BatchCCEWS 0.9.0.9 now supports every CCE version above 2.67.00.08. CloneDVD 1.2.8.4 can remove user option prohibitions and fixes a couple of bugs and issues.

The German audio / video fair IFA used to be a place for audiophiles, but this year we see a considerable amount of action that appeals even to computer video enthusiasts. The German mag c't managed to interview Gej (creator of the original DivX ;) for those who are unfamiliar with the alias). Apparently, DivX5.1 is about to be released (and those of you who tested the island named betas know what's in store for them), and come Christmas, Dr. DivX 1.5 will add subtitles embedded in AVI files. The next DivX release is tentatively named Q and will be a combination of video and audio codec and its own container. The audio codec will most likely be licensed and the container isn't mandatory like in RV9 and WMV9 (okay, there's an AVI flavor of the latter and both can be put into Matroska). Q is supposed to be released in Q2/Q3 2004.
I also read a test of Philips' DivX capable DVD player. It's the first to use the first DivX certified chipset (not from Sigma), and apparently, that chipset is somewhat superior to the Sigma one. While GMC and QPel are still problematic, DivX3 support seems to be considerably better than on Sigma based devices. On the subject of DivX capable DVD player, the pioneer in that area, Kiss Technologies, has announced a bunch of new players with integrated HD, optional WLAN and in a smaller format factor. It is also rumored that Kiss will start selling a DivX capable DVD player with integrated DVD recorder soon.

Then a found an interesting piece of DVD burner information (if true.. I can't manage to find a press release.. I wished those were more readily available; it gets harder and harder to verify information these days): NEC will roll out their 8x DVD burner generation in December. The ND-2300A writes DVD±R at 8x (the first 8x DVD-R burner I've heard of), DVD±RW at 4x (once again, first burner to do DVD-RW at 4x), CD-Rs at 32x and CD-RWs at 24x, making it by far the fastest burner.

DVD2SVCD 1.2.1 build 1 is out. It supports dual audio AVI input, supports DVD -> DVD±R encoding (authoring requires Scenarist), a basic AviSynth script editor has been added, and AviSynth script support has been improved. There's also a couple of bugfixes. SubRip 1.17.1 adds SSA export and supports drag&drop in the subtitles window.

Last but not least, a reader has informed me of the English press release about the latest Philips DVD burner.

AC3Filter 0.70b should offer better quality, especially on low bitrate content and has an improved DPLII downmix matrix. DVD Plus Identifier is a program to read certain unique disc parameters from DVD+R/W discs, making it the first one to offer the same capabilities as have been available for DVD-R/W media for a while.

And while I think this won't get too many of you excited, its implications are still interesting: Tritton Technologies is the 2nd company to sell a DVD backup product via retail. It will be interesting to see whether the MPAA will sue them for distributing DVD CopyWare, just like they did with 321 Studio's DVDXCopy.

BatchCCEWS is the successor of DoCCE4U. Version 0.9.0.8 contains a SVCD calculator, supports CCE up to version 2.67.00.11 and has a rudimentary AVS file editor built-in.

Then we have a few new DVD recorders: BenQ's DW800A is a 8x/4x DVD+R/W burner offering the same kind of technical data as the already announced Plextor burner: 4x/2x DVD-R/W burning, 24x/10x CD-R/W burning and 12x/40x DVD/CD reading. The Philips DVDRW824 (strangely enough Philips only has a German press release) offers the same technical data. And while we're on the subject of Philips, they've shown their first DVD player supporting DivX at the IFA.

The DVD CCA court case about DeCSS infringing trade secrets, the Californian supreme court ruled that the preliminary injunction granted in 2000 against the distribution of DeCSS is not in violation of the defendant's free speech right, and the case will go back to a lower court. Both sides somehow trumpet this as a success when it is neither. Only time will tell where this will go..

Last but not least, Intervideo has announced a DVD audio pack for their software DVD player WinDVD, making it the first software only solution to play DVD Audio on a regular PC.

Pinnacle has released a new version of their InstantCopy software. InstantCopy 8 (so far the press release is only available in German) has a new direct-to-disc function, which allows burning while encoding is still ongoing, thus reducing the harddisk space requirements considerably. There's also a new high speed mode allowing to copy and burn at 4x speed (the press release does not mention whether this applies to the actual burning or if encoding will only take 1/4 of the time it usually takes) and removing certain playback items is finally officially supported and won't have to be activated via registry hacks. Finally, InstantDrive is a virtual DVD drive allowing you to mount the InstantCopy output and preview it in a software DVD player. As with version 7, InstantCopy is also available as part of the InstantCD/DVD program suite. InstantCD/DVD offers VCD and SVCD output in addition to DVD±R output and also supports copying audio CDs

Besides that, ZoomPlayer 3.20 beta 2 has been released, as well as the eXtreme Movie Manager 1.9 build 1. The latter adds CVS file import, has an improved rebuilt database function and a couple of bugfixes.

Seems like the summer hole has finally made its appearance. While there was a free, but spyware laden DVDFab alternative that has shown up recently in the 1 click forums, other interesting software has not been released, but there are a few on the horizon that should soon make the headlines. In the meantime, let us have a look at the legal side:

MPAA and RIAA will appeal a court ruling which allowed the P2P system Grokster to remain on the air, since it permits non copyright infringing use (thus following previous cases where the same argument was used - Sony Vs Universal (AKA the Betamax case), and CBS Vs Amstrad). For the industry groups, P2P tools are the root of all evil and they'll probably won't stop until they've uprooted all of them. The RIAA has also pledged to not go after "small traders" in their current subpoena and suing P2P users spree. But nobody really knows what a small trader is.

Also, it's time to visit Windowsupdate and update your virus signatures because a few evil worms and email viruses are on the loose again. And do not open any emails with attachments if you don't know the sender, or if you do know him/her, look at the mail header and the body and ask yourself: does this person usually write mails like this? If the answer is no, delete the mail immediately. If in doubt, better pick up the phone and ask because once you execute that attachment, you your system will be infected. The best virus scanner is only as effective as its virus signatures, and usually the signature update comes after a virus has started spreading on a large scale. There is simply no replacement for patching your system and being cautious when dealing with email attachments.

The Core Media Player team has informed me that they'll be increasing their update rhythm and release a new build roughly every week. Build 44 has a new mass tagger in the media library and an option to keep the video window size constant, plus various bugfixes. DVD Shrink 3.0 beta 4 fixes a fast forward / reverse bug which affected video set to automatic mode and the automated shutdown.

In hardware news, the KISS DP-500 DVD player is the first DivX certified hardware DVD / DivX player. As other DVD/DivX players it plays DivX3/4/5 and XviD, but suffers from the same limitations as its brethren, most notably, choppy playback of high bitrate DivX3 content, no QPel support for either DivX5 or XviD, problems with multiple B-frames in XviD unless packet bitstream is used, and no XviD GMC support. For a full listing of what DivX certification involved, please visit the official DivX website.

Last but not least I came across some interesting Linux news. First of all, the infamous SCO is going to argue that the GPL is invalid in their case against IBM. This could have effects even in our domain, as many of the tools we use today are GPL, and many improvements have only been possible because the applications are open source. And the Linux distributor Lindows is now selling a licensed software DVD player for Linux. The player appears to be Xine, plus some DVD CCA licensed CSS descrambling code.

Ahead has released a new version of Recode: v0.9.5.1 fixes the delete bug and creates both AUDIO_TS and VIDEO_TS in uppercase. Furthermore there's a priority option in the burning dialogue, the program can shut down the PC after burning and a preview is being displayed during encoding.