DGAVCDecNV beta 9 contains a lot of fixes.

DVDFab HD Decrypter 6.0.5.2 now handles the the latest Blu-ray discs with MKBv14 support. BD+ is still missing though.

For those preferring not to use bleeding edge betas, there's now a new official release of MPC-HC (quite possibly the best freeware media player for Windows out there). The release 1.3.1249 has an option to remove tearing, supports hardware assisted decoding of AVC and VC-1 content, has better support for Vista and 64bit Windows than the trusted old MPC, supports the EVR renderer, contains many bugs and vulnerability fixes and of course supports all the features the trusted old MPC has. Having used MPC-HC over MPC for a while now I can only strongly recommend an upgrade.

Blu-ray Region Tray Tool is a small tool that sits in the tray and allows you to set the Blu-ray region of popular Blu-ray software players with only one click.

Avisynth 2.6.0 alpha 1 is the first public release of the latest development train.

ProgDVB 6.12.1 contains bugfixes for IPTV and improves stability overall.

DivX 7.2.1 is out - no changelog yet though.

The Pirate Bay - which might not be around in its current form anyway at the cutoff date - will be blocked by Irish ISP eircom starting September 1st. I guess it's time to switch ISPs right about now if you've used the site in the past..

AviDemux 2.5.1 re-enables various video and audio encoders that were disabled in version 2.50, uses up-to-date ffmpeg libraries, contains various improvements for various codecs and there are some improvements in the GTK+ interface as well.

We all know that these days, getting access to copyrighted content prior to its official sanctioned release (by the RIAA or MPAA) is going to happen inevitably - it's just that sometimes, the source of the leak comes from unlikely source - the artists themselves: the latest RadioHead track to leak into P2P networks was actually leaked by the artists themselves. The band noted that they hoped the fans liked their latest work ;)

Just in case you haven't noticed - political affiliations play no role in politics when it comes to copyright law - Hollywood might be left, but their guys in congress are just as much pro copyright as the big business friendly right - so it should come as no surprise that Obama's department of justice comes down on the RIAA's side of the 1.92 million ruling against Jammie Thomas-Rasset.

And in what is going to be a serious headache for the RIAA, the singer of the band Morrisey asks fans not to buy their latest "release" since all the money earned will go into the pockets of their label, and the band won't make any money of it. Yeah, it's really all about the artists, isn't it?

New business models are generally bad, right? At least that's Fox'es take on the Redbox DVD rental service in the US. Apparently, 1$ is just too little (even though it's none of their business how much a rental service charges) so Fox has instructed their subsidiaries to delay new releases for the outfit for at least 30 days. And, Warner has just joined the party. How dare they charge whatever they feel will make them a profit without asking us to approve the amount of such a charge?

Expect to see more Disney Blu-ray releases that come with a DVD options- according to Video Business, the Blu-ray + DVD option is here to stay at least through 2010.

Is Australia joining the ranks of copyright industry friendly nations? according to the Australian EFF chapter, that's exactly what the latest governmental proposal (dubbed Telecommunication Interception and Access Amendment Bill of 2009) in copyright reform is all about.

Then we have Canada under an constant onslaught of US sponsored attempts to pass a more copyright industry friendly copyright legislation. Currently, the Canadian government is holding public consultations on copyright reform, so if you live in the great (white) north, it's time to visit the Canadian Coalition for Electronic Right's website and send their pre-made letter voicing concerns about the direction the current consultation is taking to the government - being on a US watchlist is actually a good thing when it comes to copyright law so make sure your country stays there.

Finally, the poor artists that are cheated out of their money have once again sided with those dirty pirates - Swedish Artist Magnus Uggla has gone on record saying that he'd rather be "raped" by The Pirate Bay than receiving virtually no payment for the "legit" music service Spotify. So, it's all about the artists, right? Then what's the company line of the artist doesn't fall in line?

MKVToolNix 2.9.8 sports a considerable speedup in processing of large files in the header editor and there are many bugfixes as well.

It's about time I mention multiAVCHD again - the last two revisions saw one-click HD DVD authoring and a real-time transcode preview.

Finally, Lenovo's Q700 series makes for an interesting HTPC - featuring a 2.5GHz Core2 Duo CPU along with an Intel GMA X4500 GFX chip which should be just enough for Blu-ray playback (though personally I much prefer the nVidia 9400M series.. you get CUDA and all). There are but two problems: no Blu-ray option, and unfortunately, the guys with the 30" behemoths are left out in the cold again (I'm not aware of any device to implement HDMI in the version that can handle 2560x1600 - Dell claims my screen can, but there's no GFX card to actually try it out).

ac3Filter 1.63b has a command line interface for the ac3config utility, comes with a Swedish translation and fixes a few bugs.

DivX has been busy these days - they've released the first beta of their AAC encoder, along with the second beta of their commandline AVC encoder.

Finally, the same judge who killed Napster (you already know what's coming next, right) has followed up the temporary injunction against Real's RealDVD with another preliminary injunction (did the first one run out?) that keeps the status quo (so RealDVD still cannot be sold). You gotta love the "Ukrainian hackers" (Greg.. my gut and my spellchecker says that's with an i after the first a.. the country is called Ukraine) bit.. did we all of a sudden forget that RipGuard and ARccOS both have and continue to be beaten only days after the studios come up with yet another way to mess up perfectly good DVDs?

ProgDVB 6.11.4 contains a completely reworked autoupdate function and download / import of XMLTV and JVT tables as well as improving the channel list.

How would you like to get your Blu-ray on several weeks before the release of the corresponding DVD? Paramount is doing just that with the upcoming "Dance Flick".

Suing The Pirate Bay seems to be all the rage these days - the latest attempt comes from Italy.

Finally, the second P2P trial is over - and the verdict will make the RIAA very happy: guilty and the defendant has been ordered to pay $675'000, or $22'500 per song. Not quite as outlandish as the result of the Jammie Thomas retrial, though still way out there.

Older news can be found here.