To playback the 3g2 and 3gp files created by your mobile phone on your Windows PC, get the Roxio 3GP Decoder Pack. Version 1.2 adds support for Windows Vista, Windows Media Player 11, and Windows Media Center (XP & Vista).

To learn more click here.

The most powerful and beautiful digital media suite ever released.

"Roxio®, a division of Sonic Solutions® (NASDAQ: SNIC), the leader in digital media software, today launched Easy Media Creator™ 10, a substantial upgrade to the company's flagship suite of digital media applications that enables consumers to quickly and easily turn their photos, video and music into impressive multi-media projects that can be shared on CD, DVD, the Web, or a range of mobile devices. The only complete digital media suite Certified for Windows Vista, Easy Media Creator 10 provides all of the tools users need to express their digital lives. Roxio Easy Media Creator® 10 will be available in retail stores worldwide this month and is available today directly from Roxio at www.roxio.com for $99.99 USD."

Full press release here: http://www.roxio.com/enu/company/press/07_09_05_pr.html

Some updates from our Professional Products Group at Sonic...

Sonic Launches HD QuickStart Program

Sonic Unveils CineVision 2.5

In cooperation with hardware manufacturers Microsoft will be announcing new Media Center Extenders, as well as a new feature called Internet TV for Media Center itself.

http://news.com.com/8301-10784_3-9772375-7.html

One wonders why they don't just make Internet TV available from the XBox 360 directly as well (or perhaps they will).

Many people today are opting to drop their landline in favor of mobile or VOIP service. I would love to do that if it were not for one feature: 911.

When my son had a febrile seizure last year due to a high fever (an apparently common but totally scary experience), my wife called 911 using the landline. The ambulance was here in less than 90 seconds.

The thing about 911 is that on a landline, at least where I live, you are directed towards your local 911 dispatcher (often the police station), and as soon as you call they have your address. With a cellular phone they can triangulate and connect you to the highway patrol or county dispatch router (they don't have your address), and VOIP has their own homegrown solution, but these methods can add minutes until help arrives.

There are some claims that 911 will still work if you shut off your service (though the phone company couldn't make that verbal commitment to me), or that mobile phones can pinpoint your location, but there's no guarantee. In fact, the wireless carriers are being FINED for not meeting stricter requirements for locating emergency callers.


More articles:
Have you dropped your landline yet? CNet
Net Phone Zone: The 411 on 911: PC World
Technology: Cutting the (Phone) Cord: MSNBC

The four new models will support the dual-layer BD recordable disc and are expected to ship in November.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20737751/

In the future you will be able to remove objects from your existing digital photos, or even rebuild them from scratch based on elements from similar photos. Some technology created by researchers allows you to replace areas of an image by using similar images from Flickr.

Get rid of that dork in the background, or your thumb over the lens, clouds, billboards, whatever. Photo retouching takes on an all-new meaning.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20646146

At long last, you can get the full release version of Roxio Buzz ($19.99)! Roxio Buzz is the fun and easy way to share video on the web.

• Easy to learn one-button editing lets you quickly cut and post your video the way you want it
• Add tags and other information right within the application
• Upload to YouTube, GoFish, or Microsoft Silverlight Streaming directly from Buzz
• Create beautiful slideshows with music in seconds

Roxio Buzz supports WMV, WMA, MP3, QuickTime, DivX, MPEG-1, AVI, DV-AVI, MPEG-2, H.264, MPEG-4, AAC, 3gp, TiVo, and Dolby Digital playback and editing.

Roxio Buzz Lite is still the free version available on Roxio Labs website and will be updated to the latest build shortly.

Looks like the FCC sided with the consumer by requiring cable companies to offer analog broadcasts (or conversions of the digital broadcasts)

http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/20070913/fcc-analog-digital-vote/

Swarmcast.com is an interesting technology that accelerates MySpace video and now Veoh video streaming downloads.

http://swarmcast.com/

Apple chooses O2 as it's European mobile carrier.

http://www.news.com/Apple+chooses+O2+as+iPhone+carrier+in+U.K./2100-1041_3-6208518.html?tag=cd.top

The prolific emoticon began its life 25 years ago, and now has hundreds of variations to express almost every emotion in plain old ASCII text.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20829611/

And for more about smileys than you ever wanted to know...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emoticon

Ooh, I can't wait for this one. 700GB on an optical disc, probably battling with an 800GB disc format for market share.

"The TeraDisc looks like a regular CD, except it's chartreuse and see-through. Mempile says its disc will start off able to store 600GB to 700GB and in a year will be able to write 1TB worth of data. There are two physical layers of plastic, but 200 virtual layers on the one-sided disc. That means 250 hours of high-definition content or 300,000 digital photos. HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc can currently hold about 50GB of data on dual-layer discs."

More here...

When I started working at Sonic (buyer of Roxio) 12 years ago, I would not have imaged this web page in the future (if I had the foresight to imagine a web page at all).

http://www.digidesign.com/index.cfm?&key=/products/details.cfm&itemid=3180&langid=1

At that time, Digidesign was Sonic's primary competitor and NoNoise was the recording industry's de facto and golden-ear standard in noise removal, used heavily as labels moved their catalogs from the archives onto CD. It was one of Sonic's crown jewels.

For more CD enjoyment, watch this...

Extra, extra! Fresh off the press...

Roxio Newsletter for PC

Roxio Newsletter for Mac



This month, Creator 10, Popcorn 3, tips & tricks, and more...

Qflix-Ready Products Define New Entertainment Sell-through Businesses; Enable Companies to Apply Approved CSS-Recordable Format

Novato, CA (September 27, 2007) — Sonic Solutions® (NASDAQ: SNIC), announced today its technologies and intellectual property are behind a range of products being introduced to establish new businesses for the digital distribution of video entertainment that can be burned on demand to protected discs. Sonic’s DVD On Demand™ software platform and Qflix™ recordable CSS program - based on the recently approved industry specifications for recording electronic downloads set by the DVD Copy Control Association (DVD CCA) - are being used in new products from DVD media makers, optical drive manufacturers, retail kiosk vendors, and duplication system suppliers. These products, combined with services and solutions being delivered by additional Sonic partners in the consumer electronics, entertainment distribution, and PC industries provide content owners new, secure platforms to digitally distribute their broad entertainment catalogs.

Full Text http://www.sonic.com/about/press/news/2007/09/qflix.aspx?source=mtblog



Movie DVDs Sold At Kiosks Get a Boost
By SARAH MCBRIDE for the Wall Street Journal
September 27, 2007; Page B4

A change in copy-protection rules governing DVDs is likely to quickly unlock a new market for selling movie discs via kiosks, where digital copies can be burned onto blank DVDs on the spot. Retailers have been hoping to roll out such operations, giving instant access to thousands of movie titles that otherwise might be impractical to stock. But such plans have been tripped up by restrictive copy-protection guidelines. Some "on demand" burning is currently available, but it mostly involves independent titles.

Now, an organization called the DVD Copy Control Association -- a consortium including movie studios and hardware makers that oversees the copy protection system known as Content Scramble System, or CSS -- says it will allow its technology to be licensed more broadly. That opens the doors for DVD-burning kiosks.

One of the earliest licensing programs will come from Sonic Solutions Inc., of Novato, Calif., which is offering a copy-protection program called Qflix designed for burn-to-order DVDs. They are working to license it to DVD kiosk makers such as Polar Frog Digital LLC, which makes MediaIgloo kiosks. MediaIgloo in turn hopes to make deals with the major studios to acquire rights to their films. Retailers including Walgreens already have plans to install in-store movie kiosks.

Having the big-studio content should help drive traffic to the kiosks, says Jim Taylor, senior vice president and general manager of Sonic's advanced technology group. "You need more compelling, topical studio content to get eyeballs there in the first place," he says.

For studios, embracing the kiosks allows them to tap into their back catalog without having to produce and physically store DVDs.

"We've been pushing for years for people to be able to burn legitimate DVDs," says Michael Arrieta, executive vice president for digital distribution and mobile entertainment at Sony Corp.'s Sony Pictures. He adds that the company has about 500 movies already formatted for digital distribution, with new releases added as they come out on DVD and about 10 movies a month added from the catalog.

Similarly, at Time Warner Inc.'s Warner Bros., a spokesman says the company supports the instant-DVD technology.

Stores, meanwhile, are eager to considerably broaden the movie titles they offer without taking up valuable shelf space.

The copy-protection technology will also work with at-home downloads, albeit only on designated blank discs and disc drives. While some studios had been experimenting with allowing consumers to burn DVD copies of movies they bought online, most played only on the computer; they didn't work in most DVD players because the movies come with a different type of copyright protection.

The studios' insistence on CSS protections might seem fruitless since the software was cracked by hackers years ago; programs to circumvent it are widely available on the Internet. But Sonic says it's an important first line of defense "from casual disc copying."