Blu-spec standard coming to CD audio
Sony Music Entertainment Japan has announced the launch of a new disc standard today, Blu-spec, in which it hopes to use blue lasers to “cut CDs more accurately than would be possible with red lasers.”
The company will also use polymer plastic for the actual discs and the combination will improve the quality of audio CDs while keeping compatibility with current CD players. Incompatibility has been the main weakness for Super Audio CDs and other audio standards.
The first Blu-spec discs will hit Japan on Christmas and will be mainly classical music discs as well as Jazz. Among the 60 titles available at launch will be Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 and Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue.
The discs will all be Sony but they are hoping to “foster cross-label support” from the other Big 4 labels.
46 prosecuted for Internet piracy in Italy
As part of “Operation Music Box”, the Italian fiscal police have prosecuted forty-six people for uploading very large amounts of copyright infringing material through the Internet. The activity was carried out using eDonkey2000 and Direct Connect software. The investigation led to raids in 13 different provinces, turning up 1.7 million illegal mp3 files and more than 15,000 burnt CD-Rs containing copyright infringing music.
In total, 52 computers, two laptops, 81 external hard drives and 69 internal hard drives were seized. Under Italian law, the uploaders were held liable for more than €3 million in administrative sanctions. “People who upload hundreds or thousands of copyright infringing music tracks onto the Internet are breaking the law. They are stealing the livelihoods of artists, composers and record producers. I am delighted the Guardia di Finanza is holding them accountable for their actions,” said Enzo Mazza, president of FPM.
The trade value of the recording industry in Italy has shrunk from &euro370.1 million in 2003 to €266.2 million in 2007, and this fall has been largely blamed on the widescale availability of illegal MP3 copies.
Argentina targets major pirate market
In mid-October, the Argentine coast guard targeted one of the most notorious piracy markets. The La Salada market has been targeted before, and has a reputation for housing enormous amounts of counterfeit products. The Economic Crime Unit executed several search warrants on warehouses around the market, located in the suburbs of Buenos Aires.
The raids were the result of an investigation that lasted for a year, targeting imported products entering the Port of Argentina found to have suspect invoices and to be undervalued. The products would (and do) end up in pirate markets all across the country as they move through the illicit chain.
The actions yielded five million discs containing music and films, 63 burners, two industrial printers and 200 master plates that are used for professional album cover replication. Several organized crime syndicates have been identified as operating in the market.
Firefox hits 20 percent market share for browsers
According to a new report published by Net Applications, Mozilla’s Firefox web browser can now boast 20 percent of the global market share for browsers, slowly chipping away at Internet Explorer’s once-thought of insurmountable lead.
The report says the browser has seen a huge surge in popularity thanks to the recent release of Firefox 3 as well as from converts fearing the infamously insecure Internet Explorer.
The milestone is even more impressive considering the growing popularity of Apple’s Safari browser and the introduction of Google’s Chrome browser.
Mozilla also added that they plan to replace their current JavaScript engine with TraceMonkey which will “improve operations within the application by 20 to 40 percent.”
EZQuest launches 6x Blu-ray drive
EZQuest has launched its latest Mac-based product, the internal Phoenix Blu-ray Super Drive 6X Rewriter.
The drive can play and record to CD, DVD, HD DVD and Blu-ray. The “device features a 4MB buffer for writing, and uses integrated buffer under-run protection. Files, folders, movies, or other content can be dragged and dropped directly from the Mac desktop to be written on the 50GB capacity discs,” says the product page.
To be able to watch commercial Blu-ray or HD DVD discs on Macs however, the company says you will have to use Windows through Boot Camp on your computer.
Write speed for BD-R and BD-RE discs is 6X, HD DVDs is 3X and standard DVDs are 16x.
The EZQuest Phoenix is currently available for both the Mac Pro and Power Mac for $480 USD while a bundled version (with Toast Titanium) is priced at $550 USD.
NAD introduces Profile 2.0 Blu-ray player
The high-end home theater producer NAD has announced their first Blu-ray player, dubbed the T587, which includes Profile 2.0 support.
The T587 is expected to have the fastest load up time for Blu-ray movies (under a minute), a feature that should be welcome to many enthusiasts.
Electronista adds the player has “Dolby TrueHD and DTS Master Audio surround sound, HDMI 1.3 output with support for Deep Color on the right HDTVs; it also supports Dolby Digital Plus for 10.2-channel sound over the newest audio systems. A front USB port handles MP3/WMA music and JPEG/PNG photos, while the disc drive itself can play back DivX clips.”
The price of course is at a premium as well, and will sell for $1500 USD when it begins shipping in early December.
France closer to blocking pirates from the Internet
The French Senate has voted in favor of a law that will have pirates kicked off the Internet for multiple offenses and the bill now goes to the French National Assembly for final approval.
Pirates caught illegally sharing protected content will get two warning emails before having their Internet connection cut off.
The idea of the “three strikes law” has been around since late 2007 when French President Nicolas Sarkozy introduced it and called the proposal “a decisive moment for the future of a civilised internet”.
Under the law, ISPs will become Internet watchdogs keeping a closer look on the piracy tendencies of its users.
The Senate almost unanimously voted to back the law (297 to 15) and will also create a new government division to strictly oversee anti-piracy.
Netflix stops sales of used DVDs
Netflix has announced plans to discontinue sales of used DVDs in an effort to shift focus back to its core businesses of streaming movies and TV and DVD rentals.
Posted in the official Netflix blog, the company said they will stop sales of used DVDs on November 30th.
The blog states: “As you know, our core business is delivering great movie rentals to you on DVD by mail and instantly to the computer and TV, so we’ve decided it makes sense for us to focus exclusively on that. This means we will stop selling previously viewed DVDs through the Web site. We’re sorry for any inconvenience for those of you who regularly purchase DVDs at Netflix, but we’re excited about being able to spend the extra time focusing on continually improving our core rental business for you.”
The announcement comes on the heels of Netflix’s announcement that their new Silverlight-based movie streaming player had gone to public beta and would be accessible to Mac users.
Many subscribers who posted on the blog however seemed to be against the move.
“Being able to purchase previously viewed movies from Netflix was a huge bonus of my membership. I am truly sorry to lose that benefit. I hate to lose features to my membership, and I hope this is not a trend,” wrote one subscriber.
EMI hoping to join Nokia’s new music offering
EMI has announced that they were negotiating with the biggest mobile phone handset maker in the world, Nokia, in a concentrated effort to offer its music catalog as part Nokia’s upcoming “Comes with Music” offering.
“We want to be part of it. I believe strongly that when it launches we will be there, with a full offering,” Wemppa Koivumaki, head of EMI Finland, said in the announcement.
The handset maker will begin selling phones under its “Comes With Music” brand in the Q3 of 2008 and the service will give users unlimited access to millions of tracks from labels worldwide.
Last December, Universal signed up for the program, being the first of the Big 4 record labels to do so.
Best Buy starts $10 million USD HD DVD refund program
Best Buy has announced that it will be giving any BB customer who purchased an HD DVD player or the Xbox 360 HD DVD add-on before February 23, 2008 a $50 USD gift card as a way to make amends.
The retailer also added that it will be distributing at most $10 million USD in cards, meaning that about 200,000 individuals bought a player from BB since the format’s launch.
To receive the gift card, many customers will not have to do anything but have a phone. BB plans to locate buyers using Reward Zone and service plan program information but those that cannot be identified need to call (888) BEST BUY and supply a receipt or credit card statement with the transaction.
If you did not purchase an HD DVD player from BB but would still like to get rid of it the company is also starting a trade-in program where the “company’s Online Trade-In Center will provide estimates for how much the company will pay for various Toshiba HD DVD player models. Individuals can agree to the estimate and mail in their players to receive a Best Buy gift card for that amount.”
“Now that the format war is over, we hope these gift cards will reassure our customers that we will help them make a smooth transition into the Right technology for their needs,” added Best Buy president Brian J. Dunn.
You get to keep your HD DVD player and make $50 dollars, what a great deal.
