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As anyone with a lick of tech knowledge knows, ripping a DVD onto your hard drive is, well, frowned upon by the “Powers that be” in the motion picture industry. Realizing that, RealNetworks has launched a new solution called RealDVD, which lets users copy DVDs onto their hard drives without facing legal troubles. Even better, it only takes about 20 minutes to do so. Sounds great, right? There’s only one catch: it keeps the DRM.

After copying the DVD onto your hard drive, you can’t transfer the movie to a friend’s computer, so you’ll be stuck using your own. Much like iTunes, though, RealDVD lets you authorize five computers to play the movies on the hard drive.

RealNetworks is quick to point out that its RealDVD solution is 100 percent legal and you won’t have any copyright lawyers breathing down your neck once you copy your first movie to the hard drive.

RealDVD sounds ideal for those who want to use their computers as a media server, but with a relatively hefty price tag of $49.99 for your first license ($29.99 as an introductory offer) and $19.99 for the additional four licenses if you want to watch the films on five computers, not everyone will be as excited to rip their movie DVDs as they are about ripping their music CDs onto a computer.

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Source: Don Reisinger

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Filed under: Gaming, Home Entertainment

Carrying on the rich hacker tradition of picking up the slack for companies that are unwilling or unable to provide the functionality users need, a team of Wii coders have given the console what Nintendo could not: DVD playback. By installing a small, hidden channel on a system, this package blesses the console with a libdi file (DVD access library), and allows you to watch your favorite videos with the MPlayer application, an open source media player. The install file will run on modded and unmodded systems, and the software is also capable of playing media from SD cards (though it’s experimental right now). Finally Wii owners can join the ranks of, well… pretty much everyone else.

[Via TehSkeen; Thanks, brakken]

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Source: Joshua Topolsky

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Filed under: Storage

Yeah, companies have been trumpeting their ability to crank out discs that will last long after Martians come and evaporate our minds here on Earth for some time, but for archive junkies out there, more is always better. On deck today is Mitsubishi’s ARLEDIA DVD-Rs, which reportedly feature corrosion-resistant coatings made from gold and silver. ‘Course, you can only write to these at 8x, but they are expected to last about twice as long as traditional recordable discs. Not like you’ll be around to prove ‘em wrong, though.

[Via Impress]

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Source: Darren Murph

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Filed under: HDTV, Home Entertainment

In what can only be classified as yet another crushing blow to the embattled HD DVD camp, rent-by-mail giant Netflix has just announced its intention to only stock Blu-ray titles in the future. Netflix justified its decision by pointing out the fact that most Hollywood studios seem to be converging solely around the Sony-backed format — a fact that’s all too familiar to Toshiba and friends. With both Blockbuster and now the ‘Flix having eschewed HD DVD for BD, it’s gonna get harder and harder to even find a place to rent those former discs in the first place, let alone one that has a decent selection.

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Source: Evan Blass

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Filed under: Portable Audio, Portable Video

Okay, we understand that the newest iPods have locked video-out, so we’ll ignore the fact that the Polaroid DPJ-08580B portable DVD player with iPod dock only works with 5G models, but there’s no excuse for the rest of the specs — especially stretching 480 x 234 resolution across an 8.5-inch screen. Top it off with the usual overwrought portable DVD player design and a ¥28000 ($252) pricetag, and you’ve got a nice little bundle of fail just waiting to be put under the tree.

[Via Pocket-lint]

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Source: Nilay Patel

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Filed under: Features, Home Entertainment

It’s not like it’s too big of a deal, but we happened by this new Blu-ray player from Sony while we were on our mass-wanderings amongst the gadgetry at IFA, and we thought we’d share a few images. Really nothing to write home about, though it does have a snazzy sliding front panel (the one that appears mirrored) — but we couldn’t say what that panel’s function actually is. Maybe you can figure it out, so have a look at the gallery.

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Source: Joshua Topolsky

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Filed under: Storage

Inventing the dual layer DVD-RW standard may seem like an extreme example of too little too late in the days of 15GB+ HD DVD and 25GB+ Blu-ray, but JVC has gone ahead and done it anyway. Hitting up the same 8.5GB capacity as regular double layer DVD-RWs and dual layer DVD-RWs, the JVC discs come with a specially hardened coating which is apparently “150 times” more effective than the coating on plain old DVDs. Unfortunately, the new format requires entirely new burners, is only available at 2x write speeds, and no shipping dates or details are available. Sounds like JVC’s got a winner on its hands … yeah.

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Source: Conrad Quilty-Harper

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Filed under: Gaming

A mod chipping company called Team Symbiote has apparently created an application for owners of its Wii mod chip that enables the console to play back DVDs. This may not be the first mod to enable DVD playback, but since Nintendo still hasn’t got around to providing the console with playback capabilities, we thought it’d be worth bringing it up again. Nintendo, how about hurrying up and making it so normal people don’t have to buy dodgy chips to play a DVD or two on their console?

[Via Wii-News, thanks wraggster]

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Source: Conrad Quilty-Harper

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