To celebrate what would be his one hundredth birthday, Criterion is releasing a comprehensive box set of Akira Kurosawa’s films which span the director’s legenary 50 year career. Twenty-five movies are included in this collection which include iconic titles such as Rashomon, Seven Samurai, The Hidden Fortress, and four rare titles never released on DVD.
Tag Archive: DVDs
PhotoSave DVDs Store Pictures Automatically
Closely mimicking Memorex’s SimpleSave DVD-Rs, Verbatim launched its own line of intelligent backup media on Tuesday with its new PhotoSave DVDs. The writeable DVDs come preloaded with software that makes it easier for novice computer users to locate and backup media files on their PCs.
PhotoSave discs can either function in automatic or manual mode. Automatic requires only one click to scan a hard drive for pictures and begin filling the disc with them, while manual gives users more control by allowing them to pick and choose what should be saved, and span content across multiple discs. For images that haven’t even been pulled off a camera yet, the DVDs can even recognized connected cameras and write images from their memory.
Netflix Renters Not Getting Their DVDs
Should you be an avid watcher of movies, you may want to steer clear of Netflix. The company has started punishing their customers who rent frequently rather than rewarding them. Customer ManuelVillanueva uses Netflix a lot. He has been a customer for over 2 and a half years and uses Netflix’s $17.99 a month plan to rent 3 DVDs at a time. Normally he’d be happy with his service but Netflixis now giving him the shaft because he rents too frequently.
HD DVD And Blu-Ray To Both Win
New digital delivery services are not likely to supplant the DVD business, but rather bring digital entertainment to people by adding either convenience or accessibility that complements what the”Packaged Goods” can provide, reports In-Stat. More consumers want instant access to video on their TV sets, portable devices and cell phone handsets, but DVDswill continue to be a popular medium and will continue to experience substantial growth. The worldwide value of all published DVD products is expected to grow with a compound annual growth rate of18.2%, from about $33 billion during 2004, up to $76.5 billion by 2009, the high-tech market research firm says.
McDonald’s To Pilot DVD Renting Kiosks
If the summerlong Denver test is a hit, McDonald’s hopes to become the first fast-food chain to rent top DVDs nationally.
DVDs will be rented at Redbox kiosks, situated inside and outside restaurants. Rental fee: $1 a day
321 Studios DVD X Copy Software Review
Quote from the review:
“Most of you fellas must know about 321’s legal woes – I don’t wanna really get into it but I will say that you can still purchase the physical software at your local retailer until it is soldout – the ban is only on 321 Studios to prevent shipping or downloads of the “ripper” version after a certain date. Retailers are NOT restricted – they just can’t get any more. 321 will now ship aversion of their wares that does not contain the ripper (or the re-encryption or legalese nag screens) Rippers are widely available on the internet though, find and use them at your own peril.”
NEC Develops First Next-Gen DVD Drive
From NEC’s press release:
NEC Corporation today announced development of technology capable of recording and playing back both current DVDs and next generation DVDs (HD DVD – High Definition & High Density DVD) with a single optical head, and its success in creating a compatible drive based on this technology.
LaCie releases FireWire DVD-RW drive
The FireWire PocketDVD-RW – to give it its full name – is a compact 152×31x158mm, and provides writing and rewriting capabilities in a host of DVD and CD formats, including DVDs for playback in consumer DVD machines and music CDs, as well as data back-ups of up to 4.7GB. It can also be used for playing back both DVDs and CDs on a Mac.
The device is encased in a shock-resistant ‘bumper guard’ and as a further safeguard against to interrupted burning has a 2MB data buffer.


