Showing posts with label dvd. Show all posts
Showing posts with label dvd. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 09, 2007
HP's hd100 external HD DVD drive now on sale
HP's hd100 HD DVD external USB drive is finally shipping and listed on sale at several retailers. Announced last fall, it was scheduled to ship in 2006 but didn't quite make it. We checked with HP when taking a look at a few other proucts (like it's evil twin, the bd135 Blu-ray burner also pictured above) and found out it is now shipping, a quick search on Froogle shows it can be bought for $449. What does $240 more than the price of an Xbox 360 HD DVD add-on that also works on the PC buy you? A drive capable of 2.4x HD DVD / 5x DVD / 14x CD read speeds, USB 2.0 cable, power cord, assorted manuals and support software and a copy of Cyberlink's PowerDVD HD DVD edition. Unfortunately, at a price that buys two Microsoft-subsidized Xbox 360 drives and leaves $40 left over to put towards playback software and an HD upgrade we're not in that much of a hurry to add-to-cart, but for an officially supported HD DVD solution on the PC, this is about it.
Tuesday, January 02, 2007
Toshiba to Roll Out Cheaper HD DVD Players Next Week?
Toshiba is taking the gloves off next week at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, where the company might introduce a third line of HD DVD players that will be even cheaper than its current versions. Toshiba chief Yoshihide Fujii offers this tantalizing hint: "At first I thought the price threshold is $499. Maybe coming next is $399 and after that is $299."
Perhaps Fujii isn't aware that Toshiba's much-improved HD-A2 player (pictured above), released a couple of months ago, can now be found on the web for $399. But that $299 price could be a number that opens the floodgates for HD DVD player sales. We'll be at Toshiba's CES press conference on January 7, and we'll bring you details as they happe
Perhaps Fujii isn't aware that Toshiba's much-improved HD-A2 player (pictured above), released a couple of months ago, can now be found on the web for $399. But that $299 price could be a number that opens the floodgates for HD DVD player sales. We'll be at Toshiba's CES press conference on January 7, and we'll bring you details as they happe
Sunday, December 24, 2006
DivX watches HDTV as its compression technology expands
The video compression and playback technology was found in only about 5 percent of U.S. DVDs in the first quarter, but the figure climbed to about 20 percent in the third quarter, according to Jordan Greenhall, CEO of DivX, the company of the same name.
Jordan Greenhall Jordan Greenhall
The lack of DivX players in the U.S. is mostly just a problem of inertia and not part of a plot to keep the technology out of the country, Greenhall said in a meeting this week, ahead of the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in January. "It's the DivX conspiracy theory. You can get it in Canada, but you can't get it in the U.S."
Manufacturers don't want to put something on their boxes until they see that buyers want it. That's finally begun to happen, so manufacturers are responding.
The company charges a licensing fee of about $1 to $2 every time a manufacturer loads the company's software onto a device. To date, Europe and Asia have been the more popular geographies for the company.
DivX essentially sells software that lets viewers watch videos encoded with DivX software. Years ago, consumers used it for a vehicle for piracy, and the company was reviled by studios. A few years ago, the company started to more actively support digital-rights management and now works with entertainment companies.
A sign of corporate respectability came this year when DivX held an IPO. The stock went out at $16 in September and now sells for more than $28. (Initially, the company planned to price its shares at between $12 and $14.)
So what will DivX talk about at CES? It wants to branch out into high-definition TV. Blu-ray Disc players and HD DVD players are too expensive for consumers in India or Eastern Europe. The company will try to cut deals with Bollywood executives and film producers in those countries to get them to adopt a high-definition version of DivX, Greenhall said.
"The supply of DivX HD content will be compelling," he said. The San Diego, Calif.-based company also plans to promote Stage 6, its own video site, at the conference. Professional filmmakers post their movies there--some are known, some are unknown. The site mostly seeks to attract artists who aren't getting mainstream recognition.
"We do outreach to find some of this stuff," he said. "If you have been doing postproduction in Hollywood for 10 years, you've got to have a lot of interesting material. The number of people who make a living in the video industry is pretty big."
One thing that won't likely happen soon, though, is a deal with a studio in the United States. In late 2004, the company said it was negotiating with a couple of major studios, but the deals fell through.
"It was kind of depressing. We thought they would be realistic," Greenhall said.
Jordan Greenhall Jordan Greenhall
The lack of DivX players in the U.S. is mostly just a problem of inertia and not part of a plot to keep the technology out of the country, Greenhall said in a meeting this week, ahead of the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in January. "It's the DivX conspiracy theory. You can get it in Canada, but you can't get it in the U.S."
Manufacturers don't want to put something on their boxes until they see that buyers want it. That's finally begun to happen, so manufacturers are responding.
The company charges a licensing fee of about $1 to $2 every time a manufacturer loads the company's software onto a device. To date, Europe and Asia have been the more popular geographies for the company.
DivX essentially sells software that lets viewers watch videos encoded with DivX software. Years ago, consumers used it for a vehicle for piracy, and the company was reviled by studios. A few years ago, the company started to more actively support digital-rights management and now works with entertainment companies.
A sign of corporate respectability came this year when DivX held an IPO. The stock went out at $16 in September and now sells for more than $28. (Initially, the company planned to price its shares at between $12 and $14.)
So what will DivX talk about at CES? It wants to branch out into high-definition TV. Blu-ray Disc players and HD DVD players are too expensive for consumers in India or Eastern Europe. The company will try to cut deals with Bollywood executives and film producers in those countries to get them to adopt a high-definition version of DivX, Greenhall said.
"The supply of DivX HD content will be compelling," he said. The San Diego, Calif.-based company also plans to promote Stage 6, its own video site, at the conference. Professional filmmakers post their movies there--some are known, some are unknown. The site mostly seeks to attract artists who aren't getting mainstream recognition.
"We do outreach to find some of this stuff," he said. "If you have been doing postproduction in Hollywood for 10 years, you've got to have a lot of interesting material. The number of people who make a living in the video industry is pretty big."
One thing that won't likely happen soon, though, is a deal with a studio in the United States. In late 2004, the company said it was negotiating with a couple of major studios, but the deals fell through.
"It was kind of depressing. We thought they would be realistic," Greenhall said.
Friday, November 17, 2006
MPAA sues over DVD-to-iPod service
After the iPod gained the ability to play videos, services sprung up that would rip your DVDs and reencode them for viewing on your iPod. Useful, but illegal in the US. The Motion Picture Association of America has decided to sue one of those DVD ripping and reeconding services. Earlier this month, Load 'N Go Video was sued by Paramount Pictures in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York. The suit accuses Load 'N Go Video of copyright infringement and violating the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
Based in Boston, Load N' Go was founded in 2005 to help consumers get video content on to their portable media players. Load N' Go also sells iPods and DVDs, and will rip DVDs for its customers and load them on to their iPods. The customer then gets the iPod with the movies loaded on it and a copy of the DVD that she legally purchased.
The DMCA makes it illegal to circumvent copy protection, even for fair use purposes, so Load N' Go's prospects do not look good. The implications of this case are even more troubling. Not only could the MPAA sue any other companies performing similar services, but they clearly believe that they can sue you for ripping DVDs and moving the content to your iPod or other digital media player.
It's perfect for the movie studios. As we've pointed out before, they get to sell you the same content multiple times for multiple devices. Say you purchased a copy of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy when it came out on DVD. If you want a version to watch on your iPod, you have no legal way of getting one other than spending $9.99 for an iPod-friendly copy at the iTunes Store. It's a great scheme for the movie studios, but really bad news for consumers.
We have repeatedly been critical of the DMCA here at Ars. It's a badly written law that has the effect of providing legal protection to dated business models while thwarting Americans' ability to exercise their fair use rights. Making copies of just about any other media for personal use—even if you switch media formats—is perfectly legal under fair use. But even a weak wrappper of DRM, such as the CSS system used by DVDs, is sufficient to make this activity illegal
Earlier this week, the RIAA tried to convince us that it is a big fan of fair use. However, the recording and motion picture industries' support for tighter DRM restrictions including a broadcast flag for TV and radio shows their true intentions: locking down content as tightly as possible and requiring us to pay dearly to use it.
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