours for GSM," Jobs explained. "but when we got to 3G they got cut in half. Most 3G phones have battery lives of 2-3 hours [of talk time]." Jobs has said he would like to have a minimum of five hours of 3G before releasing an iPhone with the technology.

Source:
Electronista

Months after it was announced, the Canadian-based company Venturer Electronics has released their Chinese-manufactured entry level HD DVD player, the SHD7000, which it promises will "be one of the lowest priced among entry-level HD DVD players.”

Appearing at Wal-Mart and online, the player costs $197.88 USD, making it the most affordable HD DVD player on the market. However, thanks to recent Toshiba sales, such as the HD A2 selling for $100 USD a few weeks ago, the price point does not look as attractive as it once did.

The Venturer SHD7000 however, costs less than the Toshiba HA-A3 and according to HD Digest “is functionally identical to Toshiba's HA-A3 HD DVD player, offering 1080i video output via HDMI and Dolby TrueHD support.”

Source:
Dailytech