ChopperXP 2.51 contains some bugfixes, has a resizeable window and saved VOB files start with a navigational pack.

And the case 321studios Vs MPAA is going to court next Friday.

DVD2One 1.1.3 has an improved layer break removal in full disc copy mode. There's also a DVD2One version for Mac OS X now, called DVD2OneX. As it's Windows counterpart it's not freeware.

On the hardware side, Intel finally released the 800MHz FSB P4s, lowered prices, while AMD released the Opteron Server CPU and also lowered CPU prices considerably. Many hardware manufacturers are readying products based on the new processors, including mainboards, chipsets and whole server solutions (the latter of course only for the Opteron).

Sony has released a new firmware for the DRU500A/X DVD burner. v2.0f improves audio CD playback. So far the patch has only been released on the Japanese Sony support pages, I simply extracted the changelog from a very bad automatic translation.

AccessTek (have you ever heard of that brand before?) has announced a new DVD burner, the DD0203. It supports both DVD-R/W and DVD+R/W at today's maximum speed (4x/2x for -R/W and 4x/2.4x for +R/W), 24x CD-R writing, 10 CD-RW writing and 12x/40x DVD/CD reading speed. As a bonus it supports the HD-BURN format allowing you to burn twice as much data on a regular CD-R as usual. It isn't that simple though, to read such discs you need a DVD-ROM or burner (CD-anything is a no go) which supports HD Burn (currently none except for the abovementioned burner) and to write it you also need a DVD burner supporting HD-BURN (once again, only one drive available yet). You can discuss this development in the forum.

ZoomPlayer 3.0 has been released. As previously mentioned, there are now two releases. The standard release, which is available for free from this very site, and the professional edition which includes DVD front-end playback capabilities and requires registration after an evaluation period. As usual a complete changelog can be found on the official homepage.

The extensive IVTC / deinterlacing basis document written by forum moderators has also been updated. It has 2 major new sections, one explaining the pros and cons of various deinterlacing filters and another one explaining the inner workings of DVD2AVI.

DVD2AVI 1.77.4 offers all features of 1.77.3 (except non working clip/resize and the additional IDCTs in 1.77.3 are not supported) while writing 1.76 compatible project files, so it can be used with the regular mpeg2dec.dll. ZoomPlayer 3.0 RC3 has also been released.

DivX 5.04 has some rate control improvements that should lead to more consistent quality, should no longer crash on K6-2 CPUs (does anybody still use those?), many CLI options have been resolved, synch problems when seeking have been eliminated, the MPEG-4 type indicator is correctly set according to the selected encoding parameters, the green first frame at high bitrates is gone, Nth Pass has been improved and should use less high quantizers (high quantizer = low quality) and the brightness and saturation sliders should work properly now. A full changelog can be found here. As usual there are two releases: the standard release supporting MPEG-4 simple profile and the Pro release supporting MPEG-4 advanced simple profile.

AC3Filter 0.68b allows for the deletion of presets and saving/loading of settings, has a system configuration property page, indicates output level overflows and supports time shifting to correct asynch audio. ScenChap 1.28 is a bugfix release and should eliminate an error message that could pop up when an internal chapter length checking routine would throw a fit. A new beta of AviSynth 2.51 has been posted which includes updates to conditional filtering. At the same address you can also find a build of ffvfw which allows you to open AviSynth scripts in virtually any application supporting AVI files. Gordian Knot 0.28 beta has been released. It comes as an installer including all the additional tools you need, and they also have a codec installer with all the codecs you might require ready.

Last but not least, here's a Pioneer document on DVD-R writing speeds. It looks like firmware updates to support new media will no longer be necessary with 4x DVD-Rs as the writing strategy for those discs is available on the disc, rather than having to be available in the drive's firmware.

Robot4Rip 0.4 fixes a bug when vStrip is used for ripping, full copy mode of the latest DVD Decrypter can be used as alternative to ISO mode and the French translation has been included.

ZDNet has a semi-interesting article entitled about commercial DVD -> DVD-R tools called "DVD copying: the good, the bad, the rip-offs". They warn you about a few tools not to get but fail to have a look at commercial transcoding programs like IC7, DVD2One or DVD95Copy and of course the free DVD Shrink. All those 4 programs are not rip-offs either (though you can debate on quality). And as a free competitor to DVDXCopy we'd have DVDToolbox.

DoCCE4U 1.0.0.9 beta allows you to set the field order of the output, chapter points are now stored in the registry, during the first pass no mpv is created which speeds up the process, logging capabilities have been added (post the logfile when you have problems) and some program version checks have been added, which will warn you if you use a CCE version different from 2.50 and AviSynth higher than 2.08 (those programs may currently not be used). DVDToolbox 0.13.0 allows substreams (audio and subtitles) to be chosen in the content picker.

I've written a DVD Shrink guide. It deals with full movie backups, main movie only backups and DVDs containing multiple episodes, so pretty much everything you can do using DVD Shrink. And while I was at it, I finally made use of my DVD2one key and wrote a guide for it, too. Last but not least I have gone over the DVD burning section and added instructions on how to use InstantCD/DVD to burn your DVD files.

Owners of the TEAC DV-W50E rejoice: Your drive is a rebadged Pioneer 105 drive and here's the trick how to turn your drive into an original Pioneer drive and reap the benefits of the available firmwares for Pioneer drives.

And we have some more upcoming translations: Hungarian and Turkish. Please follow the appropriate link if this is something you could help out with. These projects have just been started and they can use a lot of volunteers.

I have added DVD Shrink 1.02 to the software archive so you won't have to go hunting for mirrors anymore. The latest GKnot 0.28 alpha also has a very interesting feature: It now supports XviD.

On the hardware side we have some very exciting news as well. There's a Pioneer 105/A05 firmware that allows to read CSS encrypted DVDs at more than 2x and this finally proves what I've long suspected: Some DVD drives are forced to only read CSS encrypted DVDs at low speed. If this is to prevent stressing the drive and to keep noise levels down during DVD playback, or just to make your life harder when trying to rip DVD is still to be determined though.

DVD Shrink is yet another "make your DVD fit a DVD-R" tool, but with a devious twist: It's fast, it's well featured and it's free! I have only had a quick look so far but from what I've seen it's not surprising that the download at the official site is completely clogged. You will find alternative download locations in the forum where you can also find an ongoing discussion on the program.

Then we also have a new mirror: Simplified Chinese. If you're wondering about the domain name (and the one for Traditional Chinese as well) let me explain: GB and Big5 are two commonly used character sets for Simplified and Traditional Chinese respectively.

VCDEasy 1.1.5 features project saving and loading, reusable MPEG analyze information, an anti flickering option has been added to the MPEG stills option, additional compliance tests have been added and most settings not directly related to a VCD project have been moved to a settings dialogue. DVD2SVCD 1.1.3 build 2 contains a small bugfix for a SimpleResize problem the initial 1.1.3 release was having. Media Player Classic 6.4.4.2 fixes crashing OGMs when Vorbis sound was used and removes the popup message dialogue from the AVI-AC3 handler filter.

If you're waiting for the TV capture guide I have some good news: I have the guide on my harddisk, it's just a matter of having a quick look and integrating it which should happen this weekend.

The guys over at the firmware page have compiled a nice FAQ about flashing the Pioneer A05 / 105 burner. It also contains a link to a hacked firmware allowing 2x burning using Ritek G03 disks. Keep in mind though that burning these discs at 2x dramatically increases the error rate. You may not notice it, but there's no telling if the disc won't suddenly fail at some later point.

Oh, and keep in mind what date it is today. If my competition claims I'm retiring then it's a joke ;)