DVDFab HD Decrypter 3.2.0.0 is the final version supporting PathPlayer. And as a sidenote, it appears I was mistaken about the unique nature of PathPlayer - RipIt4Me used a similar mechanism.

PGCEdit 8.5 can show jumps from the current VTS to VMG and jumps from all VTS to VMG, has a real-time playback option, contains enhancement in the detection of dangerous cell commands, converts Title Menu to Root Menu and vice versa when importing VMGM menus to a VTSM menu, saves the DVD automatically after various operations and there are various other small improvements and bugfixes.

AutoGK 2.45 comes with newer builds of XviD, DGMPGDec, AviSynth and various AviSynth filters, uses multithreading for colormatrix when the hardware can support it, and has an option to hide DGIndex.

In yet another example why you shouldn't trust any DRM scheme for online distribution, Virgin Digital is closing its doors. Since all its tracks are DRM infected, you'll lose the ability to play them on October 19th. In order not to lose what you paid for, Virgin suggests that you burn your content to a CD (and re-rip if you want the files back on your computer, with the usual loss in quality that ensues from compressing the content again).

Another online music store is also closing its doors shortly: AnywhereCD, a store where you could buy a CD plus DRM free 192kbit/s MP3 tracks, didn't live very longer, when almost no labels wanted to sign up, and Warner backtracked days after the store's launch, leaving it with its pants down. The man behind the idea offers some insight into the whole venture, including the negotiations with the major labels.

Meanwhile, a new online music stores has opened its doors: Amazon's "Amazon MP3" store sells DRM-free 256kbit/s MP3 files for $0.89 to $0.99 per song and $5.99 to $9.99 per album. Amazon has secured the rights to over 2 million songs and two major labels: EMI and Universal.

In Canada, the copyright industry's inside woman has just been given the boot for conflict of interest. Hopefully, this means more resistance to DMCA style legislation in the future.

DVDFab HD Decrypter 3.1.9.5 supports the latest corrupt disc (Blade: House of Chthon) and contains an updated PathPlayer.

ProgDVB 5.11 has a more stable engine and a new installer.

The music biz is in hot water about shortchanging artists yet again - this time it's about distributing music in electronic form, which according to a former Ramones drummer was never authorized. Interestingly though, the lawsuit targets online music stores and not the record label that licensed the songs for distribution to those stores in the first place - so you can imagine the argumentation the defendants will come up with - they acquired their distribution license in good faith and might just end up suing the label themselves (maybe that's the legal strategy all along).

In a surprising turn of events, the recent MediaDefender leaks now have one of the entertainment industry's most favorite target - The Pirate Bay - on the offensive and have just filed charges against a bunch of major players in the industry for infrastructural sabotage, denial of service attacks, hacking and spamming.

This one has to hurt: not only has the RIAA to play the legal fees of yet another one of their lawsuit targets where they didn't prevail, but the judge gave them a good verbal smacking for being unable to produce any credible evidence for over two years. Let's hope other judges are to follow..

Phew.. you don't post any news for a few days because there's nothing interesting, and next thing you know, you've been gone for over a week. But in the meantime, a considerable list of newsworthy bookmarks has accumulated:

VirtualDub 1.7.4 fixes a few bugs.

FreeMe2 is an open source implementation of a WindowsMedia DRM stripper. It's not quite up to the level with FairUse4WM but the goal is to get there.

DVDFab HD Decrypter 3.1.9.2 can now handle button over video in its PathPlayer, removes unreferenced VTS sets and PGCs and contains some bugfixes.

Yet another example why our patent system is broken: Premier International Associates (nobody has heard of them before, right) is suing Microsoft, Real, Napster, various cellphone makers and providers and various computer makers for infringing on a playlist patent. I guess it's only a matter of time before somebody comes up with irrefutable prior art, but in the meantime the company hopes to extort plenty of money in out of court settlements. Let's hope one of the companies under attack will see this thing through.

Here's one turn of events the RIAA won't like - one of their P2P lawsuits has just been thrown out of court for lack of credible evidence that the defendant actually did what the lawsuit claimed.

That comes right on the heels of major leaks of internal emails, phone conversations (and recently source code) from the RIAA's enforcer MediaDefender - a company tracking P2P downloads and attempting to thwart those.

And speaking of things the music industry doesn't like - one has to wonder what the bosses of Nine Inch Nails' record label think about their artists telling fans to steal their music in Australia, where NiN CDs are grossly overpriced.

Last but not least, Universal backed SpiralFrog has launched, offering free, but ad supported music. Here's a detailed review on the site.

And as a late entry in the music news, the Washington Post reports on a legal battle between Universal (yet again.. they really have a way to piss off pretty much everybody) and an eBay seller who put promotional CDs up for sale. Universal claims that those promotional CDs still belong to them, and by selling them, you infringe on their copyright. The EFF has taken the side of the defendant, pointing out, that it's not a far cry from those promotional CDs to a complete abolishment of the first sale doctrine (which gives you the right to resell any protected work you legitimately acquired, without requiring the copyright holder's consent).

Let's move over to high def news now - Blu-ray supporting studios are once again slamming Paramount and Dreamworks for switching sides. That alone isn't news, but here's the kicker: Fox (which was essentially bought off by Sony by including region coding and BD+ into the Blu-ray standard) owner Rupert Murdoch made the bold claim "The public is going to want Blu-ray. The public can tell the difference". Dear Rupert, the public doesn't even have a choice - there's no way to get any Fox title in high def format unless it's on Blu-ray (there are some exceptions though.. in Europe you can get a bunch of Fox titles on HD DVD via local distributors.. e.g. Mr. & Mrs. Smith, or the Fantastic 4). Speaking of what customers want if they don't even have the choice is hypocritical. And as far as seeing the difference goes - just check out the review of the longest movie released to high def so far - the director's cut of Troy. The same goes to Disney... better business if you have higher production cost? If you're going to make any claims on customer preference, you had better back up your words with some action - sadly, at this point, only Warner (and to some extent NewLine) is actually giving customers a real choice. The rest of the studios is hoping to make the consumer choice by withholding their catalog from one format.

Perhaps we'll actually get there, as more and more reports predict that both formats are here to stay.

And before we leave high def, Pioneer and Mitsubishi have come up with a new way to manufacture cheaper recordable Blu-ray discs which can be produced in modified CD and DVD production lines and won't need entirely new production lines. There's just one problem - current drives cannot handle the new discs (not even reading them), so if you're lucky, a firmware update will take care of that, and if not, you'll need a new drive.

As we enter a new TV season, both NBC and ABC are expanding their online offering. NBC will offer add-supported downloads of some of their most popular shows, which can be watched up until one week after the episode has aired. ABC didn't take long to respond and will offer their shows through AOL Video. I'm not quite sure if this means downloads as ABC already offers streaming video through their own website (in fact, ABC's streaming offering seems to put the competition to shame).

This could well spell the end of copy protection based on corrupt disc structures - DVDFab 3.1.9.0 introduces a mechanism called "PathPlayer" which is a is a virtual DVD player that steps through all accessible content of a disc and then rips that content. In doing so, it avoids the pitfalls added by ARccOS and Co, meaning if it works on your standalone, DVDFab can handle it. I'm sure Sony's lawyers will intensify their efforts to pull another RipIt4Me style takedown.

We've seen dual format players - now it appears dual format recorders are next for high definition video: Starting in October, HP will bring a dual format burner for their PCs.

Besides approving triple layer discs (both triple layer HD DVD and two HD DVD layers, one DVD layer), the DVD Forum has also come up with HD Rec: recording HD content on regular DVDs. Although, at 8.5GB a pop (and normally only 4.7 since dual layer DVD blanks have curiously remaining high priced), you might run out of recording space rather soon.

In Canada, the recording industry is now in opposition to levies as compensation for private copying - they seem to think that levies avoid making illegal file sharers liable for infringement. I wonder if they will follow up their words with action and pay back every single cent of the levies they now oppose ;)

DGMPGDec 1.5.0 beta 2 directly supports .m2t files from the open dialog, contains new code to improve error resiliency and the DirectDraw Overlay option has been removed.

New Line is the latest studio to enter the high def market. As suspected, they are format neutral, however, their November release of Hairspray comes as somewhat of a surprise: While the Blu-ray variety will be released day and date with the DVD, New Line is holding back the HD DVD release due to lack of region coding on HD DVD. They claim (and quite frankly I don't think anybody can follow that reasoning - especially in the light that other studios do have distribution deals for certain foreign markets as well and HD DVD being regionfree never was a showstopper there) that due to the fact that they don't distribute their movies internationally, they have to hold back the release until the movie is released in those foreign markets as well. I wonder if holding back isn't more about trying to bully the HD DVD camp to adopt consumer hostile region coding.

We're all familiar with the copyright industry's "loss" numbers they throw around wherever they can, and the fact that they'd rather abolish fair use today than tomorrow. However, according to the Computing and Communication Industry Association's calculations, the economic effect of fair use rights actually surpasses the revenue of the industry that is trying to abolish fair use - now isn't that a kick in the groin?

Meet the recording industry's latest attempt to recover - the ringle. They hope to revive the largely defunct single market by bundling one hit song with a remix and and older song and a ringtone, and sell the whole thing for $5.98 - $6.98. The only problem - you can get those three songs for $0.99 a piece online and create your own ringtone from those songs free of charge.

Microsoft is entering the watermarking market as well - or at least they could be gearing up to based on their most recent patent. The question is, how long until the MicroMark or whatever they're going to call it meets the fate of SDMI?

DVDFab HD Decrypter 3.1.8.0 supports yet another DVD structure perversion by Settec and fixes several problems.

Pioneer's latest Blu-ray player, the BDP-95FD supports (I presume decodes) the optional DTS-HD and retails for $1000. Just with most other recently announced players, there's no word which Blu-ray profile is supported (to make full use of the upcoming discs from Disney and Fox you need the 2.0 profile).

It appears the triple layer HD DVD disc has been approved. By adding a third layer, HD DVD achieves 51GB. I guess now all we need to know is whether current HD DVD drives can handle such discs, and when we'll see the first movies on three layers. Assuming compatibility can be achieved, the arguments about not fitting the LOTR extended edition on a single HD DVD disc has just become moot.

First it was Canada, now the MPAA has set their sights to the UK and are lobbying the government to introduce anti camcording legislation. As if poor quality CAM releases have any discernible effect on box office or retail revenue (oh, did I mention that this summer box office revenue was higher than ever?)

Predictably, the copyright industry's response to the Consumer and Communications Industry Association's FTC filing against overbearing copyright notices is - Fair use is not a consumer right.

In a preemptive strike against potential lawsuits, DivX has filed a lawsuit against Universal to affirm that DivX's Stage6 video hosting service needs to comply with DMCA takedown notices but is not required to actively police content people upload.

LG's second generation dual HD format player, the BH200, offers full support for both formats (its predecessor lacked support for HD DVD's iHD) and carries a pricetag of $999 when it will be released next month.

It didn't take NBC long to find a new retail partner for their TV shows - it's Amazon. Pricing has yet to be revealed, but Unbox is a lot more restrictive in the DRM area, which undoubtedly pleases some execs that are famous for never understanding their customers. Microsoft's DRM is also quite resistant to attacks, although right now, customers have the upper hand, again.

The content industry has apparently found a few friends in the new Swedish government - a governmental report suggests that file sharers be cut off from the Internet. I guess since Sweden has no death penalty, they couldn't go for the North Korean measures ;)

DGMPGDec 1.5.0 beta 1 suppress popup warning messages in CLI mode, can detect PSIP PIDs, displays PIDs both in hex and in decimal format, has a looped playback mode and fixes a bug in the transport packet length detection code.

VirtualDub 1.7.3 has an option to show debugging info, allows you to enter frame rate adjustments including rational fractions, allows reloading of jobs, has several new options for fine-tuning timing options with DirectShow based capture devices, supports drag and drop in the hex editor and contains some improvements in the Direct3D code.

H264TS_Cutter 106 allows to switch between the old and new video playback mode, supports transport streams with multiple services and contains some bugfixes.

Here's a good one to show how content owners go overboard enforcing copyright law: they freely make use of available content themselves without so much as asking permission, but if the creator of content used without permission has the audacity to reuse a broadcast segment based on the content used without permission on the first place, they come after you for copyright infringement.

Until tomorrow, the world's largest consumer electronics fair takes place in the German capital Berlin - at IFA, a lot of manufacturers presented their HD news: LG announced two dual layer HD combo drives supporting both HD DVD and Blu-ray. The GGW-H20N writes Blu-ray at 6x and reads HD DVDs and should retail for €420, the GGW-H20L removes the Blu-ray burning capabilities, and retails for €250.

Daewoo has joined the Blu-ray camp with their BDP-1000 and BDP-2000 - the first confirmed Blu-ray profile 1.1 players should retail für €450 and also handle DivX content - but no release date has been given.

The Venturer HD DVD player was also announced for Europe - albeit at a steep €300. Seeing as the player is manufactured at the same place as the $199 US version, somebody is charging a hefty markup.

Finally, High-def Digest has a wrap-up of the Blu-ray and HD DVD news at IFA. Needless to say there was also the usual PR bluster, including the BDA's claims that HD DVD will be dead within 18 months (you might recall that earlier on, the death of HD DVD was predicted for the end of 2007 or CES 2008 by the same people). Screen Digest's analyst seem to disagree and predict that both formats will still be around in 2001. Oh, and the Blu-ray studios were asked if they received any incentives from the Blu-ray camp, after a lot of wriggling there was a no from Sony (big surprise there.. the studio is owned by the biggest Blu-ray backers), Fox (they get a non financial incentive in the form of BD+), and a "no comment" for Disney.

The AACS LA is bringing out the big guns against Fair Use: they are planning mandatory watermark detection in the upcoming final version of AACS, as well as encryption of the bus between the drive and PC, and that key should be different for each disk. Finally, the current AACS keys are apparently close to being revoked.

And there might be bad news coming for people using the Playstation 3 console to play self-made Blu-ray movies. Rumor has it, that the days of playing back BDMV authored content on recordable Blu-ray discs are numbered.

I've previously reported on the disagreements between Universal and Apple regarding prices of online content. Now, NBC (which is owned by the same parent company as Universal) joins the fray and is asking for significantly more money off their TV shows being sold in Apple's iTunes store. Apple is playing hardball as usual, and has announced that they won't sell any new NBC shows in the future.

It appears North Korea has discovered the holy grail in copyright enforcement - why spend time and money to lock people up when you can just execute them?

While the MPAA studios reap record benefits at the box office this summer, do you think they'd change their tune on decrying piracy? Heck no!

Last month's news can be found here.