Pioneer releases $2200 USD Blu-ray player
Earlier this year Pioneer promised that they would be releasing the most powerful Blu-ray player ever built by the end of the year and true to their word, the Elite BDP-09FD is now available, at the hefty price of $2,200 USD.
Until today the Sony PlayStation 3 had been arguably the most powerful Blu-ray player on the market and one of the cheapest, retailing for $400 USD for its smallest capacity model.
The new Elite however should blow the PS3’s specs out of the water, although at $1800 more. The Elite is full BD-Live capable and comes with built-in 4GB internal memory for some of your downloading needs.
The player is not however, the sleekest Blu-ray player you’ve ever seen. It weighs almost 50 pounds and is much taller than an average player. It is however, very well built. Completely made of steel and aluminum the player is mounted to avoid any vibration. There are also no wires inside the player, all the connections have been physically mounted from the circuit board to greatly reduce noise.
Pioneer adds that this all-in-one box should be able to replace even a high-end snob’s CD player, DVD player and current Blu-ray player.
From an audio standpoint, Pioneer says this will decode all your music and movie soundtracks using gold-plated 7.1 RCA jacks that also create a “completely perfect noise-free signal.” All known codecs are decoded using a separate digital-to-analog converter for each channel which is an interesting feature that should make playback excellent. The company also promises jitter-free disc playback.
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Russian iPhone 3G deal gets more details
According to a new Russian newspaper report, the top three mobile phone carriers in Russia have agreed to distribute the Apple iPhone 3G in the country, selling 1.8 million units every year through 2011.
The paper, Vedomosti says that MTS has signed on to sell 1 million iPhones over the next three years while small carriers Vimpelcom and MegaFon have each agreed to sell 1.5 million units per year for the next two years.
Another interesting fact from the paper’s report was that the phone would sell for the equivalent of $1000 USD without contract or $200 USD with contract.
Although the iPhone is not officially sold in Russia, unauthorized sales have been growing exponentially with industry experts saying sales of unlocked iPhones are at about 20,000 per month now in the country. With over 500,000 estimated iPhone users, Russia has the third largest population of iPhone owners in the world behind the US and China.
Update: Sony Ericsson’s PlayNow available in four countries
In an update to our article on Sony Ericsson starting a DRM-free music store, the company has announced that they will be opening the store in four countries to start, Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden.
The official site is available here: Sony Ericsson PlayNow.
To quote our original article:
“First announced in 2007, Sony Ericsson’s DRM-free PlayNow Arena media download store is finally coming on August 25th complete with 1 million, DRM-free tracks at launch.
The tracks offered are from Sony BMG, Warner Music, and EMI and the company says they hope to have 5 million tracks by the end of 2009 when they have gone global.
Martin Blomkvist, Sony Ericsson’s head of content acquisition and management added that the store should help bring in extra revenue as well as “stimulate” handset sales for the phone maker.
“If we together don’t work for finding ways to take away the obstacles of legal downloads, then, this industry from a digital perspective is going to die,” Blomkvist said.
Prices are expected to be the same as rival iTunes, about 99 cents per track USD.”
File sharing propaganda distributed to students
The nonprofit group the National Center for State Courts has released an “educational comic strip” on the unlawful file sharing of music which it hopes will drive U.S. students away from the “dangers” of illegal file sharing.
On Friday the organization said they had distributed 50,000 copies of the 24-page booklet to students across the States. The booklet, “The Case of Internet Piracy,” however, is not at all entirely true, and instead reads as if the RIAA was writing it. Download an unauthorized track and head to jail, as well as losing your scholarship and your friends.
“The purpose is basically to educate kids — middle school and high school-aged about how the justice system operates and about what really goes on in the courtroom as opposed to what you see on television,” said Lorri Montgomery, the center’s communications director.
Wired gives a rundown of the entire booklet, which goes something like this:
“The piracy story has two plots. One is of the file sharer’s grandmother fighting eminent domain proceedings to keep her house while Megan the criminal file sharer deals with the charges against her.
The story is simple: Megan learns to download music from a friend. About 2,000 downloads and three months later, a police officer from the fictitious City of Arbor knocks on her door and hands her a criminal summons to appear in court.
All the while, her grandmother is trying to save her house from the city that wants to pave it over. When the grandmother gets home from a day in court (she eventually beats the city and keeps her house) the criminal Megan is crying. “Oh, Nana. What have I done? I’ve ruined everything,” she said. “I’ll lose my scholarship. I know I will.”
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iTunes block lifted by Chinese government
After being blocked for a few days by the Chinese government, Apple’s iTunes platform is back up and running in China but with any pro-Tibet downloads still unavailable.
The pro-Tibet download is what is suspected of having the service shut down last week although the Chinese government has not publicly stated why the platform was down.
The album, “Songs for Tibet,” was made by the Art of Peace Foundation, an organization that supports Tibetan independence. The album has songs from various artists including Dave Matthews Band and Sting as well as a large speech by the exiled Tibetan leader, the Dalai Lama.
Michael Wohl, executive director of the Art of Peace Foundation added that the CD was created to showoff the limits of free expression in China and that over 40 US athletes in Beijing for the Olympics had downloaded the CD to protest the government.
Lucie Morillon, the U.S. representative for the advocacy group Without Borders, added that the “temporary inaccessibility of iTunes and continuing unavailability of “Songs for Tibet” is an example of the intolerance shown by the Chinese authorities toward Tibetan culture and dissident voices.”
LG to offer NAS with Blu-ray burning
LG is set to release its latest network attached storage (NAS) solution which will offer an industry first, a built-in Blu-ray burner.
The N4B1 can accept hard drives up to four terabytes large and is optimized for small business users who need to manage large amounts of data. LG also offers an “Easy&Fancy web-based graphic user interface / Remote support to help solve more complicated issues” help bar that should make installation and management very simple for those who have never used a NAS before.
Another interesting feature is that of the ability to create a virtual disc library out of any Blu-ray, DVD and CD inserted into the Blu-ray drive. The NAS can create and store an image of the disc which will then be available to all users on the network. LG says this will save time as well as reduce wear on discs that may be used a lot.
When writing a Blu-ray disc, the NAS automatically creates a catalog of the contents of the disc. In this way, the content can be archived easier.
The new NAS is compatible with the major OS, Windows, Linux and Mac OSX and includes “a gigabit Ethernet connection and three USB 2.0 connections. It can be configured for RAID 5 (default), 0, 1, 1+0 and JBOD modes and also allows for hot swapping of hard drives.”
LG says the NAS will be available by December.
DISH goes all MPEG-4 AVC
The DISH Network has announced that they will become the first in the industry to offer all SD and HD transmissions in the MPEG-4 AVC standard.
Although competitor DIRECTV already offers all HD programming in the MPEG-4 AVC they only offer a portion of their SD programming in the standard.
At launch, only 21 markets in the US will have the full MPEG-4 AVC rollout with other markets receiving later.
“DISH Network once again leads the pack in providing customers with an unparalleled entertainment experience. Our complete MPEG-4 solution — which will offer up to 150 HD channels by the end of the year — uses the most advanced technology in the industry to deliver the best quality picture to any television set in the home, perfect for those who have or are considering upgrading to high definition,” said Jessica Insalaco, Chief Marketing Officer for DISH Network. “We look forward to expanding this advanced service to more consumers throughout the U.S. in the coming months.”
The first 21 markets to recieve the all-MPEG 4 AVC offer are: Cleveland; Richmond; Baltimore; Columbia; Tampa; Green Bay; Greensboro; Providence; Greenville; Knoxville; Raleigh; Chicago; Detroit; Charlotte; Dallas; Nashville; Minneapolis; Philadelphia; Washington, D.C.; New York, N.Y.; and Hartford.
Quanta and LG settle over DVD-rom patents
LG and Quanta Computers have finally settled their long-standing disagreement over patents relating to DVD-Rom drive data transaction in notebook computers.
The settlement will have Quanta pay LG royalties for the use of four separate patents relating to DVD-Rom drive data transaction and two pending lawsuits will be dropped in exchange.
There was no word on how much the royalty payments would be but the US District Court for the Northern District of California has confirmed that suits were dropped.
The first suit was filed in 2001 and the second one a few months ago.
Philips shows off 3D on Blu-ray
Philips has announced that they will demonstrate 3D on Blu-ray later this week at the IFA 2008 event.
The demonstration is set to show off the company’s new 2D-plus-Depth format which can be added to Blu-ray to immerse the viewer in 3D.
The company says that now with theatrical releases of films in 3D growing, consumers will want the same experience in their homes. Using the 2D-plus-Depth format on Blu-ray users can watch the films either on stereoscopic displays, with the red/blue glasses, or on auto-stereoscopic 3D displays where you do not need the glasses.
Jos Swillens, CEO of Philips 3D Solutions added “this demonstration of 3D on Blu-ray is a clear proof point of the flexibility and sustainability of our 2D-plus-Depth content format. It can bring high quality 3D content to the home on a variety of displays and offers a solution to the need for interoperability in 3D”.
Philips 3D displays are normally used for professional use in gaming applications at casinos as well as digital signs and billboards. Because of special WOWvx technology, no 3D glasses are needed.
According to CDRinfo, the “WOWvx technology is developed by Philips 3D Solutions and indicates the use of technology related to 3 dimensional viewing experience. This technology comprises the technology to manufacture autostereoscopic lenticular 3D displays, display signal processing to generate multiple views for 3D displays, interface specification for 3D displays based on the 2D-plus-Depth format and 3D content creation and conversion tools.”
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RIAA close to victory over Jeffrey Howell
Federal Judge Neil V. Wake is set to reverse a previous decision that had ruled against the RIAA in the case of defendant Jeffrey Howell. Howell’s case has been at the center of the “making available” point.
The case took a turn for the worse when the RIAA claimed that Howell had taken steps to remove all evidence of Kazaa from his computer despite “repeated and explicit warnings about the obligation to preserve evidence.”
In April, the same judge ruled in favor of Howell, stating that the labels “hadn’t provided adequate evidence that Howell had infringed their copyrights.” Wake added that although the RIAA claimed Howell had 42 songs in his Kazaa shared folder, Judge Wake said that it could not be proven as infringement unless there was proof that someone actually downloaded the shared files. The key point however, was whether Howell had actually purposely shared the files or whether Kazaa had put them there automatically.
Because he erased the hard drive however against the judge’s orders, it appears that the RIAA may win this case after all and Howell will not get a chance to argue the “making available” point. Unfortunately.
