DVD

Remember just a few months ago when media companies were prepared to go to war with Netflix for ruining their business? Times have changed.

[Editor's note: The MPAA and most media companies argue that you can't legally copy or convert commercial DVDs for any reason. We (and others) think that, if you own a DVD, you should be able to override its copy protection to make a backup copy or to convert its content for viewing on other devices. Currently, the law isn't entirely clear one way or the other. So our advice is: If you don't own it, don't do it. If you do own it, think before you rip.]

It's very clear that Netflix, with its current market capitalization of $9.8 billion, has been picking on companies such as Comcast ($44 billion) and Time Warner ($35.3 billion) by offering consumers the programming they want -- and only the programming they want! -- when they want it. What kind of crazy business model is that?

Apple's new MacBook Air ships with a restore flash drive rather than an emergency CD/DVD. As such, it poses the question: Do we still need optical drives? Despite the evidence to the contrary, there are some major reasons why optical drives aren't going the way of the Dodo just yet.

A federal judge is now considering whether to permit sales of RealDVD, after testimony on a pretrial injunction ended Thursday. That injunction has prevented RealNetworks from selling its DVD software since late September.

General Electric Global Research says it has figured out a way to put up to 500GB of data on a regular-sized DVD disc under laboratory conditions.

Announced at DEMOfall '08 last month, RealDVD software, by RealNetworks, is now available for consumers. It lets users save DVDs that they own onto their computer's hard drive (either internal or external drive). Once copied, users can store the physical disc to protect it from damage and watch the content on their computers.

Sony plans to acquire the portion of its optical disc joint venture with NEC that it doesn't already own and make the company a subsidiary, it said Thursday.

When Toshiba announced its new XDE DVD player promising it could convert the picture quality of standard DVDs up to the HD, industry watchers took note. The company has been a champion of video technologies for years and its own high definition disc standard, HD DVD (high definition DVD), had been beaten as the HD successor to DVDs earlier in the year by Sony's Blu-ray Disc standard.

Right now, Blu-ray is a waste of money and destined to fail unless things change drastically in the next year. If things don't change, DVD will have claimed another victory.