Topic: News

The prices for CD-R discs will rise moderately to US$0.20-0.25 (12p-15p) in 2004, compared with US$0.20-0.22 (12p-13p) currently, according to sources at leading Taiwan-based suppliers.

Sony Music, home to such artists as Beyonce Knowles and Bruce Springsteen, says it plans to introduce new CD technology in Germany that prevents users from copying songs to file-sharing sites, but allows them to make copies for their personal use.

The multimillion-pound black market in bootleg films and CDs in Scotland is thriving because prosecutors let criminals off the hook, it was claimed last night.

At an Apple financial analyst conference on Wednesday CEO Steve Jobs admitted that Apple makes no revenue from the online download service, the iTunes Music Store, that he launched in April. As iTMS is the leading download service, with 80 per cent market share (or so Jobs claimed), where's your 99 cents per song going?

Fuji have said it plans to raise prices on its recordable compact discs by 10-15 percent, citing supply shortages because of an increased demand for DVD discs. The price rise in CD-R and CD-RW media by Fuji, best known for its camera film, follows similar announcements in recent months from rivals Memorex and Maxell of America.

More than a million households deleted all the digital music files they had saved on their PCs in August — a sign that the record industry's anti-piracy tactics are hitting home, said research company NPD Group.

Included in Pioneers new slate of consumer and professional-grade writers and recorders are units that utilize TiVo's time-shifting technology. At a list price of $1,199 (£714) the less expensive of the two models, the DVR-810H-S, ships with an 80 gigabyte hard-drive and up to 10x write speed with a CD-RW. A one hour television program can be recorded to a 4x DVD-R disc in about 2 ½ minutes.

The US Federal government have approved an anti-piracy mechanism that will make it harder for computer users to illegally distribute digital TV programs on the Internet. The goal is to speed the transition to higher quality digital broadcasts and ensure such programming remains free.

Sony Computer Entertainment chief Ken Kutaragi yesterday revealed the company's prototype design for its upcoming Playstation Portable (PSP) handheld gaming console.

Expect double-layer, almost double-capacity DVD+R drives and media to hit the stores next April, members of the DVD+RW alliance say. The technology, co-developed by drive maker Philips, and media specialists Verbatim and Mitsubishi Kagaku, adds a second recording layer to a standard-thickness DVD+R disc, taking the medium's capacity from 4.7GB to 8.5GB.

Sony is cutting the price of its popular PlayStation 2 games console in Japan by 20 per cent, in an effort to boost sales ahead of the critical Christmas season.

When you're shopping for a new TV, Dell and Gateway may not be the first names that come to mind. They're well-known for their PCs, but should you buy a TV from them? Consider this: Soon, PC makers are likely to offer more cutting-edge TV products than most consumer electronics vendors--and to sell them at a lower price.

French electronics maker Thomson SA and China's TCL International Holdings have said they will combine their TV and DVD businesses to create the world's biggest television maker.

Taiwan's suppliers of DVD drives could have the opportunity of repeating the past performance of CD-RW era by overtaking international competitors in 2004 in high-speed models as most of them have shifted focus to the development 12x and 16x drives.

When Nokia launched its N-Gage console/phone, it was keen that mobile phone networks shouldn't subsidise the handset and thus limit the scope for games retailers to offer the product competitively. That was the plan anyway but now a UK newspaper is offering what is claimed to be "the biggest invention in gaming since the joystick" for 1p.

Some buyers of Symantec's latest security package have been unable to use the software after its product-activation technology malfunctioned. A few consumers have complained to Symantec that the US and British versions of a package that includes Norton Antivirus 2004, Norton Internet Security 2004, Norton Antispam 2004 and Norton SystemWorks 2004 mistakenly asks for a product activation code every time a PC is rebooted. Eventually, the software informs the consumers that they have reached the activation limit and the software will cease to function.

DVD players are one of the most successful consumer electronics products of all time, and the DVD market has seen unprecedented growth since their debut in 1997. Largely driven by rapidly falling component prices, DVD playback has been integrated into a wide array of consumer electronics devices. According to a new report from IDC, this trend will continue with DVD recording functionality during the 2002 to 2007 forecast period. DVD recording will be a fundamental driver of the DVD market as the average selling price of DVD recorders falls from $699 (£415) in 2002 to $126 (£75) in 2007, and dual playback and recording functionality quickly become the default feature set of DVD players, just as they have been for VCRs.

Our regular contributor Flash has sent us great news of a new and improved Pioneer flasher. The DVD guru says, "Following the success of the flashing of the OEM Pioneer 106 drives made by ASUS, ACER & TEAC I am pleased to be part of the testing team from The Firmware Forum of the Universal Pioneer Flashing Tool. The tool developed by Agent Smith will flash all Pioneer A05/105 & A06/106 to any firmware of your choice." Click for more details before you download it from our download section.

Epson has introduced the Stylus Photo R800, the latest in its new line of photo printers. It has built-in CD/DVD printing capabilities for printing directly onto inkjet printable CDs or DVDs using the printer's straight-through paper path.

Press release: About two dozen manufacturers have announced plans to introduce new DVD recorders using the DVD+R/+RW recording format, the DVD+RW Alliance announced today. According to the manufacturers' announcements many of the new recorders will be available in time for this year's Christmas holiday season.