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Samsung Unleash 22X DVD Burner, Smallest 500GB HDD

Haroon Malik — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 15:30:00 +0000

Samsung’s Spinpoint M6 is the world’s first 2.5-inch, 500GB HDD. Standing in at 9.5mm tall, the M6 will easily fit most existing laptop hard drive bays. For those of you worried about sloth like performance, the Spinpoint M6 has a 5400rpm spindle speed, an 8MB cache, as well as a 3.0Gbps SATA interface. A Free-Fall Sensor can be added as an optional extra. Not content with breaking the world record for the HDD with the smallest size / biggest capacity, Samsung are also introducing the industry’s fastest DVD burner.

The WriteMaster SH-S223 will offer high speed DVD burning on low speed media; 16X and 8X media will be written to at 22X and 12X write speeds, respectively. The SH-S223 will be able to write at the following maximum speeds; 22X DVD±R recording, 12X DVD-RAM recording, 16X DVD+R Dual Layer recording, 12X DVD-R Dual Layer recording, 8X DVD+RW recording and 6X DVD-RW recording. Time wise, 4.7GB of data can be burnt to a DVD±R disc in approximately 4 minutes and 26 seconds. That kind of performance puts even Speedy Gonzalez to shame. All around, it looks like it has been a fantastic record breaking weekend for our chums at Samsung. Well done, chaps. [Gizmag]

Sony CEO: US$200 Blu-ray Players Coming

Matt Buchanan — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 17:43:32 +0000

Everybody clamouring for a cheap Blu-ray player now that the format war is over might wanna bide their time with a sweet DVD upconverter—the US$200-player Blu-ray cavalry is at least a year away, according to Sony Electronics CEO Stan Glasgow, who we talked to today in New York. “I don’t think US$200 is going to happen this year. Next year US$200 could happen. We’ll be at a US$300 rate this year. US$299 will happen this year.”

Multimedia Watch Makes Wrist Mounted Accessories Useful (Almost)

Haroon Malik — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 10:00:00 +0000

The day when the watch is once again a useful piece of technology is looming over us. For proof, check out Chinavasion’s Multimedia Watch, which packs in a 1.8-inch LCD (160 x 128), voice recorder, in-built loudspeaker, 8GB flash, as well as support for pretty much every media codec ever conceived. (AVI, MP4, WMV, MOV, MP3, WMA, JPEG and the list goes on.)

The E-book reader function will ensure you need to wear spectacles within a week’s usage, while the earphone jack will save your eyes and let you rock out to your stored tunes. Video plays back at 20 fps, so you really couldn’t get any good viewing done, but V3.0 of the Multimedia Watch is going to be mega for sure. [Chinavasion via Geekalerts]

Nokia to Support Microsoft Silverlight Web Video

Haroon Malik — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 09:19:05 +0000

Nokia has committed to bring Microsoft Silverlight video services to its S60 devices. Further, Nokia will also add support for the video content to its S40-based handsets at later stages. Given the immense market penetration of Nokia’s Symbian- based mobiles, this partnering will have a large effect on mobile content support, and you can bet your bottom dollar that Adobe is feeling a little sick right now. [Reuters]

RIAA Wants Your Anti-Virus Software to Screen Your Downloads for Pirated Content

Matt Buchanan — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 18:25:18 +0000

Content filter version one: A massive, network-wide dragnet. Not really feeling that Big Bro deal, even though RIAA chief Cary Sherman says it “doesn’t give rise…to any privacy concerns because it can operate automatically and anonymously”? It’s cool, there’s a better approach: A locally installed filter on your computer.

As a bonus, a local filter would defeat encrypted torrents, since you’ve gotta decrypt ‘em, at which point the filter would kick in. Sherman is a smart cookie though, and knows people aren’t just gonna sign up to have their machine lojacked:

“Why would somebody put that on their machine? They wouldn’t likely want to do that, they’d do that when it benefits them such as for viruses and so on and so forth…it could be enforced at the modem or put in by the ISP.”

I’ve got nothing here. [Public Knowledge via Broadband Reports]

Verizon Says F-U To Hollywood Piracy Snitching

Adrian Covert — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 03:45:07 +0000

Hollywood wants ISPs such as Verizon to help filter and block the illegal transfer of copyrighted content. Unlike AT&T, Verizon is telling Hollywood to kiss its ass. Verizon EVP of Public Affairs Tom Tauke says they won’t consider Hollywood’s call to action for three reasons.

First, it opens the door for other organisations to make demands as to what should and shouldn’t be allowed. Verizon doesn’t feel the internet should be excessively policed. Second, it sets a precedent that would make networks and service providers liable for future cases where they fail to block content. Third, Verizon sees content filtering as an invasion of privacy, and they try to balance the wishes of customers with the necessity for content protection. Amen. [NY Times]

Ten free discs with HD DVD players, a couple worth watching

Seamus Byrne — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 22:06:33 +0000

We’ve mentioned the recent local price drops for HD DVD. Now Toshiba has added more discs to their redemption deals to sweeten the deal further, with as many as ten discs now heading your way when you send off the voucher (or whatever it is you need to do to redeem). That’s on top of one disc in the box (no idea what, sorry). But caveat emptor, friends. The word ‘Norbit’ appears on the list… isn’t that more dealbreaker than dealmaker?

Buy an HD-E1 at $599 and you can get $100 cashback plus three discs:
The Holiday, Miami Vice, and HULK. Not too offensive, and two of those
could make for some nice showpiece discs just for their colour and
action.

Buy the HD-EP10 at $799 and that’s $100 cashback plus five discs: World
Trade Centre, Dream Girls, Black Rain, U2 Rattle & Hum, and…
Norbit. I’d watch Dream Girls once. Black Rain? Once was enough back in
‘88.

Buy the HD-XE1 at $1299 and get ten discs: All those mentioned above,
plus Fast & the Furious Tokyo Drift and American Werewolf in
London. Tokyo Drift is actually quite good (for a trashy racer flick),
and American Werewolf in London is by far the best disc on the entire
list.

In value add deals like these, for me it is a turn off if the sweeteners are not to my taste. At their best, these deals offer choices from a range of options. So I’m not so impressed with this deal. Still, if you’re diving into the new format and you’re just after some content to spin in the early days of having your player, it’s nice to score a bunch of discs. Right?

NBC Wanted to “Experiment” with $2.99 TV Show Pricepoint on iTunes, Cut of Apple Hardware Sales

Matt Buchanan — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 00:00:50 +0000

Nearly two months after the fizzle out between NBC Universal and Apple during contract negotiations, NBC U CEO Jeff Zucker spills what some of the contested terms were. Most surprising is that NBC asked for a cut of hardware sales. Not the fact that they wanted a cut, but that they actually asked for it—they’d have more luck asking the devil himself to reverse whatever deal Steve inked with him. (Though handing content providers a slice isn’t unprecedented.) Also, that pricing “flexibility” NBC pissed and moaned so loudly about was what we all expected: “”We wanted to take one show, it didn’t matter which one it was, and experiment and sell it for $2.99.” So in short, it was all about money.

“We don’t want to replace the dollars we were making in the analogue world with pennies on the digital side.” Given that NBC apparently only netted $15 million in the last year of its deal with Apple despite accounting for 30-40 percent of video content sold (depending on whether you ask NBC or Apple), all the other contract sniggles aside, it’s no wonder they bolted for Amazon—who probably ponied up a sweeter revenue sharing deal—and Hulu, where they’ll have a sizable chunk of ad revenue. [Variety, Thanks John]

Warners delay launch of Total HD Until 2008

Seamus Byrne — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 17:52:16 +0000

Warner’s Total HD discs, expected at the end of this year, will not now be making an appearance until 2008. The announcement, made yesterday by the entertainments giant, gave no reason why tills will not be jingling with Total HD sales this holiday season, leaving room for speculation.

It could be that there are problems getting the dual format onto on one disc, or that they are waiting to see who comes out on top in the Blu-ray-HD bitch fight. Either way, the company is keeping schtum about its reasons. “There is no expiration date on the viability of this concept, so we’re not in a rush to do it,” said Warner’s senior VP in charge of marketing management. “We’ll do it when it makes sense and when it’s right.”

Warner delays launch of total HD until 2008 [High-Def Digest]

Colbert Skewers Transformers, iPhone

Seamus Byrne — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 16:39:56 +0000

Stephen Colbert of The Colbert Report gives us his spin on the upcoming Transformers movie, as only he can. Can’t trust any of these trannies? If you like that, watch until the end and you’ll get his take on the iPhone, too.