News written by Jari Ketola (September, 2004)

DVD Forum has confirmed the audio track specifications for the HD DVD video discs. In their 27th Steering Committee Meeting held this week they approved the following audio formats: DD+ Lossy (mandatory), DTS++ Lossy (mandatory), MLP 2-Channel Lossless (mandatory), DTS++ Lossless (optional).

Dolby Digital Plus offers efficient coding at lower or limited bitrates. The lossless 2-channel MLP provides a 24-bit, 192kHz track. The specifications for the lossy and lossless DTS++ are currently not publicly available.

In addition to deciding on the HD DVD audio track formats, the committee approved the version 2.9 specifications of Dual Layer DVD-R, as well as specifications for recordable and rewritable High Density DVD discs.

Source: DVD Forum

eMusic, one of the grand old farts of the online music business announced that it will relaunch its online music subscription service on Wednesday.

eMusic is different from the other commonplace services, such as iTunes and Napster, since the songs offered are in unprotected MP3 format. MP3 is still the only truly universal format around.

The music is licensed from independent labels, and subscription services are available at three different rates -- $10 for 40 songs per month, $15 for 65 songs or $20 for 90 songs per month. Some of the artists available include Ray Charles, Big Star, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Moby and Beck.

Dimensional Associates, which acquired eMusic last year, has also acquired other independent music sites such as The Orchard and Digital Club Network, which records live shows at 21 clubs around the United States. The recordings are then made available on eMusic.

Source: News.com

NDS, STMicroelectronics and Thomson announced on Friday that they will begin implementing new anti-piracy technology to weed out video piracy.

The technology, known as the secure video processor (SVP) platform, will allow media companies to protect their content using their own DRM specifications. The protected content could only be viewed on SVP-capable devices.

Thomson will start embedding SVP-chips to its video players and set-top boxes next year.

Clearly the consumer is the entertainment industry's worst enemy. The new anti-piracy technologies do little more than make the lives of the consumers more difficult. Professional pirates have not been stopped by DRM before, and they will most certainly not be slowed down by SVP.

Source: News.com

A new version of the popular Koepi's XviD codec has been released. Version 1.0.2 fixes some minor bugs, and is source and binary compatible with the previous version.

You can download the latest version at:

https://www.afterdawn.com/software/video_software/codecs_and_filters/xvid.cfm

and view the complete version history at:

https://www.afterdawn.com/software/version_history/xvid.cfm

Check out our discussion forums for discussion on digital video and much more!

UPDATE 5th Sept, 2004! The version we had online since 1st of September was the source code of xvidcore, but now this version is finally the right Koepi's XviD v1.0.2 binary!

We have added a couple of new guides and tutorials to our guide archive. The guides explain the use of DvdReMake, and instruct on how to create a DVD-R from SVCDs.

The first one is a DvdReMake tutorial from Vurbal.

DvdReMake, or DRM, is a piece of software that allows you to edit a DVD. There are two different versions, DvdReMake and DvdReMake Pro, both of which can be used for basic editing like removing entire titles or menus, hiding menu buttons, and stripping angles from titles. Additionally, the Pro version allows you to remove ILVU (aka interleaving or seamless branching), perform extensive menu editing (removing, adding, or editing the commands for buttons), and advanced title or menu editing (adding, removing, or replacing chapters or cells).

The guide goes through the basics of using DvdReMake and explains how to remove unwanted features from a DVD to fit it on a single DVD±R. The next part of the guide will explain some of the more advanced features that are only available in DvdReMake Pro. The Part II will be available later.