Online group buying has taken off in a big way in the Australian market, with the market now worth nearly nearly half a billion dollars and significant growth predicted over the next 12 months and beyond.read more
Hopes for native Blu-ray support
in Microsoft's upcoming Windows 7 operating system have been dashed
with confirmation the new OS won't play Blu-ray movies out of the box.
Blu-ray
support in Windows 7 will be provided by "PC makers or BRD
drive
makers," according to Steven Sinofsky, senior vice president of the
Windows and Windows Live Engineering Group at Microsoft, in a statement
published
by windows7center.com.
"We have new extensibility in media center for those that
provide BRD playback to support integrated playback. We do have
support for burning BRD data discs," Sinofsky said in an email.
Just
as with Windows XP and DVDs, Blu-ray playback under Windows 7 will
require the installation of third party media suites such as
CyberLink's PowerDVD or Corel's WinDVD (Corel acquired InterVideo in
2006). By refusing to licence the Blu-ray playback decoder for Windows
7, Microsoft is pushing the costs onto PC makers who will generally
obtaining Blu-ray licenses bundled with Blu-ray drives.
Microsoft
backed the doomed HD DVD format in the high definition format war which
saw the Sony-backed Blu-ray format emerge victorious. Redmond has not
completely turned its back on the format, with Windows 7 offers the
ability to read and burn Blu-ray data discs.
The news comes as
the entertainment industry works to simplify Blu-ray licensing. Blu-ray
royalty rates are expected to plunge with the formation of a global
independent Blu-ray licensing company by industry heavyweights Sony,
Panasonic and Philips.
A new license system will be established
by mid-2009 as a "one-stop shop" for device makers, representing the
interests of all Blu-ray patent holders. Licensing will be managed by
an as yet unnamed new company, headed by Gerald Rosenthal - former head
of intellectual property at IBM. Offices will be spread across the
United States, Asia, Europe and Latin America.
As a result of the new licensing systems, royalty rates will drop by 40 percent for individual Blu-ray Disc, DVD and
CD format licenses.
The fees for the new licenses will be US$9.50 for a Blu-ray player and
US$14 for a Blu-ray recorder. Making Blu-ray Disc will cost 11 US cents for
read-only, 12 US cents for recordable discs and 15 US cents for rewritable
discs.
David Bass
| Diversified industrial manufacturer Eaton Corporation has today launched a new set of enclosure power distribution units, ePDUs, that prov…
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