Ahead has finally released Nero 6.6 (AKA Reloaded). The new version can burn discs with short lead-outs, thus giving you a few more MBs per disc. The new NeroVision package (including an updated Recode 2) can process burned films, but is still lacking the much awaited H.264 NeroDigital codec.

The DVBViewer 2.3 beta supports ATSC (that's digital TV in the US and South Korea), has improved support for DVB-T and DVB-C cards as well as improved subtitle support, and fixes a bunch of bugs.

Owners of the TechniSat budget DVB cards (SkyStar 2, CableStar 2 and AirStar 2), might want to check out the latest driver revision (v.4.3.0), which adds timeshifting and network streaming

vso Software, makers of DVD burning tools like CopyToDVD, has released a free preview release of their upcoming DivXToDVD application, which, as the name says, allows you to put (DivX) AVIs onto a DVD (with the proper MPEG-2 encoding of course).

In anticipation of the upcoming HD DVD formats, the makers of the DTS audio format have announced their own alternative to the already proposed improved Dolby Digital system. DTS-HD will be an optional audio format on both Blu Ray and HD DVD discs (while DTS is mandatory). DTS-HD offers more discrete audio channels (no upper limit has been announced yet), downmix to 5.1 and 2 channels, and bitrates ranging from the currently used bitrates for DTS up to lossless compression.

Last but not least, at least toner cartridges are not protected by the DMCA. In early 2003, printer manufacturer Lexmark sued alternative toner makers under the DMCA's anti circumvention provision. Lexmark had incorporated a chip into their cartridges, allowing the printer to verify if a cartridge was made by Lexmark or a 3rd party, and in case of the latter, would refuse the cartridge. A company called SCC reverse engineered that chip and adapted their cartridges so that they could still be used in Lexmark printers. Lexmark was first granted an injunction, but later lost, and now also lost the appeal. This decision could also lead to a whole bunch of other anti-competitive measures (region codes, console regions anyone?) being reverse-engineered without the threat of a lawsuit.

Toshiba seems to have a leg up on Sony in the HD-DVD/Blu-Ray wars as "Three Hollywood studios are expected to announce within the next week that they'll release some of their movies on the high-definition DVD format that Toshiba is promoting." source

RealVideo has released yet another bugfix to the RV10 encoder DLL. You can find the changelog here.

Auto Gordian Knot 1.72 beta no longer require msvcr70.dll, uses LanczosResize (again) and AutoGK.ini now resides in the user home directory.

QuEnc 0.55 Alpha has the ability to select a custom matrix, no longer uses DLLs and should be more stable.

AU$500 million, that's how much Australian and international record companies have lost due to mp3s4free.net, a site that has been closed since last year, according to a current copyright battle in Brisbane. In the meanwhile, revenue increases...

On a completely different sidenote, gas turbine on-a-chip might be something for the future.

VobBlanker 1.5.0.7 fixes the crash on TMAPTI full, clears offsets to program; playback and position tables when deleting playback and replacing cells now takes into account the VTS.

It must be tough for RIAA to realize that this months issue of Wired-magazine comes with a CD packed with music that is free to share. Released under Creative Commons license you are free to do, almost, whatever you want with those tunes. Will these artists benefit from the PR coup or will they loose income? (A rhetorical question...)

And NuMenu is up to RC2 Build 7.

Whether or not VC-1, the proposed SMPTE standard based on Microsofts WMV9 will become standard has been up to debate the last week as numerous reports have told, slashdot and eetimes to mention two. If you want to voice your opinion there is a thread in the forum.

According to Tom's Hardware DVD+R DL are now reaching 8x and expects media and drives to hit the market Q1 2005.

And just when you thought that Self-destructing DVDs were history they once again pop-up.

Auto Gordian Knot 1.70 beta drops support for older codec-versions, uses EQM V2 as Sharp matrix and uses Lanczos4Resize as Sharp resizer.

NuMenu4u RC2 Build 5 is mainly a bugfixrelease. Discuss this in the forum.

In the world of music reports keep coming in. Sales rise despite RIAA and Mr. Spitzer takes on the big four since he suspects that they're using a 'creative' way of bypassing the Payola law, making bribes to radio broadcasters illegal. It's interesting to see the record companies on the other end of the stick.

InstantCopy 8.3.0.8 now supports DualLayer.

Zoom Player 4.10 beta 1 is released and the change log is, as always, a mile long and includes the possibility to assign a Zoom Player functions to any key or compatible Multimedia device.

PgcEdit 0.3.6 adds the "PGCs params and Cell table" menu to dump all PGCs, a "Remove Parental Managment" utility and can append a new blank cell to the VOB. (And as usual some enhancements and a few bugfixes.)

RealVideo has released an upgraded RV10 encoder DLL. Read more in the forum.

If you're concerned about the integrity of your data you might want to wait a while before installing Google Desktop Search as this report (and many others right now) points out the danger with cached webpages on shared computers.

As seen in the forum Rebuilder will from now on (0.65 with multiangle support) be released to donators first and about 30 days later to the public.

Koepi has released a XviD-1.1 test build for those of you that want to live on the edge. Read more about it here and remember "Use this build with great care! It's unstable, it can mess up your encodes badly".

As some of you have reported the HD DVD-player mentioned yesterday is made by iodata. The Japanese version even seems to have a 802.11g wireless connection.

I've previously reported on upcoming DVD players that can play high definition MPEG-4 content. The first of those is already on sale on Japan, according to DivXNetworks. They have a few sketchy details and some pictures of the player, but there's no model number, or any technical information.

The issue of screener DVDs has also come up in the past. The MPAA, in an effort to stop screener DVDs to leak to the Internet, has tried to ban the use of screener DVDs (those are DVDs containing only the movie and they're sent to all the members of the Academy that decides on the Oscar awards). The ban never went into effect as many smaller studios opposed the decision and even went to court over it - they feared that since not all jurors could watch their movies (independent movies are often only shown in selected theaters, making it impossible for jurors to watch all the movies in a movie theater close by). Then the MPAA settled on using specially encrypted and watermarked DVDs based on a technology developed by Cinea - those players should be given to the jurors along with the special movies that cannot be ripped. But as the Oscars get closer, those special DVD players are still not available and some movie studios are now starting to look for alternatives. Perhaps they'll have to settle for good old fashioned DVDs yet again ;)

ffdshow 20041012 fixes WinXP explorer crashes, supports MS ADPCM, allows you to configure preferred Vobsub subtitle languages as well as Vobsub subtitle positions, and fixes a bunch of bugs. There's also an SSE and SSE2 optimized build available now.

NuMenu RC2 build 3 fixes the overflow error and installs & registers mswinsck.ocx, a file which was previously missing from the installer, which lead to problems on certain machines. You can discuss this release in the forum as usual.

DVD Rebuilder 0.64a fixes a problem that could lead to the transcode button disappearing.

As if members in both houses weren't enough, the entertainment industry has now recruited US attorney general John Ashcroft himself to do their bidding. The DOJ is currently preparing "the most aggressive legal assault against intellectual property crime in our nation's history". It may sound good, but wait for the subtext: more rights for the entertainment industry to get subscriber information from ISPs is already in the package. If you're not concerned yet, the US supreme court has already ruled a couple of provisions from the Patriot Act - which is mostly Ashcroft's work - unconstitutional, and that does not make me confident that this new initiative will not include unwarranted snooping by RIAA/MPAA and Co.

DVD Rebuilder v0.64 supports DGDECODE.DLL (read about how to use it here), removes the "Add to AVS" checkbox from the setup screen and offers a new option under the "Mode" menu that allows you to use a different "Output" path. When selected, the output of VIDEO_TS and AUDIO_TS folders will be sent to that path rather than the "Working Path."

The British Phonographic Industry (BPI) has won a court decision and can now force ISPs to reveal the identities of 28 alleged file swappers within 14 days.

Together with a couple of friends, the webmaster and owner of Digital Digest has created a new online DVD database named dvdloc8.com. Although it is still in an early stage, the site aims to become a good information source for DVD lovers and collectors by providing info on cast/plot and additional info such as easter eggs All region codes of the world are supported and the database already contains a good selection of movies. As you can see in the about section, top submitters will be rewarded by prizes, another good reason to help them build up their site.

NuMenu4u RC2 has been released. Changes and additions can be found in the forum.

I said they'd try again, and by the looks of it, they've been approaching from two sides simultaneously: While the Induce Act is currently deadlocked, the Piracy Deterrence in Education Act (PDEA - HR.4074), which passed the House on September 28th, has been thrown together with the CREATE Act (HR.2391 / S.2192) to create a PDEA Plus. Corante has an overview of the new super act and some more details on the PDEA. If you're wondering what this has to do with you: putting a music or video file in the wrong directory (one that is shared, regardless of how many people it is potentially shared with) could lead to civil or even criminal charges. Making any use of a camcorder in movie theaters would be an imprisonable offense. The government would have to go after copyright offenders, thus using your tax money to enforce copyrights of already rich corporations. Then there's the provision on private home video viewing, which takes away your rights to skip unwanted contents such as ads. I hope by now you're convinced that such legislation that uniquely benefits RIAA/MPAA & Co. needs to be stopped. So join PublicKnowledge's call for action and contact your senator now.

In a series of landmark rulings, many P2P network providers have so far been found innocent of aiding copyright infringement. The RIAA obviously is very unhappy about this and has joined forces with the MPAA in a petition to the Supreme Court to overturn the court decisions that didn't go their way.

Back on the old continent, Dutch civil rights organization Bits of Freedom has run an interesting experiment: They put up a text by a famous Dutch author, written in 1871 to accounts with 10 different ISPs. Then they made up an imaginary society that is supposed to be the copyright holder of the author in question, and sent copyright infringement takedown notices to those 10 ISP via email (using a Hotmail account). 7 out of 10 ISPs took down the material, sometimes within hours and without even informing the account holder. One ISP doubted the legitimacy of the claim and asked for some proof that the alleged plaintiff was in fact the copyright holder. Yet another ISP actually realized that copyright had long since run out on the work. That's real scary, don't you think? Made up society, Hotmail addresses and a website is gone. I doubt it would work if you wanted to take down the MPAA/RIAA homepage, but if you run a small website, chances are good that somebody can have your site shut down with little effort, even if there's absolutely no grounds for it. I guess "guilty until proven innocent" is already a reality in a lot of places.

Some at least partially good news from the legislative front: S2560 AKA the Induce Act is not going to be voted on any time soon. I'm sure they'll try again in time though.

Yesterday I mentioned 2x DVD-R DL. At a recent conference of the DVD forum in Japan, it became apparent that the DVD-R DL specs are close to completion, and that 2x will be the official recording speed for the first spec revision, and that the 2nd revision of the specs will include optional 4x burning speed. In addition to the regular 12cm discs that hold 8.54 GB, there also will be 8cm discs that can hold 2.66GB. The next version of the DVD-R specs will also finally bring 12x and 16x recording speeds, thus catching up to DVD+R. The next revision of the DVD-RW specs will bring 6x speed, which is 1/3 slower than what we can expect from the next DVD+RW specs.

It was HD DVD yesterday, now it's Blu-Ray. The Blu-Ray camp is obviously also present at Ceatec and they have some products to show. Pioneer for instance is showing a combined Blu-Ray / DVD recorder that does BD-ROM, BD-R and BD-RW all at 2x, DVD±R at 8x, DVD±4 at 4x and DVD±R DL at 2x (making this the first drive where the DVD-R DL recording speed has been specified).

In addition to PC based recorders and standalones, the Blu-Ray camp is also working on 8cm Blu-Ray discs that can hold up to 15GB of data. The first camcorders using those discs were already on display at Ceatec by companies such as Sony, Matsushita and Sharp.

You might remember the broadcast flag. It's the MPAA's master plan to stop you from recording digital content in good quality by mandating that every digital recorder look for the flag in a digital broadcast stream and not record any streams where the flag is set. The American Library Association, aided by the EFF, is now appealing the FCC's decision to make the broadcast flag mandatory.

VCDEasy 2.1.0 supports special characters in file and folder names, the character set conversion routines have been improved, the list of built-in supported CD writers has been updated and there's a new project file format.

There's some movement in the dual layer DVD blank market: Ritek is the 2nd company after Verbatim to develop a dye to make double layer discs. So far, the material is mostly suited for 2.4x burning, but they're already working on 8x capable material. Verbatim on the other hand is shifting gears and is releasing new dual layer media that officially supports 4x and 5x (Toshiba's latest drive does dual layer discs at 5x), tough the discs are still very expensive (a 3 pack retails for $34.99).

On the HD front, the first HD DVD player prototypes are being shown at Japan's Ceatec show, particularly by Sanyo, Toshiba and NEC. NEC furthermore has announced to ship PCs with HD DVD drives in the 2nd half of 2005 and that prices of the drives should around $300 half a year after commercial availability. The HD DVD proponents are also pushing Microsoft to use HD DVD as media for their Xbox2 video game system, especially after rival Sony has announced to use BluRay discs for their Playstation3 system.

DVD Rebuilder 0.63a removes the audio/video stutter fix as it apparently caused more problems than it solved.

According to Nikkei Electronics Asia, the next generation DVD format is closer than we might think: PC based drives could appear as early as the 2nd half of 2005 - for both HD DVD and BluRay (though the latter already has a foothold in the PC via Sony's BluRay based discs for data).

I'm happy to announce yet another mirror, this time it's Turkish. Unfortunately I can't say that it brings the number to a new record as the Danish mirror has been all but alive for 4.5 months and any communication attempt has been in vain, so for all I know the Danish mirror is as dead as it gets. Unfortunately, the people working on the Russian mirror, who once seemed so close to going public also have disappeared.

DVD Rebuilder 0.63 fixes yet another issue that could've caused audio/video stutter, supports Canopus ProCoder via EclPro, the maximum video bitrate has been modified to accommodate large and multiple audio tracks, and a bug introduced in v0.61 that could cause audio/video synch issues has been fixed.

PgcEdit 0.3.5 now also displays the menu button information to Mac OS X users, the blank out all PGCs in domain option now has a confirmation dialogue before overwriting the backup of a VOB file, the PGC selector can be played on any side of the main window and the file browser can be used instead of the folder browser for the open/save folder operations.

The BluRay camp managed to get another Hollywood studio into their boat. It is to be assumed that one of the main BluRay proponents' - Sony's - Hollywood studio Columbia/Tristar is already in the BluRay camp, which makes 20th Century Fox the 2nd one to join up. For the record, Fox was the last studio to commit to any digital format, and their first commitment was to the DIVX pay-as-you-watch system exclusively. Only after DIVX went down the drain did Fox' DVD commitment get beyond extremely lackluster.

German PC mag Chip has a preview of Nero 6.6. It contains an improved VisionExpress app that supports a lot of input formats (even DVD-VR and (S)VCD), but the most important information is probably what it does not contain: the 2nd generation of their MPEG-4 NeroDigital solution - the H.264 (AKA MPEG-4 AVC) codec is still missing in action.

It looks like I picked the worst possible moment to announce ScenAid 1.0 pre9, as it was just released as ScenAid 1.0 without any changes.

ffdshow 20041003 contains more than a long page of release notes (as compared to the August 8th release I previously had for download). We're basically talking about improved MKV and OGM support, various improvements in the subtitle area, support for Nero MPEG4 video, AAC audio support using Nero file source, x264 improvements (a H.264 codec) and the latest libavcodec is being used.

Last but not least, a sad piece of history has just been written by a Federal US court. In the case of Blizzard (Vivendi/Universal) vs. BnetD, makers of an online game server that allows people to play Blizzard's computer games without resorting to the officially sanctioned Blizzard Battle.net service, the court ruled in favor of the former, thus deciding BnetD was in violation of the DMCA and Blizzard's EULA. Highlights from the ruling are that clickthrough EULAs are valid (they are not in Europe), Fair Use rights can be waived in an EULA, as well as first sale rights (that means that after the first sale, the copyright holder loses control over what happens to the product, any legit buyer can resell the product regardless of whether the copyright holder approves of this sale or not). Furthermore, the DMCA's interoperability provisions did not seem to matter whatsoever. The EFF plans to appeal this decision. Let's hope they'll succeed..

ScenAid 1.0 pre9 has an option to remove stops and subs that last less than 1 second, contains major fixes in the Button over Video routines and some other minor fixes.

VobBlanker 1.5.0.4 contains menu management features (preview, delete playback, blank and reuse PGCs from another LU), can display audio/video delay info, show the number of buttons in cell and PGC lists as well as the number of commands in PGC list. There's also a long list of bugfixes.

The DVD+RW alliance is getting close to release the specs of 8x DVD+RW. It is expected that the draft specification will be soon superseded by the official 1.0 specs and that products are to follow before the end of the year.

You probably all dislike copy protected audio CDs as much as I do, but at least in Japan things will soon get better as Sony is dumping copy protection from their audio CDs (SCMS copy protection will of course still remain but that's the only fair system the entertainment industry has ever come up with).

After a large number of beta releases, Cinemacraft has released the next major version of CCE SP. It contains some changes in the GUI, can resize the input in accordance to the output format (VCD/SVCD/DVD), can calculate filesizes, can apply 3:2 pulldown, has a more accurate inverse 3:2 pulldown detection, a deinterlacing function, can use adaptive quantization matrices for multi pass VBR and there's a bunch of other minor improvements. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be any changes in the price department..

Yesterday I reported that the Pirate Act has passed the House of Representatives. We're not alone thinking this is yet another piece of legislation that is unfairly biased towards copyright holders. The Computer & Communications Industry Association (CCIA), which consists of industry heavyweights such as Nokia, Fuijitsu, Oracle, Sun, Verizon, etc., have issued a press release denouncing this legislation and asking the Senate to reject the bill.

Last month's news can be found here.