The music industry will remain flat for another two years and when it does pick up, the music industry will have the crackdown on file-sharers to thank, according to a report.

More leading Japanese DVD drive makers like Sony and Teac have speeded up outsourcing 4x DVD+RW drives to Taiwan following recent steep price falls, according to sources at Taiwanese makers.

The Taiwanese optical storage manufacturer Cyber Drive have unveiled the specs of its first DVD writer, the DX082D. It features 8x DVD+R and 4x DVD+RW write speeds as well as 32x CD-R and 24x CD-RW write speeds. The the DX082D also boasts a large 8 MB buffer.

DivXNetworks has released a new version of their megapopular MPEG-4 codec, DivX. The latest version, DivX v5.1.1 is, according to DivXNetworks, "the most significant improvement in DivX ever". You can download the Standard and free Pro (ie adware supported) versions in our download section.

Infodisc Technology, one of the top two manufacturers of pre-recorded optical discs, will spin off its business division producing blank DVDs to form a 100% owned subsidiary called Infomedia.

Apple have unveiled G5-optimized versions of Final Cut Pro 4, Shake 3 and DVD Studio Pro 2. The new version of Final Cut Pro now delivers simultaneous playback of seven fully uncompressed standard definition (SD) video streams with real-time effects using a dual 2.0 GHz processor Power Mac G5 and Xserve RAID.

The China digital disk technologies community have announced that it will promote an upgraded consumer electronic product, the 'Enhanced DVD' or 'EVD', in place of DVD, in the coming high-volume sales season.

Press Release form the COMDEX trade show: Panasonic's commitment to the Recordable DVD and PC industry continues with the announcement of a new line-up of DVD MULTI Drives that offer users a fast, slim option for all multi-media recording needs. The MULTI Drives, which support DVD-RAM/R/RW formats, will be demonstrated during this year's COMDEX alongside other DVD-RAM products to highlight the continued growth of the format.

Contract manufacturing prices for 4x recordable DVD+RW drives have declined by 9-10% since the beginning of the fourth quarter after declining 30-40% over the previous two quarters, according to sources.

Iomega are set to intro an external DVD burner with a built-in video capture card and the ability to burn to DVD plus, dash and RAM media, along with two network hard drives.

Pioneer have announced what they claim to be the future of DJ technology with its new DVJ-X1 digital audio and video turntable. This groundbreaking product allows users to manipulate and playback synchronized digital audio and video in a way that will revolutionize the DJ industry.

Men of a certain age and income are indulging in a new type of furtive pleasure that involves specialist magazines and select websites, and culminates in wads of cash changing hands. They may appear to be buying expensive electronic goods, but to the men in question the pleasure is derived almost entirely from the build-up to the purchase.

There's division in the ranks of the DVD Forum, whose steering committee will meet in New York next week to vote on a next-generation optical-disk format. Sixty companies took part in the forum's technical working group to develop the high-definition (HD-DVD) format, and some of them are also members of the opposing Blu-ray Disc ROM (BD-ROM) camp. Blu-ray was developed by 10 powerful consumer electronics companies, including Sony, Philips, Hitachi, Sharp and Samsung. All 10 are members of the DVD Forum's steering committee.

In a scenario that seems only too familiar in multimedia technologies, two rival formats are competing to become the standard format for all our metadata. Metadata is the information that is stored along with multimedia files that helps identify the file to different players and applications. For example, an Mp3 music track may contain metadata about the tracks title, artist, album, genre etc. The two standards for this data, HighMAT and Music Photo Video now look set on a head-on collision.

Internet users who distribute movies and music ahead of their release dates could face up to five years in prison under a proposed US bill. Surreptitious videotaping of movies in cinemas would is also set to be outlawed.

It was too good a deal to pass up: buy one DVD at full price and get five more for 49 cents each. So good in fact that two brothers answered the newspaper ad, not just once, or twice, but 675 times, using a different name with each order, according to US police.

A continuing boom in DVD sales will compensate for shrinking prices for the movie discs, Cinram International Inc. executives assured investors Wednesday, predicting holiday sales will be the strongest in the company's history.

Sony has announced internal and external drives that sport the DVD Alliance's 8-speed DVD+R spec.
The internal drive (DRU-530A) will be available from next month for £152 ex VAT, while the external one (DRX-530UL) will be available from January at a price yet to be confirmed.

Sony has launched a portable personal digital video player under its Vaio brand in Japan. The GigaPocket PCVA-HVP20 features a 20GB hard drive, enough to hold up to 31 hours of programming - if you're pretty frugal with image quality.

Press Release: Pioneer Europe the leader in recordable DVD technology, today announces a multiple format DVD/CD internal writer the DVR-A07. The drive enables high-speed recording at 8x on both DVD-R and +R media. The DVR-A07 will be available in January 2004 at an approximate price of EUR300 (£208).