Plextor has announced the imminent availability in Europe of the Serial ATA version of its internal 12x DVD writer. The PX-712SA DVD+/-R/RW will be available in June for around £129 plus VAT. An E-IDE version of the drive is scheduled for release in May.

A Spanish judge has ruled that modifications to games consoles to allow them to play DVDs and games from other countries "are not illegal".

Dell and Hewlett Packard (HP) will launch DVD+RW double-layer (DL) burners bundled with their PCs early next month, so their Taiwanese OEM makers will soon begin production of such DL burner models in small volumes, according to Taiwanese makers of optical disc drives.

TurboLinux has created a media player which incorporates Microsoft code, according to a report in today's Nihon Keizai Shimbun. The newspaper reports that the media player will be released with a consumer version of Linux in Japan, the USA and China for just under ¥16,000 (£80).

The Chinese web forum GZeasy has information in a thread from a user who has revealed what is believed to be architectural plans of Microsoft's Xbox2. Although Microsoft hasn't formally announced the Xbox2 yet, it is expected to make an official announcement in June 2004, which is bizarre considering E3 – the games show where all the competitors try to out-do each other – is less than a month away.

IBM has thrown its hat into the ring as a late entrant into efforts to build sane and effective digital rights management. This week the company announced xCP - its eXtensible Content Protection system - at the US National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) event in Las Vegas.

Microsoft's decision to cut the price of the Xbox by $30 in North America at the end of last month caused weekly sales in the USA to double - while Sony is rumoured to be planning to drop the PS2 to $149 with two bundled games in the coming weeks.

Thanks to Flash we have a review of the new patched firmware v1.13 for the Pioneer A07.

Last February the Belgian government decided to impose a new tax on all DVD discs coming into the country from May the 1st this year. The tax is ostensibly to cover royalty fees for copyright owners of duplicated works. As the average price of DVDs in Belgium is currently around €0.60 and the tax will be for €0.71 per disc it would seem like a good time for all Belgians to stock up now.

Toshiba has been showing off its consumer electronics range spanning some 100 products due for UK launch in the coming months. Its biggest line up yet, the range spans LCD screens and TVs of every type as well as a number of home cinema and standalone DVD recordable devices including a DVD recorder with 160GB hard disk.

Police from Britain's National High-Tech Crime Unit (NHTCU), the FBI and the US Department of Justice have taken part in an operation that has been the largest multinational law enforcement effort ever directed at online piracy, targeting members of a warez community known as Fairlight.

Press Release: BenQ have announced the world’s first 8x DVD+/-RW re-writer with firmware upgrade to DVD+R double-layer recordable drive. BenQ DW822A is designed for customers in search of something different among the existing dual DVD+/-RW drives. It provides a free firmware upgrade feature to become a double-layer recordable drive. The firmware features 2.4x DVD+R double-layer recording speed and will be available at the beginning of October, when double-layer media becomes more accessible in the market.

DVD-Audio sales doubled in 2003 and are more than five times that of SACD, according to an RIAA survey.

Scientists claim to have worked out that there is a theoretical speed limit to data retrieval. According to the popular science mag Nature, researchers at Stanford have discovered that you can only write and retrieve data so fast before quantum randomness gets in the way.

Press Release: Pioneer have announced that a new external DVD/CD writer will be available in early May, 2004. The DVR-S706-J is an external high-speed rewritable drive in a sleek design, capable of recording at up to 8x write speed with DVD+/-R discs and at up to 4x with DVD+/-RW discs with very low operation noise levels.

The price level of entry-level DVD recorders without built-in hard disk drives (HDDs) is likely to drop 20%-30% by the end of the year, Taiwanese makers of optical disc drives indicated.

DVD Burning Guru Flash has posted in his latest review which takes a hard look at the burning speeds available for the new 8x DVD-Rs from Ritek under the Datasafe and RiDisc brands. The review is here.

Trading standards officers have raided the Barras market for the first time in more than a year. The operation comes after Glasgow City Council investigators were accused of allowing organised crime to flourish at the market.

Slated to hit the market in mid-June, the WOOO MS-DS400 from Hitachi comes with a built-in 400GB hard drive and a multi-drive that can playback and record on all available DVD formats: DVD-RAM, DVD-RW, DVD-R, DVD+RW and DVD+R.

Some Taiwanese manufacturers, in view of decreasing channel market demand for CD-Rs in the US and Europe, have reduced prices from US$0.18-0.20 (10p-11p) to US$0.15-0.16 (8p-9p) per disc to stimulate orders from distributors, according to Taiwanese makers of blank optical discs.