AviSynth 2.57 final has finally been released. There have been no changes since the third release candidate.
VobBlanker 2.1.3.0 has entered beta stage. The new release can split pre cells, shows GOP type and the elapsed time in a cell in the preview and there are a few bugfixes.
DGMPGDec 1.4.9 beta 9 is out. There are a few bugfixes and changes in the AviSynth script creation and the info dialog shows the stream type.
WMVMuxer is a windows media format encoder / muxer. It can mux and encode any format with the appropriate DirectShow filters along with demuxing and it offers access to VC-1 as well as the WMV and WMA codec family.
HD DVD is going SATA: Toshiba's SD-H903A HD DVD recorder, scheduled for release in February, is the first high def format drive to support the latest in I/O connectivity. Even though it marks the second generation, the technical data is not too impressive: 1x HD DVD-R recording with no support for RW or dual layer discs goes along with DVD / CD burning capabilities that are several steps behind what current DVD burners offer today. Then again, the first few generations of DVD burners were not terribly impressive in the CD burning arena either.
CSS burning is definitely coming our way this year: Sonic's Qflix program provides an end to end solution for burning downloaded content onto DVDs, along with CSS. Since it requires new software, blanks and recorders, the system will first be used in retail kiosks.
Long rumored, then denied, but it appears that hybrid HD DVD / Blu-ray players are finally in the making. LG should announce a dual format player at CES next week.
Meanwhile, studios are taking another approach: Warner's Total HD disc would deliver HD content in both formats.
It's been speculation for long how much the RIAA gets per downloaded songs. The RIAA is trying to keep the exact number a secret, no doubt because it would confirm that they get a higher margin (and thus basically rip off customers by giving them a lesser product for the same price as the better product - an audio CD - and still make more money at doing so), but they've had to confirm at least the price range in one of their recent anti P2P lawsuits: it's around $0.70.
Amidst speculation on how AACS keys can be extracted for use in BackupHDDVD, Cyberlink has announced that their player doesn't leak [link goes to a German source]
As if the Euro DMCA wasn't enough, the industry lapdog in the EU parliament and wife of media giant Vivendi's CEO, is trying to change EU copyright law again to criminalize every case of infringement [German source]. Wouldn't it be great to jail several dozen millions of EU citizens because they downloaded a song from a P2P network? I hope there are enough sane people in parliament to realize that our courts should better deal with real criminals.
Last but not least, 2006 didn't end too well for Apple. The antitrust lawsuit against the DRM put on songs downloaded from iTunes will go ahead in 2007. |
