Audio Video News

In a move to protect against illegal copying and large-scale piracy while allowing consumers the flexibility to manage and enjoy copies of their legally purchased content, the Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA) has adopted the most comprehensive content-management system (CMS) ever employed on an optical-disc format. The Blu-ray CMS includes three primary components: Advanced Access Content System (AACS), ROM Mark, and BD+.

Veoh Networks, Inc., the first Internet television peercasting network, last week announced it has completed a Series A round of financing led by Shelter Capital Partners. The company's goal is to create a new category of television networks that take advantage of existing broadband infrastructure to deliver standard-definition, full-screen video programming directly from producers to consumers.

DVD: Essential Steve McQueen Collection—Warner Bros
In the simplest possible terms, Steve McQueen had "It." Truly, women wanted him, and men wanted to be him. Maybe it was the eyes, the sense of intensity he conjured, or the impression that he knew something we didn't. Or perhaps it was his physicality, the grace with which he performed his own stunts, combined with his ease and outright glee with props. Warner has assembled some hard evidence of the actor's elusive mystique in their recent Essential Steve McQueen Collection, a grouping of souped-up reissues and new-to-DVD titles.

Digitally distributed music is hip these days. Actually, it's always been hip (even when analog was the method of distribution), but now it's hipper - and cheaper.

Last week, Denon invited their dealers and members of the press to the Ritz Carlton Hotel in Laguna Nigel, California, for a sneak peek at the new products they will be launching at next month's CEDIA Expo. On hand were new AV receivers, DVD players, and two all-in-one systems designed to complement flat-panel displays.

After unwrapping the gifts, polishing off the last drops from near-empty bottles of champagne, and sweeping up the streamers and confetti left from SIM2 Multimedia's 10-year anniversary party, those still standing announced a trio of new high-definition displays being added to the SIM2 USA product line: the HTL40 LINK LCD flat-panel monitor, the DOMINO 55M rear-projection monitor, and the C3X front-projection monitor.

Twentieth Century Fox announced on Friday that it will release content on the high-definition Blu-ray Disc format through its subsidiary, Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment LLC. This is hardly surprising—the studio has been a member of the Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA) board of directors since October 2004—but they haven't committed to releasing titles on that format until now.