Pioneer have confirmed the availability of its new 'BDC-202' Blu-ray Disc Combo Drive which has BD-ROM compatibility and includes read support for single and dual-layer Blu-ray disc formats together with high-speed read/write compatibility with a range of DVD and CD medias.

The reported breaking of HD DVD's AACS (advanced access content system) encryption at the end of 2006, followed weeks later by a similar circumvention of the equivalent protection system used in Blu-ray Discs (BD) by anonymous programmer "muslix64" together with the current licensing issues associated with dual-format devices such as LG Electronics' Super Multi Blue products, may cause a delay in the establishment of a global blue-laser standard, either Blu-ray Disc or HD DVD or both, according to Taiwan optical disc drive (ODD) makers.

A UK supermarket giant is selling a DVD player for less than the price of the discs you play on it.

A PSP haceker going by the name of Noobz has released a new downgrader for PSP that can wind back v3.03 PSPs to v1.5.

The Internet is set to revolutionize television within five years, due to an explosion of online video content and the merging of PCs and TV sets, according to Microsoft chairman Bill Gates.

A major Hollywood studio has claimed that as much as 50 per cent of the world's pirated movies come from Canada, prompting the film industry to threaten to delay the release of new titles in this country.

The encryption on high-definition DVDs has been bypassed, the consortium backing the copy protection system on discs has confirmed.

Video-sharing site YouTube has said it will start paying users for their content, the company's cofounder said in a video displayed on the site.

The Wii has allegedly been hacked by the 'Ninja team' who claim to be offering a modchip for sale from the 1st of February.

It's still early on to tell whether this is actually true, but HD DVD cracker muslix64 is back, and with the help of another anti-DRM cracker, Janvitos, claims to have also broken the Blu-ray's implementation of AACS.

In view of Toshiba's recent launch of an inexpensive HD DVD player with a retail price of US$599, Taiwan optical disc drive makers think an entry-level HD DVD player priced at up to US$500 (£253) may be available in the second half of 2007.

Lite-On IT added two new versions of its first 20x DVD burner, the LH-20A1S (SATA) and the external LH-20A1PU.

The claims of Sealand, a former military platform off the coast of Sussex, to nationhood are complete nonsense, a leading international and maritime law expert says. Piratebay, the Swedish file-sharing links site, says it is in negotiations to buy the platform.

Microsoft has announced that at the same time as retail availability of Vista, it will be offering 100% electronic download of the DVD as well.

Microsoft's HD DVD peripheral landed in 92,000 US homes since it was launched in November, but comparing its success to that of Sony's competing Blu-Ray is tough. Researchers at the NPD group tallied all sales for the add-on over the last two months of 2006.

The HD-DVD has been cracked, and high definition content is now being distributed freely over BitTorrent. We all knew this would happen sooner or later, looks it was “sooner”. The first HD-DVD to be uploaded to BitTorrent is Serenity, the Firefly movie.

In a run up to the next generation console war between Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, Bill Gates said that HD-DVD and Blu-ray are not important, since they represent the last generation of optical media anyway. While many people overlooked the statement, that's pretty much right on target.

The Pirate Bay, one of the world's most popular websites for the illegal downloading of films through filesharing, has said it wanted to buy its own "island" in a bid to avoid copyright laws.

It seems that, contrary to Sony's stated aims for the nascent format, porn is indeed already available on Blu-ray discs. At least in Japan, the adult film studio “Glayz” already produces and distributes content on Blu-ray Disc, HD DVD and UMD.