News archive (8 / 1999)
Written by Janne Nissinen
@ 26 Aug 1999 2:37
That's right! Nullsoft decided to celebrate Tom Peppers 24th birthday in an unusual way. They released WinAmp 2.50 as freeware! If it's going to stay as freeware on later versions is not yet known.
Winamp website
Written by Jari Ketola
@ 24 Aug 1999 2:46
DDCE Required to enable DVD Recordable Products
(Company Press Release)
AUSTIN, Texas--August 24, 1999--Designing for the next generation DVD (digital versatile disk) recordable products is now possible using Motorola's DSP56362, which has been granted the Dolby® Digital Consumer Encoder (DDCE) certification by Dolby Laboratories. DVD-RAM, DVD-RW and DVD-camcorders, applications requiring the DDCE technology, may be available to consumers within the next year.
The DSP56362 is currently being used in a variety of consumer audio products, such as audio/video receivers and DVD, digital television and automotive applications. Motorola provides a comprehensive silicon and software solution in a single chip that provides multi-channel decoding (Dolby Digital, DTS or MPEG2 Layer 2) and post decoder processing. The DSP56362 now also supports DDCE. The Dolby Digital Consumer Encoder is a two-channel encoder technology, which enables the digital encoding of stereo analog sound for storage on a digital media. This enables a DVD-RW recorder, for example, to record conventional analog TV programming in addition to the new digital TV broadcasts.
``Many customers have indicated to Motorola that the DDCE has been the missing technology to fully enable recordable DVD products, and Motorola is pleased to provide the industry's first solution to meet these needs,'' said Valerie Hase, Operations Manager of Motorola's Digital Audio Operations. ``Motorola forecasts significant demand for this technology and, as a result, we are already in development on second generation DDCE solutions, which will eliminate external memory requirements. As a leader in high-performance programmable audio products, Motorola continues its commitment to the industry by expanding its audio library in both audio decoding and audio encoding.''
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Written by Jari Ketola
@ 17 Aug 1999 3:31
Spruce Solution Brings Rich DVD Media Merged With Timely Web Content In Flexible Format That Can Be Played Back Without DVD Player
(Company Press Release)
SAN FRANCISCO--Aug. 16, 1999-- DVDPro Conference, San Francisco, Booth #101 -- At DVDPro today, Spruce Technologies is demonstrating powerful new media solutions made possible by using Spruce Convergence to merge the rich audio and video content of DVD with the timely interactive content of the Internet.
Spruce Convergence, an option for Spruce's DVDMaestro and DVDConductor authoring systems, is a unique Web-DVD solution that gives the author incredible freedom and flexibility to create titles that have all the rich media of DVD and the interconnectivity of the internet. Only Spruce Convergence provides full-duplex communication between DVD-based video and the Web, allowing web pages to be invoked directly by button clicks on the DVD title, as well as letting the internet browser control the DVD video.
Early customers are already discovering the benefits of Spruce Convergence for their businesses. Muzic.To (www.muzic.to) has been developing a hybrid web-DVD portal that uses Spruce Convergence to showcase their collection of music and videos at the highest video and audio quality while enabling instant online ordering through their web site.
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Written by Hannu Pekkanen
@ 12 Aug 1999 3:42
The Brujo MP3 player is a unique product that has been designed to merge your internet experience with your personal life. It's sleek and efficient design will help to enrich your "offline" musical experience.
Quick Specs:
63 Track playlist programming
Shuffle, Repeat and 10 Secs Scan Modes
Headphone and RCA Audio Outputs
Plays Standard Audio CDs
Technical Stuff
Plays up to 220 MP3 Audio Files Continuously
Automatically identifies both MP3 and CD-DA formats
Also supports CD-ROM, CD-R, CD-RW, ISO-9660, and MPEG1 & 2 Audio Layer III
Extra Stuff
Programmable, Multi-functional Remote Control
Power Supply and RCA Audio Cables
One Year Warranty
Price for this product is $299!
For more info
Written by Hannu Pekkanen
@ 12 Aug 1999 3:33
We now have over 100 Winamp 2.X skins !
You can find these Skins from our skins area.
Written by Jari Ketola
@ 12 Aug 1999 5:19
Special Edition produced under the auspices of Rob Clampett, son of series creator Bob Clampett
(Company Press Release)
CHATSWORTH, Calif.--(ENTERTAINMENT WIRE)--Aug. 11, 1999-- Image Entertainment, Inc. (NASDAQ: DISK - news), a leading licensee and distributor of DVDs in North America, today announced an October 12, 1999 release date for the DVD of Bob Clampett's Beany and Cecil - The Special Edition. This tribute to Beany (the boy with the propeller cap) and Cecil (the seasick sea serpent) takes place on their 50th anniversary in show business.
This special edition includes four full episodes from the series and additional clips from Time For Beany, a live program that not been seen since its original airing fifty years ago. Original 35mm kinescope negatives were pulled from the vaults for this special tribute. The show won three of the first television Emmy awards for best children's program. Devoted followers of the program included Albert Einstein, Groucho Marx, Jimmy Stewart and Frank Zappa. Beany and Cecil creator Bob Clampett and key performers Stan Freberg and Walker Edmiston recount those years and more in audio commentaries included on the DVD release.
In the early 1960s Beany and Cecil starred in an animated series loved by a whole generation of baby boomers. This DVD Special Edition includes 12 cartoons transferred from original 35mm camera negatives. Beany and Cecil star in a scathing satire of 'you know who' in the episode titled ``Beanyland,'' bop around the Hungry Island with beatnik painter Go Man Van Gogh in ``The Wildman of Wildsville'' and visit the Isle of No Bikini Atoll in ``Cecil Meets the Singing Dinosaur.''
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Written by Jari Ketola
@ 11 Aug 1999 2:52
New DeskTop Theater 5.1 DTT2500 Digital Combines Dolby Digital Technology with High-Quality Speakers to Deliver Powerful Surround Sound Entertainment
(Company Press Release)
Newton, Mass. - August 10, 1999 - Building on its success in the home theater and PC speaker industry, Cambridge SoundWorks, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Creative Technology, Ltd. (Nasdaq: CREAF), today announced the DeskTop TheaterTM 5.1 DTT2500 Digital , a high-output, high-performance, digital home theater system for use with PCs or conventional TVs. A complete Dolby Digital® surround sound audio system, it allows for simultaneous playback of digital sound from movies and analog audio from a PC with no additional decoder or receiver. The DTT2500 Digital delivers powerful Dolby Digital 5.1 multi-channel sound on movies from a PC-DVD or DVD player and enhances 3D positional audio in games or music.
Based on the award winning FourPointSurround FPS2000 Digital and DeskTop Theater 5.1, the DTT2500 Digital is the industry's first solution for real-time seamless mixing of Dolby Digital bitstreams with 4-channel Environmental AudioTM through the Digital DIN connection when used with Sound Blaster® Live!. It is an ideal companion for both PC-DVD movies and Environmental Audio games.
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Written by Jari Ketola
@ 10 Aug 1999 1:07
Minerva Expands its Technology Commitment to DVD Development
(Company Press Release)
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug. 9, 1999--Minerva Systems, Inc., the leading provider of high-quality MPEG digital video publishing systems, announced it has completed the purchase of the DVD disc building technology of its best-selling Minerva Impression authoring software from Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.
The purchase of the Samsung DVD engine gives Minerva complete control over its award-winning DVD product line.
``Samsung has been a dedicated partner who enabled us to provide our customers with a revolutionary DVD solution,'' said Ian Locke, director of Software Business Development at Minerva. ``Owning the technology will now give us greater flexibility and independence to expand our DVD product offering.''
The Samsung DVD engine is an integral part of the Minerva Impression authoring environment. It creates the multiplexed video objects (VOB files) and all the navigation data that is required for DVD title playback in commercial set-top DVD players. Direct control of the Samsung DVD multiplexing technology will allow the development of more sophisticated features for the production of interactive video-rich media and to provide DVD output capabilities to other Minerva products.
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Written by Hannu Pekkanen
@ 09 Aug 1999 12:02
C-4 is for sale at Ebay!
Starting price is $1000,000,00..
What you get:
- All of the source code to the player.
- Source for the player is written in Inprise Delphi 3
- All of the source code for the homepage.
- Homepage receives around 50,000 hits per month.
- C-4 gets around 3,720 downloads per month (Just from the C-4 homepage). Downloads from other mirror sites is not known.
More information about C-4
Written by Hannu Pekkanen
@ 09 Aug 1999 11:16
NEC has developed a device that brings high-quality video to next-generation cellular phones.
Products equipped with codec will lbe able to display 10 to 15 frames per second of image data on a screen up to 176 pixels by 144 pixels, while consuming 94 milliwatts of power. The device therefore has half the power usage and double the compression performance of current technologies.
NEC's device transmits picture and sound data in periodic cycles, enabling data error correction while images are transmitted.
Written by Jari Ketola
@ 09 Aug 1999 1:29
It's been rather quiet on the DVD front lately, so here's a look at what titles have been announced lately:
Fox:
Mrs. Doubtfire (postponed to 11/2)
Alliance:
Chasing Amy (9/28), From Dusk Till Dawn (9/28), Halloween H20 (October)
Artisan:
The Blair Witch Project (10/26)
Sony Music:
John Denver: The Wildlife Concert (9/7), Alice In Chains Unplugged (9/21), Ricky Martin - The Video Compilation (9/21)
Pioneer:
DragonBall Z - Betrayal (10/12), DragonBall Z - Collision (10/12), Iain - DEUS (10/12), Altius - On Air Extreme Sports #4 (10/19), Bittersweet (10/19)
Image:
RoboBox (Robocop Boxed Set) (10/12), Marx Brothers Box Set (10/12)
Written by Jari Ketola
@ 05 Aug 1999 3:16
DVD Dewey Database is a clever DVD database manager. All you need to do is input the title of your discs, and DVD Dewey will do the rest for you. It downloads movie information from well known, high quality movie sites such as IMDb, DVD List and DVD File. It also has preliminary support for Laserviews.
Download DVD Dewey for free from www.DVDDewey.com (registration required).
Written by Jari Ketola
@ 04 Aug 1999 2:08
You can now pre-order Matrix for a mere $12.99 from Reel.com!! Make sure you reserve your copy today!
Pre-order Matrix here!
Written by Jari Ketola
@ 03 Aug 1999 11:23
The Company's Newest Technology, WOW, Significantly Improves The Audio Quality of All Internet Formats, Including MP3
(Company press release)
SANTA ANA, Calif., Aug. 3 /PRNewswire/ -- SRS Labs, Inc. (Nasdaq: SRSL), a leading provider of innovative audio and voice technology solutions, today announced that its newest technology, WOW(TM), is ready for implementation in a variety of solutions, including C-Code and DSP specification for semiconductor suppliers, software processing routines for computer media players and chip modules for home and car audio appliances. Each of these solutions will facilitate greater enjoyment of Internet audio played back on products designed for MP3, WMA(TM), EPAC(TM), A2B(TM) or other standards of music compressed for online distribution. WOW is SRS Labs' latest audio enhancement for speakers and headphones, uniquely suited to overcoming many of the drawbacks inherent in highly compressed audio formats.
"This is an exciting time in the music distribution and playback industry," states product manager Tony Farinella of SRS Labs, Inc. "SRS Labs is poised to participate in a way that delivers tremendous value to playback devices whether software or hardware-based. OEMs now have an opportunity to deliver playback devices which offer incredible sound quality on par with online music's flexibility and convenience."
Read more...
Written by Jari Ketola
@ 03 Aug 1999 10:45
EUROSHOCK and MARIO BAVA COLLECTIONS to Showcase European Films
(Company press release)
CHATSWORTH, CA (August 3, 1999) -- Image Entertainment, Inc. (NASDAQ: DISK), a leading licensee and distributor of DVDs in North America, today announced the inaugural titles in two new Image product lines devoted to horror and cult films. The EuroShock Collection will feature classic and contemporary horror and exploitation films. The Mario Bava Collection spotlights titles from one of the most respected and imitated directors of European horror cinema. Films selected for both collections are distinguished by their unique tone and content and are very different from American horror films of the same time period.
The EuroShock Collection is devoted to presenting uncut British and European horror films to American audiences who may be unfamiliar with the particular films or the history of the genre. The first DVD title to be released in the collection is the 1960 sexploitation/horror film The Playgirls and the Vampire, directed by Piero Regnoli. It will be followed in subsequent months by horror and cult films from the 1950s to the 1980s, such as I Vampiri, the first Italian horror film of the sound era, And Now the Screaming Starts and Asylum from England's Amicus Studios, the "thinking man's" undead tale Zeder, from Italian director Pupi Avati, several exploitation films from British director Pete Walker, the occult biker film Psychomania, and a remastered, widescreen edition of Horror Express, starring Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee.
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Written by Jari Ketola
@ 03 Aug 1999 3:32
Listen.com and Encoding.com announced today that they will work together to enable consumers to find new, legal downloadable music faster than ever. Listen.com is the Internet's comprehensive music download directory and encoding.com is the leading provider of audio and video encoding solutions for the Internet.
Written by Jari Ketola
@ 02 Aug 1999 11:52
Unapix Home Entertainment announced that it has entered into an agreement with Digital Theater Systems (DTS), to develop What-A-Blast / Architecture In Motion, an innovative DVD program, utilizing DTS Digital Surround(TM) technology.
Here's a snippet from Business Wire:
"What-A-Blast / Architecture In Motion is a mind blowing entertainment experience, all done in DTS Digital Surround(TM). This full-length music video production, set to the original Tangerine Dream soundtrack, features devastating implosions of buildings, bridges and smokestacks, and includes a special mix by Robert Margouleff and Brant Biles, one of the premier surround sound design teams in the world."
Read the full story here.
Written by Jari Ketola
@ 02 Aug 1999 1:41
Warner Home Video is planning to release the sci-fi hit movie of 1999, Matrix, as both a rental and filled DVD title on September 21st. Doing this Warner hopes it will encourage salivating sci-fi fans to make Matrix the first DVD selling over one million copies.
The DVD, to sell for $24.98, will be housed on a DVD-ROM, enabling users to access additional information on the Internet, similar to DVD editions of New Line's ``Lost in Space'' and MGM's ``Ronin.''
By accessing the Internet through the disc, users can read the screenplay, view over 700 storyboards and view the scenes. A live Webcast with the picture's stars will be held 30 days after the DVD hits store shelves. Directors Andy and Larry Wachowski reportedly shot scenes for the DVD as production on picture progressed.
A Warner Home Video spokesman said the picture's sci-fi subject matter, box office success ($333 million and counting worldwide) and extra features could make it the biggest-selling DVD to date. The current record holder is the special edition of MGM's ``Tomorrow Never Dies.'' ``Titanic'' berths on DVD Aug. 31, so it will be an extremely tough competition between the two.
(information from Yahoo! News)