MOST VIDEO CARDS nowadays use the AGP bus which was recently upgraded to AGP 8X. However, in a throwback to the 1990's ATI has unveiled a new PCI video card, and a multimedia ALL-IN WONDER which includes a TV tuner, software for video recording and DVD playback, and other multimedia features.

Low-priced DVD players, which can also play music CDs, are starting to win the popularity contest among consumers.

Many owners of Sony's latest DVD rewritable drives will get an error message and won't be able to record when they try to use low-quality discs
More than half of Sony Electronics' recently released rewritable DVD drives can't record to low-quality media, the consumer-electronics giant confirmed on Wednesday, but the company has made a fix available.

Owners of Sony's latest DVD rewritable drives, the external DRX-500UL and the internal DRU-500A, will get an error message and won't be able to record when they try to use low-quality discs with the drives, according to Sony marketing manager Bob DeMoulin.

The internal drives are used with PCs and went on sale about 45 days ago. The external drives just started shipping. The company has shipped a total of about 30,000 of both drives, but although more than half could be affected, only a few dozen people have called to complain, according to DeMoulin.

Sony representatives said the problem occurs only with discs that are slightly outside the tolerance levels of the DVD+RW disc specification. The company has made an upgrade available for free on its Web site: the Firmware Upgrade 1.0d, which fixes the problem.

"The upgrade makes the drives more forgiving for media that's on the ragged edge in terms of quality," said DeMoulin. He added that the problem does not occur with Sony media or other discs from name brands, such as Verbatim, Memorex or TDK, but it does with "off brands".

The Sony drives are noteworthy because they're compatible with several formats, DVD-R, DVD-RW and DVD+RW, which are being promoted by opposing industry groups, the DVD Forum and the DVD+RW Alliance. Both groups are battling to establish their respective formats as the dominant ones in the market. Companies are hoping to build off the momentum of popular video products, such as DVD players and digital video devices, by offering drives that can record content onto DVD discs.

Sony is a member of both groups and has been on the fence when it comes to committing to one or the other.

The Japanese consumer-electronics giant expects to ship between 55,000 to 60,000 drives by the end of the year.

Sony announced Monday that it will be making an upgrade for its DRX-500UL and DRU-500A drives available on or before 9 December, which will allow drives to reach 4X recording speeds with DVD+R discs, cutting recording times roughly in half. The drives support 4X DVD-R, 2X DVD-RW, 2.4X DVD+RW and DVD+R recording.

321Studios released a new version of their popular DVD to DVD-/+R/W backup tool, DVDXCopy that allows 1:1 copies of DVD movies to be made on recordable DVD discs (DVD-9 discs will be split to two recordable DVDs).

We have heard rumours that Datawrite are now using Ricoh to produce DVD+R and DVD+RW discs. A Datawrite spokesman refused to deny or confirm the rumours though he did say that regardless of who the "new manufacturer" was there would be no Price increase on the Version 2 of the Datawrite DVD+ media, in fact it was “conceivable “ prices may go down.

DVD players, mobile phones and digital cameras are the three categories of electronics consumers are mostly likely to buy in the next three months, while high-definition TV (HDTV) is unlikely to find broader markets this holiday season, according to a new survey by marketing researchers Ipsos-Reid.

A press release from Datasafe Media about the launch of the new Neo Premium disc made us think about the current state of the market.

The number of products offered in the DVD-R market continues to accelerate, with many CD-R manufacturers switching lines to DVD-R production. It is therefore no surprise that we see the volume leader - Datasafe - making strategic and considered moves to consolidate their already solid position.

Is this the company to watch? We think so. Let's consider the facts.

Datasafe:

have constantly forced the price of DVD down and the volume up

have adopted the +R standard as soon as it looked likely to do well

now offer a Ritek based DVD-R at considerably less than competing Ritek manufactured brands

are aggressively marketing to Europe and Scandinavia - our sources tell us that Datasafe and representatives of their main distributors e-netdistribution were actively recruiting at several major European shows in the last month

are also developing co-branded products, optimised for particular markets - the Neo disc being the first obvious example

Other industry rumours point to Datasafe having negotiated OEM deals for domestic DVD players and PC writers giving them plenty of exposure in the home and PC markets.

So are they winning the DVD-R war? We think so.

Click here for the review of the new Datasafe DVD-R.

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - The California Supreme Court on Monday dealt a blow to the movie industry's bid to crack down on piracy, ruling that a Texas man could not be sued in California for posting a program on the Internet that could be used to make bootleg copies of copyrighted DVDs.

Click here for the review.

A consortium of companies holding patents attached to the MPEG-4 multimedia standard released its license for the technology, raising hopes for widespread adoption. The license released Monday is essentially the same as one proposed by the consortium, MPEG LA, in July. That proposed license set a cap of $1 million per licensee, as well as a threshold that exempts MPEG-4 users with fewer than 50,000 implementations from royalty payments.

Ritek, the world’s largest CD-R disc manufacturer, said that fueled by the rising popularity of recordable DVD drives, it projects worldwide consumption of recordable DVD discs will conservatively reach 320 million units in 2003, with an optimistic projection of 400 million to 500 million units.

An optical-storage standards group has taken a step forward in efforts to improve compatibility between PCs and consumer electronics devices.
The Optical Storage Technology Association (OSTA) have released MultiPhoto/Video (MPV) 1.0, specifications that aim to make it easier to retrieve data on CD and DVD players from discs created on PCs.

After months of focusing on improving Web services and design, Macromedia is returning to an old favorite--the CD-ROM.

The software maker is set to announce on Monday a new version of Director, the multimedia authoring tool that is one of the company's oldest franchises and helped kick off the CD-ROM boom of the early 1990s.

The DVD6C Licensing Agency (DVD6C), the industry body representing the seven leading developers of DVD technology and formats -- AOL Time Warner Inc., Hitachi, Ltd., IBM Corporation, Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd., Mitsubishi Electric Corporation, Toshiba Corporation and Victor Company of Japan, Ltd. (JVC) -- today announced that it expects to start global licensing of essential patents for DVD-Audio and recordable DVD products on or about January 1, 2003. Licenses will cover both drives and media, including DVD-Audio, DVD-RAM, DVD-RW and DVD-R.

Due to a number of queries we have had from our members, it seems many people are pretty confused about the range of firmware versions that there are for the Pioneer A04. Well, thanks to our regular contributor Flash we have a new review which explains the whole can of worms. We have also upgraded our download area to include all the possible A04 files you might want.

Sharing the podium at the Comdex Recordable DVD Council (RDVDC) press conference today, Andy Parsons, senior vice president for Pioneer Electronics (USA) Inc., and Tony Jasionowski, North American RDVDC managing director, took a "no smoke, just fire" approach to presenting the facts about the new milestones that are driving DVD burner sales. After making their presentations, Parsons and Jasionowski left little doubt that the new DVD drives eliminate the performance, compatibility and price barriers to creating and sharing home movies and personalized videos.

Philips is to highlight its focused technology strategy at COMDEX 2002 by showcasing several new products and solutions based on core competencies in display, storage, connectivity and digital video processing.

The DVD6C Licensing Agency (DVD6C), the industry body representing the seven leading developers of DVD technology and formats -- AOL Time Warner Inc., Hitachi, Ltd., IBM Corporation, Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd., Mitsubishi Electric Corporation, Toshiba Corporation and Victor Company of Japan, Ltd. (JVC) -- today announced that it expects to start global licensing of essential patents for DVD-Audio and recordable DVD products on or about January 1, 2003. Licenses will cover both drives and media, including DVD-Audio, DVD-RAM, DVD-RW and DVD-R.

Recordable DVD drives, media and applications will experience dramatic growth next year and through at least 2006, Jon Peddie, president of Jon Peddie Research, told attendees of the Recordable DVD Council (RDVDC) ISV meeting here today. Speaking to more than 100 executives from hardware, software and solutions firms prior to the beginning of Comdex, he emphasized that sophisticated consumers and digital Darwinism or the laws of nature should guide firms' product plans, not bold new experiments.

Ahead Software, creators of the world-renowned CD/DVD recording software Nero, have announced plans to integrate full MPEG-4 audio support (AAC -- Advanced Audio Coding) within Nero Burning ROM. Available soon as a downloadable plug-in, the Nero AAC encoder is the result of extensive in-house development work by Ahead in MPEG-4 technology.