Topic: News

Sony boss Ken Kutaragi has confirmed that the PlayStation 3 will feature backwards compatibility with the PS2 and PSone, ensuring continued support for older software formats in the new hardware.

JVC, Samsung and Sony have all used the IFA conference in Berlin to reveal their Blu-Ray recorders. Blu-Ray uses a blue-violet laser (hence the name) which has a much shorter wavelength when compared to today's optical storage media working with a red laser. Because of the shorter wavelenth the capacity of a Blu-Ray disc is around 25 GigaByte, more than five times as much as a recordable DVD.

A new DivX and DivX Pro version have been released and according to DivX this is the biggest improvement ever, even bigger than the jump from DivX 4.1.2 to DivX 5.0. Besides the new DivX version a new DivX Player version has also been released yesterday which is included in DivX 5.1 or available as separate download.

There’s hope for all the mistreated, abused and worn-out CDs and DVDs of the world. They can be salvaged, those nagging pops, clicks, skips and scratches repaired, by a little gadget called the SkipDoctor by Digital Innovations. The SkipDoctor has been around awhile, but it’s now available in an updated motorized version (about $50 ~ £32) that makes it even easier to repair digital discs, whether it’s a CD, DVD, CDROM or video game. It also repairs 3-inch Nintendo discs without the adapter required by previous Skip-Doctors.

Roxio is now shipping Toast 6 Titanium, an update to its CD and DVD authoring solution announced last month. The boxed version ($100 ~ £63) will ship in 3-5 business days, while the downloadable version ($90 ~ £58) is available now.

LaCie have announced a very stylish new range of external dual format DVD drives that are designed by F.A. Porsche. The drives support both DVD-RW and DVD+RW and are available with either USB 2.0 or FireWire connectivity. It is also offering the 52x CD-RW drive in the same stylish design with both FW and USB 2.0 connectivity. The FireWire DVD±RW Drives include Sonic MyDVD Video Suite, ArcSoft ShowBiz, and Toast Lite for Mac.

A new Sony hard-disk based video recorder will go on sale in Japan in November, capable of recording for two weeks nonstop, the company said Tuesday. The Cocoon CSV-EX11 uses a pair of 250G-byte hard disk drives to record up to 342 hours (over two weeks) of video in the lowest of three quality modes. Standard mode cuts this to 171 hours, while high quality mode reduces this further to a still-respectable 114 hours -- or just under five days.

Taiwan-based IC designer Realtek Semiconductor today announced the launch of the ALC850, claiming it to be the world’s first eight-channel AC’97 Rev 2.3 audio codec.

For those of you old enough to remember the heady early days of computing when so-called experts were widely predicting the dawn of the paperless office there comes a similar claim about CD and DVD. Forrester Research have predicted a steep fall in CD sales, as audio and video file sharing over the Internet continues to emerge as a preferred option among consumers.

Philips has developed a re-writable optical disk-based, Portable Blue standard and it is something to behold. Already able to hold 1000 megs, they claim the ability to increase the storage capacity to "several gigabytes" with a dual layer disk, already in development. Will it undermine the solid-state rivals such as Secure Digital, Compact Flash and Memory Stick? A PC card housing for the Portable Blue disks has also been developed and Philips intends to use a storage housing that will fit into existing Compact Flash slots. So they have their sites set on the solid state market.

ATI has finally decided what it will call the R360 and now it's no secret anymore. ATI had two names for this technology from the beginning. One was Radeon 9900 PRO the only step left for this generation of cards, and the other the Radeon 9800XT.

Whether you just got a new PC with a DVD burner, or you bought a drive to add to your system, chances are you've run into the same roadblock as consumers everywhere: The availability of blank media from suppliers doesn't match the speed rating on your new drive.

Primera, a leading manufacturer of CD and DVD duplicators and printers, have announced it's integration of DVD-R and DVD+R recording formats for the Composer and Bravo lines of CD/DVD duplicators.

During the IFA press conference of the DVD+RW alliance we noticed that currently Toshiba and Panasonic are also listed as producers of DVD+RW drives. The two companies were both supporters of the DVD-RW format, and Panasonic is best known for promoting their DVD-RAM standard. Both companies have not joined the DVD+RW alliance, the group that is promoting the DVD+RW standard, but have bought the licenses to manufacture DVD+RW drives.

In the high-tech industry's ongoing quest to shrink electronics, Panasonic staked a claim Friday in the category of smallest camcorder. Panasonic announced it is the first to make a pocket-sized digital camcorder that can record DVD-quality video onto a removable flash memory card. The gadget, called the SV-AV100, is due to be available in October for $999.95 (£637).

Archos is about to release the AV300 series, the next generation of portable video/image/MP3 player based off of the Archos Jukebox Multimedia. Features include a 3.8" LCD screen for viewing movies and photos, FM tuner, MP3 playing and recording, 20GB or 40GB HD models, USB2.0 (optional Firewire) connection, TV-out, MPEG-4 encoding from a video/audio-in signal, digital photo (3.3 megapixel) and video camera, and much more.

The DVD+RW Alliance has announced 8-speed write specifications for its optical format, claiming the fastest current write speed in the world. Devices designed to the 8-speed specification will write at 88Mbits/sec, claims the association, taking less than 10 minutes to write a full disc. Currently the -R format is limited to 4-speed.

Pioneer Electronics has the solution to the high-end audio format war; just put them all in the same unit. The company has begun shipping the DV-563A, a universal DVD player that offers both DVD video, DVD-Audio and Sony's Super Audio CD (SACD) support, plus MP3 playback.

InterVideo has announced the first software solution that fully supports the DVD-Audio functionality of Creative Labs' Sound Blaster Audigy 2 series of sound cards. The DVD-Audio Pack will be an option in InterVideo's WinDVD 5 Gold and Platinum DVD player software.

Film fans are being ripped off over DVD prices, consumer watchdogs have warned. The falling cost of DVD players has sparked huge demand for the digital discs which are rapidly overtaking the popularity of video cassettes. But major retail outlets are deliberately keeping the cost of DVDs artificially high.