A little personal information about me: I’ve never seen a single episode of Lost. I understand it’s quite popular, though. A co-worker of mine at a previous place of employment was so adamant that I join the Lost-watchers club that she leant me the first season and then asked me every day what I thought of the show. After a month of not even taking the first disc out of the sleeve, I returned it to her.
If you’d like to try to force someone to hop on the Lost bandwagon or if you, yourself, would like to churn through the first three seasons in rapid succession, Amazon has Seasons 1, 2, and 3 for $58.99, which is less than half what they normally cost. That deal’s good today only, though, so hop to it if you’re interested.
Frankly, I’m surprised it’s taken this long for such a thing to transpire. I think it’s safe to say that most of us have seen vending machines spewing out electronics at airports and other random establishments for some time, so this bit of news should come as no surprise. Read More
Who else thinks Blu-ray is doomed? I mean, other than Steve Jobs? ZDNet’s Robin Harris does, and he makes a decent argument.
Consider the following: only 4 percent of movie discs sold in the U.S. are Blu-ray discs; these discs often don’t play reliably on your more-than-likely expensive player (as I found out this week); it costs a tremendous amount of money to author Blu-ray discs, ensuring that only Hollywood studio-backed movies can be released on the format; upsampling DVD players are dirt cheap now—why spend $300+ on a Blu-ray player (in this economy!) when your “good enough” DVDs now look even better?
Those of you in the market to buy bridges for a $1, you should probably know that Real’s RealDVD is now available for download.
A quick primer on what RealDVD actually does: the $30 Windows-only program essentially makes a 1:1 copy of a DVD, with the resultant file playable only within RealDVD. (You can’t play the file in VLC, nor can you burn the file and have it play on a standard DVD player, for example.) That means if the DVD you’re copying is 7GB in size, the resultant RealDVD file will also be 7GB in size. Think of it like making a straight ISO of a disc, but one that still contains all the CSS copy protection. Real did this to appease the Hollywood studios: it can’t be seen producing a commercial application that strips out Hollywood’s precious copy protection, lest it be sued.
But RealDVD takes copy protection one step further. In addition to keeping CSS (et al.) intact, Real adds another layer of DRM onto the RealDVD file. This is done, presumably, to prevent people from sharing RealDVD images with each other. If Biggs copies 27 Dresses using RealDVD, he won’t be able to give me his RealDVD file of the film.
And if you were wondering just who RealDVD is aimed at, look no further than what BusinessWeek had to say about it a few days ago. Clearly Real is going for the crowd that uses computers as nothing more than tools to get work done; saying, “Well, Program X can copy DVDs, remove CSS, convert to h.264 and do your laundry” may well be true, but you try explaining that to the guy in a suit who thinks the term “command prompt” refers to a military maneuver.
So you’re thinking ’bout going cheap inexpensive this Christmas by throwing some pics on a DVD and calling it your mom’s present. She will probably love it ’cause you made it for her, but why not pony up, and use Maxell’s synthetic leather discs for a nostalgic photo album feel. The discs will start around $11 for a ten pack when they launch in Japan next month and will look a hell of a lot better than you scribbling with a Sharpie.
Hold onto your hats, folks, as we’re about to be inundated with more and more chatter about fair use, your rights, and whether or not Real Networks just committed the worst crime in history. It should be a real hoot.
Real will release today Real DVD, a $30 Windows application that copies commercial DVDs to your hard drive. It doesn’t merely copy the video track from the DVD, though, as Real DVD is able to tap into some sort of metadata server, adding thing like movie descriptions, posters, etc. (Sounds a lot like what Plex does when using the Library mode.)
Users will need to use Real DVD to play the copied DVD file, which is a straight 1:1 copy of the DVD image. That means file sizes greater than 4GB.
Real says it can get away with this seemingly illegal act because it respects all copyright involved. The DVDs’ CSS isn’t stripped out, and Real adds an additional layer of DRM to the copied files, ensuring that they’re only played on authorized computers. (You can play the file back on as many as five different PCs.)
Note that Real isn’t really targeting “us” with this product, but rather is going after folks who aren’t prepared to download some esoteric DVD ripper via a shady Rapidshare link, then know what to do with a Video_TS file.
The program will be released into beta today for $30, but that price jumps to $50 sometime in the future.
I can’t believe I’m saying this, but Wal*Mart rules. Why? Because they’ve got a pretty sweet promo going on that will soon become obsolete since we’re posting the exclusives, but we’ll tell you about them anyway. So here’s the deal. When you purchase one of three special edition cover Transformers DVDs you’ll get a special access code that unlocks a behind-the-scenes video from the set of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen every week. Or you can just use code: AllSpark62609. Heh. We have two of them available now for your viewing pleasure after the jump.
There was a time when the CD was the saving grace of the computer and media world. No longer would it take 22 floppy disks to install Windows 95. Oh no, just one magical disk. But as everything digital, things change overtime, and so optical formats are now loathe as the bastard child you wouldn’t dare get rid of, but can’t stand the sight of him nor his loser friends.
In the sheer hopes that The Dude does, in fact, abide, Universal Studios will be releasing a 10th anniversary edition of The Big Lebowski. You can pre-order it from Amazon.com for a measly $24 if you want to get a head start. The two-disc set comes packed inside a bowling ball — a bowling ball! – and is “loaded with all-new bonus features that will take you beyond the movie!”
Happen to be a HD DVD earlier adopter? Sorry to hear that. Paramount and Dreamworks wants to help switch your library to the winning side and is offering up a $10 rebate. All the studios ask is that when you buy a Blu-ray title of a disk you currently own, mail in a promo certificate along with the proof of purchase from the original disc’s packaging.
That’s not all good reader, this offer applies to standard DVDs too. The promo will began with Transformers on September 2nd and will run through December 31, 2009.
Toshiba may be out of the high definition disc war altogether (not that many people are participating anyway), but it knows there’s plenty of life left in plain ol’ DVD. To that end the company has been showing off its $150 XD-E500, an upconverting DVD player that’s supposed to, I don’t know, beat the pants off other upconverting players. The AP uses the phrase “subtle but noticeable” to describe how the XD-E500 looks in comparison to another, unnamed upconverting player.
“Subtle but noticeable” isn’t exactly a ringing endorsement, it must be said. Frankly, they sound like weasel words.
And who exactly is Toshiba going after here? They’re charging a premium—the XD-E500 is about twice as expensive as other upconverting DVD players—for an old technology. People who’d want to spend extra money on their home entertainment might as well go for Blu-ray. Like, who is investing in a DVD system in 2008?
Even after HD DVD’s demise, Blu-ray still isn’t catching on, the PS3 excepted. Maybe the real format war was between DVD and Blu-ray all along?
A recent survey, carried out by ABI Research, found that more than half the respondents have no intention of buying a Blu-ray player. About a quarter said they had plans to buy one, but not till next year.
And why are consumers so reluctant to make the Blu-ray jump? Surprise, for many people, plain ol’ DVD is good enough.
Again, DVD is good enough. 1080p and BD Live be damned, apparently.
As it stands, the PS3 is one of the only bright spots in the Blu-ray arena right now, insofar as it’ll help drive down manufacturing costs of Blu-ray players.
If the MPAA had its way, your DVR would be nothing more than a hunk of useless metal and plastic, unable to record and pause live television. Steps are being taken to ensure that it gets its way.
The fun-loving association is pushing hard for a technology called selectable output control, or SOC, which allows content providers—movie studios and the like—to prevent material from being recorded. It does this by blocking the so-called analog hole, making it impossible for you to, say, plug in standard 3.5mm audio jack and record sound to your computer.
I know that sounds evil and all that, but the idea behind this isn’t exactly unreasonable. Movie studios want to be able to let cable companies get an earlier crack at showing movies on-demand (for example), but are worried that folks will simply exploit the analog hole and record the movie long before the studio ever releases the DVD or Blu-ray version. If consumers could copy and record movies long before their DVD date, why should the movie studios even bother to produce a DVD?
Now, that’s completely not my problem, how the movie studios make money, but at least there’s a proper reason for their policy this time around.
Note that the FCC has so far said no to SOC, so there’s still some legs in this story.
Now you’ve gone and done it. “It” being, maybe, freaking out the entertainment industry by not buying as many DVDs as you used to. (That, incidentally, sorta gibes with a study that come out today.) One of them there Lehman Brothers analysts downgraded numerous industry stocks yesterday because he doesn’t like how people are now downloading movies more and more often. Studios don’t make as much money of, say, iTunes downloads as they do when you swing by Wal-Mart or Best Buy and buy the physical DVD or Blu-ray. But, doesn’t digital distribution cost a lot less than shipping discs all over the world? I have no numbers to back that up, but having a movie on iTunes seems like it should cost less, bandwidth and all that included, than the alternative.
Basically, as consumers discover the numerous ways to download movies, both legally and illegally, the studios will be forced to move away from relying on disc sales to make money. Yes, just like the music industry had to do.
That said, there’s still something about buying a disc and plopping it in your player, then sitting back and watching a movie. Not for me, I’ll download all day long, but the guy who works all day then just wants to see a movie before going to bed without having to fiddle with his computer.
An interesting study (PDF) carried out by an organization called Futuresource Consulting (and sponsored by Macrovision, for you tin foil hat types) just showed up in our inbox claiming that consumers love to pirate stuff, sorta. The study looked at folks in the United States and United Kingdom, and found that one-third of respondents admitted to the horrible crime of copying a DVD in the last six months. “Copying” includes using DVD copying hardware, which I’d wager few people use, and software-based copying on a computer. Mac the Ripper, etc.
It seems the whole point of the study was to prove, in some fashion, that movie studios and the like do lose money as a result of copying. The numbers show that 63 percent of those in the UK and 77 percent of those in the U.S. would have purchased the DVD in question if they hadn’t been able to copy it. (Presumably, these people are copying DVDs their friends give them, or they get at BlockBuster or something.)
Oh, and the most likely people to copy a DVD are guys aged 25-34, which is a little surprising. I would have thought the high school crowd would be heavy into piracy.
A research team from the Institute of Multidisciplinary Research for Advanced Materials of prestigious Tohoku University in Northern Japan announced [JP, PDF] it has found a way to multiply the amount of data that can be stored on a DVD or CD by a factor of 9.
It is claimed the result was achieved by shaping the pits on a DVD’s surface, which are usually flat, like “V”s. The researchers say a V-shaped pit can hold as much data as 2^9 flat pits, making the development of 42GB DVDs possible.
This fascinating technology has two main drawbacks. Firstly, the new super discs cannot be used in existing CD/DVD drives. It is secondly impossible to apply the new technology to Blu-ray discs.
Today Panasonic announced [JP] they will introduce the world’s first Blu-ray discs with 6x writing speed in Japan next month.
The company will offer 25GB (LM-BR25MD) and 50 GB (LM-BR50MD) versions. The new discs feature a maximum data transfer speed of 216Mbps. Panasonic claims this is 20% faster than the transfer speed of 16x DVD-R discs.
The 25GB discs will be priced at $16 per piece, while the 50GB version will cost $37. The company also said Blu-ray disc drives compatible with the new discs are scheduled to go on sale in Japan in September this year.
Sometimes I like to take a break from the cutthroat world of technology reporting to immerse myself in the moving and imaginative stories of a group of men and women from a simpler time of cutthroat…well…throat cutting, as it turns out.
I’ve you’ve never seen HBO’s Deadwood and you happen to be looking for a way to spend ninety bucks, you wouldn’t be disappointed to own the entire series. It only lasted three seasons but a lot of great shows only lasted three seasons; Deadwood, Arrested Development, and Family Guy, for instance. They brought Family Guy back eventually, though, and I hear it’s doing quite well.
Anyway, my point is that Deadwood was a great show and going outside during the summer is highly overrated. Enjoy!
Japan thinks that a video of a couple of women are looking you in the eye for 96 minutes will make you more confident. That’s the content of a DVD [JP] which has been released by Japanese entertainment powerhouse Avex a couple of days ago. The girl in the video is just one of 50 women of different ages and nationalities.
So what is this about?
The DVD is aimed at curing shyness, especially in Japanese men who are too afraid to talk to women. By looking at the girls on video, viewers are supposedly able to reduce the level of nervousness the next time they encounter females in real life.
The DVD is entitled Miteru dake which translates to “Just looking” and costs $25. Before you ask: A Blu-ray version has not been announced yet.
Yesterday Victor-JVC unveiled a new recorder [JP] in Japan, which is capable of simultaneously recording two programs on either VHS, DVD or HDD.
The DR-HX500 comes with the following features:
- HDMI connection
- D4 connection
- 500 GB HDD
- VHS player / recorder
- DVD player / recorder (DVD-RW/-R)
- Digital / Analog TV tuner
- DTS and Dolby Digital support
- S-VHS and Composite outputs
- 2 remote controls (”easy type” and “full type”)
The recorder will be available only in Japan at the beginning of July. It will cost around $950. Victor-JVC also plans to sell a trimmed-down version with 250 GB (DR-HX250) for $750.
