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Apple Computer doesn't like France's pending copyright reform. Though widely viewed as a blow against the binding of iTunes purchases to iPods—horreur!—the law actually would require all downloads to be compatible with all devices. An Apple spokesperson equated this with "state-sponsored piracy," and your federal government has chimed in with cabinet-level agreement: "Any time that we believe that intellectual property rights are being violated, we need to speak up and in this case, the company is taking the initiative," Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez told CNBC. What makes the situation so ironic is that just a few years ago, the same federal government (well, almost the same) was energetically litigating against Microsoft for binding Internet Explorer to Windows. In similar spirit, the European Union is about to hit Microsoft with a big fine for binding the Windows Media Player to the OS. Since no one else is asking the question, I will: Why should there be one antitrust standard for Microsoft and a totally different one for Apple? The French, at least, are proposing to level the playing field in an increasingly lucrative download market.

We last wrote about the explosion of science fiction TV shows on DVD in a two part feature that appeared in the November 2004 and January 2005 print issues of Ultimate AV. Those features, which covered the gamut from Star Trek to Babylon 5, will be posted on the website in April. Watch for it.

<B>HD DVD Player Launch To Synchronize With Warner Software Launch Date</B>
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As anticipated, Toshiba has officially announced it will delay the launch of its HD DVD players to synchronize with the availability of HD DVD software from Warner Bros. Toshiba has been touring the country with HD DVD demonstrations for several weeks in support of the hardware and software launch originally scheduled for March 28th. Warner Home Video, the only studio with titles officially scheduled to support the format's launch, recently announced that it would not be able to make that date with its HD DVD software. Warner is currently scheduled to release three titles on April 18th, and apparently Toshiba will have players ready on that date.

Sorry it took so long. If you check out the HD Camera story again, there’s the original footage I promised at the bottom.