It seems that BackupHDDVD tool is working. There is now even a list of Volume Unique Keys for some of HD DVD movies in Doom9 Forum. The keys can be found by looking in the memory of Intervideo’s WinDVD. The HD-DVD camp really seems to have a big problem. The compromised WinDVD versions will probably be withdrawn. There is also rumours that Power DVD would be compromised too. This is getting interesting. BackupBlu-ray tool coming soon?

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Bypassing the copy protection of a DVD has been popularized years ago, so people can transport their DVD content to any other media or device (video player, laptop, smartphone) pretty much as they will and with a decent amount of effort. Of course with new emerging disc formats, namely the Blu-ray and HD-DVD, transporting the content is a totally different story. It will be difficult to do, until a mature set of tools are developed, and circumventing the protection is considered illegal in increasing number of countries. To solve this dilemma, Sony has released information that in the near future Blu-ray content can be transfered to laptops or other devices. There are no details yet when and how this will be achieved, but it seems that at least some level of restricted freedom will be provided by Sony.

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According to heise online, Sony had said no to pornographic films on Blu-ray. One famous director from porn industry (formerly a big fan of Blu-ray format) said: “Sony wants me to publish my films on HD DVD.”. This is a big mistake for Blu-ray. Porn industry is huge! In January 2006 adult entertainment company Digital Playground announced that they would be supplying content on the Blu-ray format. As a consequence Digital Playground now intends to release HD DVD products at a rapid rate. Thank God we have HD DVD format!

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As you may know, it is CES expo time and we have been waiting for the big press releases from the most important and interesting optical recorder vendors. And we did not have to wait long until Pioneer announced their Blu-ray/DVD/CD combo recorder BDC-202. This device brings together three different generations of recording technologies and it will be very interesting to seen how Pioneer has been able to put is all together. The specs indicate that is is not the fastest drive on the market, but still sufficient for most users.

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Verbatim and its parent company, Mitsubishi Kagaku Media (Verbatim/MKM), announced today that it has started producing 2X speed 50GB Dual Layer (DL) Blu-ray Recordable (BD-R) and Blu-ray Rewriteable (BD-RE) media for shipment to the US market.

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The Christmas sales are in the past, and it is time for the aftermath - how did the co called console war kicked off. It is no surprise that it was not a good Christmas for Sony. The release of the PlayStation 3 was too close to Chritsmas, so they could not fully capitalize from this season. Capitalize, however, is a wrong choice of words, as Sony most likely makes heavy losses per unit sold, until the economics of scale start to kick in. It would seem that Sony only tried to distract the Xbox 360 and Wii buyers to stall their decision making.

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According to Inquirer, the first Dual-format Blu-ray and HD-DVD drives (for example from LG) will be on show at the CES this month. Warner Bros is also ready to market a dual-format disk (Total HD disc) that will work in both Blu-ray and HD DVD drives. Could this Dual-format end the stupid format war that is giving consumers a headache?

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A software to backup the HD-DVDs seems to be out. BackupHDDVD is a tool which the author claimes to decrypt the files on a HD-DVD disc. A newer version 1.00 of the software has a Volume key support so it’s much bigger threat to AACS, the copy protection of the HD-DVD. The author, muslix64, did not actually break AACS, but he has find a way to get around it. So how does the future of the AACS protection look like? The author says: “To totally block this attack, they need to put different keys on every disk! Now, they only have different keys for different movies. I don’t know about the manufacturing process of the disk. This solution may not be possible.”.

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SlySoft has announced their new and higher product prising for the 2007. According to the company press release, the higher product pricing is due to the development costs involved in moving to the Windows Vista platform. However, they now offer a special promotional campaign for the early adopters. Their special “vista” coupon code offers reduced pricing until 15th of January 2007. The coupon code “vista” grants you $5 discount per license sold, up to 4 licenses.

Download or buy!

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Nintendo Wii console launch strategy has been success. The final figures for 2006 are not in yet, but there is a chance that Nintendo reached its target of 4 million Wii units sold world wide. Sony did not even come close to meeting its far more modest projection of 1 million PS3 units in the US and Japan. Wii has probably outsold PS3 four or five to one. Wii turned out to be great name for the console while everyone initially ridiculed Nintendo for its choice. First round goes to Wii, 11 more to go.

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