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Date |
News |
1/31 |
BSPlayer
1.00 RC1 build 805 supports AVI embedded srt subtitles and multiple
audio streams in MPEG files, subtitles in OGG files have been reintroduced
and subtitles in Matroska files have been added, it is now possible
to assign two keys to every action, there is a fast forward and
rewind option and a lot of bugs have been fixed.
While I haven't managed to write a DVB guide yet (but I'm definitely
working on it), here are two tools that will soon be featured in
a guide: ProjectX 0.81.6int10 is a PVA and MPG processing tool that
comes in very handy when demuxing captured DVB streams. MPEG2Schnitt
(Schnitt is German for cut) is a very nice utility to cut MPEG-2
streams and associated MP2 and AC3 audio streams so that you can
cut out ads from your digital TV captures. Thanks to bb for the
English translation.
The 48h DVDs seem to be once again failing: (remember the original
DIVX pay per use system that also had a 48h viewing window) Stores
are beginning to pull EZ-D discs because they don't sell well
and tend to upset more environmentally concerned customers.
It seems that when 12x and 16x DVD burners will be introduces,
we'll once again have to wait for the media: While 12x burners have
been announced for CeBIT (March), the largest Taiwanese disc manufacturer
- CMC Magnetics - only
plans to introduce 12x blanks in the 3rd quarter, to be followed
by 16x discs in the 4th quarter of 2004.
And as I've promised, here are a few more free virus scanners:
AVG
Free Edition and AntiVir
Personal Edition. mrbass has compiled a complete list of free
offerings (only the CA one is missing) which you can find here.
And on the subject of firewalls, here are two free alternatives:
Kerio
Personal Firewall and ZoneAlarm.
|
1/30 |
Just after loosing the 2nd time in court, MPAA
hench-organization Økokrim is now being sued by Jon Johansen.
The pendulum can swing both ways...
We'll be seeing a lot of interesting DVD products at CeBIT 2004.
Besides the eagerly awaited dual layer DVD±R burners, manufacturers
will also jump to the next speed level by releasing 12x burners.
LG is the first to announce their GSA-4120B drive which burns DVD+R
at 12x, DVD-R at 8x and DVD+R/W at 4x. It also supports DVD-RAM,
but I think that's of little consequence for most of you.
Last but not least, the MyDoom
email worm is official the worst ever and I'm getting flooded
by hundreds of infected emails on a daily basis, even on my semiprivate
address that's only known to a handful of people. Now, I'd like
to ask everyone of you to please do something against this mess.
It is up to everyone of you to think a little before opening email
attachments. Do not mindlessly click on everything that comes your
way, spend some time thinking if you should actually read an email,
let alone open an attachment. Emails with titles like "hello",
"hi", "help" or the likes are not something
you want to read. I'm sure the people you know are more imaginative
than to pick such subjects, plus if you don't know the sender you
should apply extra care. It actually doesn't even take a virus scanner
to avoid all this mess, being careful with emails works just fine
(the author has lived through every email worm there has been so
far using that strategy). However, it is still a good idea to protect
yourself (but the best amount of protection can't replace the human
brain) so here's my download tip for today: Get get eTrust
EZ Armor Security Suite by Computer Associates. As part of Microsoft's
Security Initiative (okay, they should write better code) you get
one year of virus updates for free, which is certainly a good start.
So, do yourself and your fellow Internet users a big favor by making
sure that you won't be the one to contribute to the next epidemic.
I'll continue here tomorrow with more free offers in the Antivirus
and Firewall area which is really a must for every Windows user.
|
1/28 |
3ivX has released 3ivX
D4 4.5.1. It contains a directshow encoder offering more features
than the VfW one, supports variable framerate (urgh), automatic PAR
support allowing you to crop and resize as you wish but the original
aspect ratio of the movie will be kept (well.. I suppose at least
if you scale down the video linearly and then crop), supports MPEG-4
PAR in AVI files in both encoding, playback and muxing. The playback
filter also supports chapters in MP4. The full changelog can be found
here.
|
1/27 |
AviSynth 2.5.4 has a new function for overlay, allowing to put
arbitrary videos on top of each other, SSRC has been added to the
audio functions as well as a 16 band equalizer, and there are a
couple
of additional functions and a bunch of bugfixes as well. There
is also an official AviSynth script editor now called AVSEdit.
AutoGK
0.90 limits the minimum bitrate to 80 kbps, supports secondary
audio (hidden by default, press CTRL-F10 to enable it) and uses
a color delimiter to prevent green color rips.
TitleSetBlanker
is a small program which can help to remove unwanted titles in a
DVD backup (such as copyright notices, trailers, etc.).
What has already happened and has been announced for the UK (and
recently as a general thereat by the IFPI - the international version
of the RIAA) is now about to happen in France as well: The music
industry blames
lackluster sales on P2P downloads and gears up to sue. And that's
not all for France. A new proposed law, LEN
for short, could lead to limited access to a lot of websites and
pretty much forces ISP to pre-censor what their users have access
to. It also makes it easier for big corporations to shut down websites
by reversing due process (plaintiff is no longer required to prove
the accused of being guilty, instead it works the other way round).
|
1/26 |
DVD Shrink 3.1.4 fixes a couple of minor bugs and performance enhancements.
XviD
1.0 RC1, codenamed Niltze, has been released. It contains a
cleaned up VfW GUI, fixes color space assignment problems, the weighed
zones should have been fixed, the VfW status window has been overhauled,
fast first pass now disables QPel during the first pass, the codec
checks for statsfile existence before starting the 2nd pass, the
installer deletes old XviD configurations and some issues in the
postprocessing department have also been fixed.
Media Player Classic 6.4.7.6 contains an improved MPEG-2 decoder
that can handle resolutions changes better, there's a sound level
normalizer in the MPEG/LPCM/AC3 audio decoder, local RealMedia files
are now opened via DirectShow by default (less problems), smacker/bink
support has been removed due to a request of radgametools, experimental
nut support has been added and there's a new command to enable/disable
subtitles.
|
1/25 |
IfoUpdate
0.78 now changes the Last_Sector_of_VTSI in the ini file.
|
1/24 |
It seems that CSS is no longer a trade secret: The DVD
CCA filed a motion to dismiss the case I wrote about 4 days ago.
In other words, nobody has to cough up money or even go to prison
for violating trade secrets by publishing. This leaves the MPAA vs.
2600 case in New York as the only case where the MPAA actually won
when the defendants decided not
to bring the case before the supreme court.
|
1/22 |
I'm definitely running out of space for flags soon: The Danish
Doom9 mirror is now online. As usual volunteers are more than
welcome, and while we're on the subject of mirrors, I'm still wondering
what the heck happened to the Russian mirror.
AutoGK
0.89 fixes some bugs in the queue department, has some new icons
for the job queue buttons and improved hybrid source handling, fixes
quality based mode for XviD and audio getting out of synch after
splitting and finally 2 GB has been added as predefined size.
|
1/21 |
BatchCCEWS 0.9.1.3 has a graphical chapter editor, can
save job lists and fixes the tff/offset line issue that was changed
between CCE 2.66 and 2.67.
|
1/20 |
Whereas Sony and NuTech have or will release free upgrades to enhance
the burning capabilities of their drives, and while there's a free
firmware hack for an older single format NEC drive, BenQ will charge
users of their DVD+ burner DW800A to make it DVD- compatible.
The upgrade to get 2x DVD-R/W burning costs $10 and will be followed
with an upgrade to burn DVD-Rs at 4x in March.
After having lost in court (they can no longer subpoena subscriber
data without a warrant), the RIAA is trying to get
ISPs to send threatening letters to P2P users on their behalf,
but so far the ISPs are not very cooperative in that area. Interestingly
though, this is common practice in some European countries, most
notably German and Switzerland, though the letters sent are not
from the RIAA but from the ISP, but they also warn the user of possible
legal action, and that their account could be suspended if the infringement
continues.
Some of the old timers will probably remember the DVD CCA vs. Pavlovich
et al case (it's about trade secrets that are supposedly revealed
by DeCSS). The U.S. Supreme Court has now ruled that the
defendant cannot be sued in California and reversed an emergency
stay that prevented all defendants of distributing DeCSS, reversing
a decision of a lower court. While that frees all defendants to
redistribute DeCSS, all named California residents (incidentally
that's only one) still have to await that their case be tried in
the California Supreme Court.
|
1/19 |
ImgTool Classic 0.91.1 can erase rewriteable media without manual
interaction and no longer goes beyond 100% when indicating the progress.
DVD Shrink 3.1.3 allows you to specify the burning speed and fixes
some preview and Nero initialization problems.
|
1/16 |
I almost missed that there's a new AutoGK alpha release out: AutoGK
0.86 supports DVD Decrypter 3.1.8 and higher, does automatic
PGC and angle selection for subtitles based on the name of the input
files, the MP3 audio encoding options have been changed to use ABR
and boosting, a job queue has been added (to allow you to set up
multiple encoding tasks at once), the handling of hybrid sources
has been improved, and the undot filter is not used if a non SSE
capable CPU is detected.
Not every music label wants to sell you digital restriction management
(DRM) with their electronic offering: British
label Warp Records has made its entire back catalog available for
download in unrestricted MP3 format (@ 205kbit/s VBR). Albeit
the price per song is somewhat higher ($1.39 instead of the usual
$0.99 for DRM'd stuff), you at least get the freedom you'd expect
when you pay good money for music. Unfortunately, priced as high
or even higher than if you get a CD I'm not convinced that this
offering, although basically a great thing since it's not DRM'ed,
will be a success.
|
1/15 |
It seem the NEC drive isn't the only one that can be turned from
a DVD+ drive into a dual format one: Nu Tech (not really a well
know brand where I'm from), has released a test firmware
that turns their DDW-081 DVD+ drive into a dual format recorder.
In other news, it looks like the RIAA members have not only been
price fixing, they're also cheating
the artists out of their money (or to use their words: they're
shoplifting from the very artists they have on contract). How is
that possible? Artists are paid a certain amount (a few cents) per
song released. Now, if a CD is copy protected but includes a second
session with DRM'ed WMA files (or another format), a CD sold equals
every song sold twice, but the artist is only paid once. Isn't that
funny: The recording industry is making unlicensed copies on their
own, and they're even selling them, too. If you did the same, they'd
drag you to court and try to throw you in prison.
|
1/14 |
Lame 3.95.1 fixes
a crash when using vbr-new, lowpass values when using vbr with mono
files and a buffer requirement error in the ACM codec, has the ReplayGain
reference level set to 89dB, has faster quantization loops and count_bits
and is 10% faster on PowerPCs.
If you're looking for even faster DVD burners, Waitec will show
a 16x DVD+R burner at CeBIT, but it won't hit the marketplace until
late 2004. And while we're talking about the plus format, the DVD+RW
alliance expects 4x writing speed for their dual layer discs for
early 2005. So I guess the speed race won't stop at 16x for single
layer disc, it'll go on in the dual layer field as well.
While LiteOn owners (811S and 815S) will have to buy a new drive
to get 8x DVD-R and 4x DVD-RW capabilities, Sony will those capabilities
as a firmware upgrade for their DRU530A series drives. The upgrade
has not been released yet, but should be available at this
URL before the end of February.
And staying with DVD burners, it is possible to convert
the NEC 1100 DVD+R drive to a dual format burner if you just
load the proper firmware.
Have you been at CES? Apparently there were some EVD
players on display, but nobody seems to have noticed until after
the show was over.
The RIAA is cranking up their anti piracy effort a couple of notches:
Now they send
out ex-cop, dressed like triple letter government agencies to bust
people selling CDs on the street. Obviously, there's no denying
the wrongdoing on the perp's part, but the actual impersonation
of a police officer is nevertheless also a crime, and being cuffed
and taken away by non cops? And while we're on the subject, not
all artists the music industry likes to parade as supporters of
their tough line against piracy seem to actually support the company
line. But of course you can always twist somebody's statements,
can't you? ;)
|
1/13 |
While CES has come to an end, this sounds pretty interesting: According
to the Japanese news site AVWatch, Pioneer was showing dual
layer DVD-R recording at the show. The most interesting thing
about it that they apparently used the well-known A06 burner, only
with a different firmware. Until now, it was assumed that only the
lasers of the 8x generation were powerful enough to handle dual
layer recording. Either way, the dual layer DVD-R standard has not
been finalized yet and until it does, Pioneer will not decide on
whether the firmware upgrade will be released, or if people will
have to buy a new burner to get dual layer capabilities.
DVD Shrink 3.1.2 fixes possible picture corruption (pixelation
or freezing) when low compression is applied at a scene change and
contains some changes to support a unicode build.
|
1/12 |
DVD Shrink 3.1.1 fixes compatibility issues with DVD Region Free
and virtual CD drive softwares, there's an option to enable/disable
Nero in the preferences, deep analysis before backup is no longer
mandatory (it never should've been) and video rendering problems
have been fixed.
Media Player Classic 6.4.7.5 contains the latest RealMedia and
Matroska splitters, fixes a QT playback bug where only a quarter
of the picture was shown and the DTS passthrough checkbox is no
longer linked to the AC3 filter.
Fair Use 0.34c
fixes compatibility issues with standalone players.
|
1/11 |
If you've always wanted the essential functionality of AnyDVD (on-the-fly
descrambling and region-free) without the extras and the price tag,
check out DVD43.
It requires preinstalled Patin-Couffin drivers, which you can either
download
for free, or if you have a copy of CopyToDVD, DVDXCopy Express
or the BlindWrite suite installed, you won't need anything.
The author of CloneDVD has been giving out some information
about the upcoming CloneDVD 2 which you might find interesting.
|
1/10 |
DVD Shrink 3.1 has an improved GUI, improved preview (including
audio and full screen mode), burning and disc image creation is
supported (requires Nero 5+), layer break removal and automatic
audio and subtitle stream selection via preferences has been added,
and it is possible to select the default playback stream in re-author
mode. I've also written a new
guide on the new version.
As CES proceeding, more and more manufacturers are releasing dual
format 8x burners (now supporting both DVD-R and DVD+R at 8x). Some,
like LiteOn even add another 8x model even though they already have
two 8x +R, 4x -R drives in their portfolio.
DVD DVD+RW alliance has announced to release the specs for 16x
DVD+R disc in autumn 2004. The first 16x capable drives should be
released in early 2005.
The Blu-ray team is scored a victory, too: Both
HP and Dell have committed to supporting the Blu-ray format,
even though it was not chosen as HD DVD format by the DVD forum.
And the Blu-ray camp seems to have at least one studio in the pocket
as well: Sony (Columbia Tristar). The president of their movie branch
has stated that the increasing amount of movie piracy (especially
in Germany) turns DVD into an unrentable format so that the movie
industry were forced to present a revolution: HD movies on Blu-ray,
of course equipped with a better region coding and encryption. Mr.
Feingold seems to be unaware of his own financial statements because
movie studios have been making a ton of money with DVD these recent
years. More on that story can be found in the forum
(including a more comprehensive demantlement of Mr. Feingold's "pulled
by the hair" arguments).
And if this wasn't enough news already, Linksys has announced a
WLAN
equipped progressive scan DVD player. Using WLAN, users can
stream MPEG-2/4 video, digital photos and digital music (MP3 and
WMA only) from their PCs without having to extend an Ethernet cable
into the living room.
Sigma Designs has announced a new
MPEG-2/4 chipset to support MPEG-4 ASP (including QPel but GMC
is still not confirmed), and WMV9 content as well. It also supports
MP3 audio, all types of WMA audio and AAC (no mention whether that
means LC AAC or HE-AAC). The first player based on this chipset
has already been announced: The V
Inc Bravo 3.
Last but not least, the first EVD players seem to be available
now, but they are not
selling like hotcakes.
|
1/9 |
ON2 has released a new version of the VP6 codec. Version
6.1.0.2 fixes eliminates the badframes issue, fixes the interlacing
problem and contain some small speed improvements.
At CES, Sony has launched both 8x DVD+R and DVD-R discs. However,
the discs will only be available in late March / early July for
$2.99 per disc. Verbatim has also announced that it has started
shipping 8x DVD-R discs to drive manufacturers for compatibility
testing. Their disc should be available in February for $3.99 per
disc.
|
1/8 |
Verbatim has just announced that they are "on
schedule" to release DVD+R DL (dual layer) discs in spring
04 so I guess you'll be able to get some discs with your shiny new
DVD+ DL drive once they start shipping.
RealNetworks has announced the Real
10 Platform at CES. RealVideo 10 is the final name for RV9 EHQ,
RealProducer is based on Helix Producer 9.2, uses the RV10 codec
and AAC is used as high bitrate audio codec. There is also a GUI
version of the producer available. RealAudio 10 not only adds AAC
(the High Efficiency version), but also RealAudio lossless and RealAudio
multichannel. There's also a new RealPlayer which obviously supports
the new video and audio codec and also includes support for AAC
ripping. You can discuss the Real 10 platform here.
Last but not least, Macrovision
is suing 321 Studios under the DMCA and for intellectual property
infringement. Now, first of all this is indeed the same Macrovision
that claims "Quality protection" in a shiny trailer at
the end of many commercial DVDs. Those of you who only have one
Scart input on your TV will most likely not quite agree with the
quality protection line, it's more like quality destruction what
Macrovision actually does. It most certainly doesn't help quality
in any way. But back to the lawsuit, the DMCA mentions "effective
measures" for copy protection. Now any self-respecting cryptographer
would not consider CSS as an effective measure, but it's really
a stretch from a simple bitstream flag that enables Macrovision
on DVDs to an effective measure. It's almost like putting a sticker
on a DVD saying: this DVD is copy protected, then sue people when
they still copy it (assuming there's no CSS). And how can you infringe
Macrovision's copyright when the way Macrovision is stored on DVDs
is public knowledge? Shouldn't Macrovision sue the whole wide world
then?
|
1/7 |
BeSweet 1.5b25 correctly handles samplingrate change requests from
Nero, so it will automatically downsample to the proper samplingrate
required for a certain bitrate and you don't have to worry about
proper downsampling anymore.
Fair Use 0.34b
fixes several major bugs in the encoding engine so everybody should
update.
While China goes EVD, Taiwan is cooking another soup: FVD
(finalized versatile disc). Instead of MPEG-2 (DVD) and VP5/VP6
(EVD), FVD uses Microsoft's WindowsMedia v9 audio and video codecs.
With all the delays in the EVD camp I wonder if FVD will ever see
the light of the day until we see the first HD DVD devices (which
are due by the end of 2004).
|
1/6 |
Media Player Classic 6.4.7.4 now has an integrated AC3 decoder
based on liba52 and the mpeg decoder supports bob deinterlacing.
For once, the MPAA has lost. Norwegian MPAA lapdog Økokrim
has thrown in the towel and won't
appeal Jon Johansen's 2nd acquittal. And in what must feel really
ironic for the MPAA's sister agency, the RIAA, the same guy has
just added a piece of code to the VideoLan project, that creates
valid user keys for Apple's DRM laden iTunes service, thus making
it possible to use
the locked files anywhere where VideoLan has been run.
On the other hand, the MPAA is making progress in passing legislation
to get people that take cameras into movie theaters arrested. If
you're a tourist going to the movies, better rent a lockbox and
put your camera away or you could even be
subject to a citizen's arrest in a couple of US states (and
more are coming).
|
1/5 |
Fair
Use 0.34 does the multiplexing internally, has a better integrated
audio conversion and can configure several encoding sessions from
the same disc simultaneously.
IfoUpdate 0.77 can correct the IFO / BUP length to be 2048 byte
aligned and it can transfer VTS_TMAPTI and VTS_VOBU_ADMAP tables
that are longer in the newly authored file than the original.
In Belgium, it looks like the RIAAs crusade to make our CDs unusable
(AKA copy protection that makes CDs non specs compliant) is about
to encounter some resistance: The consumer watchdog organization
Test-Achats is suing RIAA members EMI, Sony, BMG and Universal for
"violation
of the elementary right for private copies". They demand
that no CDs must be equipped with measures to prevent private copying
and that existing CDs with those measures be withdrawn from the
market. That gives me an idea: Why don't we all contact similar
organizations in our respective countries and ask them to look into
this? Wouldn't "do something against copyright holders that
try to abolish our right to fair use" be a good new year's
resolution?
|
1/2 |
Philips, one of the main promoters of the DVD+ format, is expected
to start producing dual format chipsets early this year. It
looks like sooner or later all the companies will go the dual format
route.
China's EVD format (which also supports the VP6 codec tested in
the latest codec comparison) seems to be a bit late but the first
players are supposed to be released shortly. It will be interesting
to see how a $242 player fares against much cheaper players (even
DivX capable DVD players are available for around $100 these days).
Around 400 EVD titles should be available for the start of the format,
which is a lot more than was available on DVD when it was introduced.
|
1/1 |
Welcome in 2004 :)
Zoom
Player 3.30 fixes remaining bugs of the RC and contains some
minor changes.
Don't forget about the codec comparison,
which now comes in two version, one suitable for lower bandwidth
connections and one for high bandwidth connections.
|
2003 |
Last month's news can be found here.
|
|