April 29th, 2008

Aleratec is now shipping its new Aleratec color coded duplicator grade LightScribe DVD-R recording media.

Aleratec duplicator grade LightScribe media is optimized for LightScribe Direct Disc Labeling DVD Duplicators and Publishing Systems producing the highest contrast LightScribe Direct Disc Labels and maximum yields in demanding professional disc publishing applications. The new Aleratec duplicator grade LightScribe media is produced in 5 different colors to aid in segregating and organizing different types of data or multimedia. These color-coded discs are LightScribe-ready and can be direct-to-disc LightScribe labeled in LightScribe DVD-RW drives without a printer. The Aleratec Rainbow 100 Pack(tm) contains 20 each of 5 key colors (red, orange, yellow, green, and blue) for a wide range of disc identification options.

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April 15th, 2008

Software Architects announced the release of its ArchivistPro Holographic Archival System for MS Windows and Linux, the first general purpose integrated holographic recording system based on the Tapestry 300r Recorder developed by InPhase Technologies.

The system provides a write once capacity of 300 Gbytes in a 5-1/4″ cartridge. The ArchivistPro software provides drive letter access reading & writing to the holographic disc, and is compatible with third party applications that support the standard Microsoft Win-32 API.

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April 2nd, 2008

Our pick for the best (and more importantly most relevant to this site) April Fool’s Day joke goes to ThinkGeek hands-down for announcing the launch of their New Betamax to HD-DVD converter.

Did you know that with the introduction of Beta hi-fi audio, the Betamax lost its slim luminance horizontal resolution advantage to VHS? And did you also know that a dual-layer HD DVD holds a maximum of 30 GB of data and a comparable Blu-ray Disc holds a maximum of 50 GB? Mere coincidence? We think not!

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April 1st, 2008

Primera Technology is announcing an agreement with Charismac Engineering, Inc. for disc burning software that runs on Apple, Inc.’s Mac OS X v10.5 Leopard called Discribe v.6.0.

This is good news to any Mac user who wants to burn blu-ray and to use Primera’s products as well. Also it is news for anyone who is familiar with earlier of versions of Discribe, as the new software is completely rewritten.

The official press release from Primera:

PLYMOUTH, MN, USA (April 1, 2008) — Primera Technology, Inc., the world’s leading manufacturer of CD, DVD, and Blu-ray Disc duplication and printing equipment, today announced an agreement with Charismac Engineering, Inc. for disc burning software that runs on Apple, Inc.’s Mac OS X v10.5 Leopard operating system. Beginning April 1, 2008, Primera will include Charismac’s new Discribe v6.0 software in all Bravo-Series and XR-Series Disc Publishers.

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March 22nd, 2008

Hexalock, a developer of digital copy protection solutions, announced today a new copy protection technology for both data and video stored on DVD recordable discs.

The company released HexDVDR-Video, which protects against copying video DVDs and HexDVD-DATA, for protection of software and data.

According to Hexalock, HexDVDR-Video does not allow direct 1:1 copying of a DVD video disc, by forcing any copy program to stop or require extended time (multiple hours) to copy. Duplicating the complete DVD by file based copying is also not possible.

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March 13th, 2008

It’s interesting to see drive manufacturers such as Plextor producing their own CD DVD duplicator towers, but what will it mean for the formerly niche duplicator manufacturers that sell private label towers using big-name drives?

Plextor LLC today announced the immediate availability of the PlexTower series of CD/DVD disc duplication towers.

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March 6th, 2008

Panasonic released a new firmware for its LF-PB271JD Blu-ray drive, adding support for the new LTH Blu-ray disc.

The Japanese company is the first ODD manufacturer to offer such an update. The firmware Ver1.01 adds 4x reading/writing support for LTH BD-R discs to Panasonic’s LF-PB271JD internal Blu-ray burner. Panasonic will also release a firmware upgrade for its 2x BD burner, the LF-MB121JD, later this year.

The LTH write-once BD-R media feature an organic dye recording layer, making them different that the currently available BD-R discs that use inorganic materials. In LTH BD-R media, the reflectivity of the organic dye recording layer increases (High) after recording.

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February 27th, 2008

Although I haven’t had a chance to personally test the RoboRacer yet, I have to give props to Aleratec on this one. They made the RoboRacer LS Fully Automatic Publisher look awesome, and they priced it right at under $1,000. I congratulate them on putting together a robotic duplicator and printer (lightscribe printing) quite nicely. The official word including media retail prices at the end of the article:

Aleratec Inc. introduces its innovative new DVD/CD RoboRacer LS, the simplest ever robotic autoloading disc publisher. For improved reliability, the Aleratec DVD/CD RoboRacer LS has fewer moving parts than any other robotic publisher. Yet, it is capable of unattended direct to disc LightScribe labeling and unattended disc duplication. Customers just connect it to a PC, load it with up to 100 blank LightScribe discs, use the powerful Aleratec Disc Publishing Software Suite included with purchase to select the disc image or label and start duplicating or labeling up to 100 discs automatically.

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February 19th, 2008

The battle is officially over, and Blu-ray beat HD DVD by TKO. HD DVD died a very quick death today as many news outlets are reporting so far. The most concise and unbiased information I could find is offered below.

Toshiba Corporation today announced that it has undertaken a thorough review of its overall strategy for HD DVD and has decided it will no longer develop, manufacture and market HD DVD players and recorders. This decision has been made following recent major changes in the market. Toshiba will continue, however, to provide full product support and after-sales service for all owners of Toshiba HD DVD products.

HD DVD was developed to offer consumers access at an affordable price to high-quality, high definition content and prepare them for the digital convergence of tomorrow where the fusion of consumer electronics and IT will continue to progress.

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