Looks like Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring has been announced. And there's like 5 versions of it:
The US Theatrical 2-Disc Widescreen version
The US Theatrical 2-Disc Fullframe version
The UK Theatrical 2-Disc version
The UK Extended 4-Disc version
The UK Extended Collectors Edition 4-Disc version

I'd hate to think what the complete box set in 2003/2004 is going to look like, 20 discs?

People seem to be interested in finding a way to copy their DVDs onto the hard disk and playing it locally. Zoom Player can do this quite easily. But just in case, I've written a FAQ entry to further explain the methodology involved. So, if you've wondering how to use Zoom Player to play a DVD off your hard disk, click here.

Also, looks like the Rio.ee would be our new download mirror. So hopefully beta updates will be posted faster now. Look for the next Zoom Player beta, probably sometime next week.

A site to host at least the beta version of Zoom Player has been found, so check out Zoom Player v2.60 beta 1 by going over to the forum

Ok, I've set a bit of time this morning to whip-up a nice Zoom Player beta. The problem is, I don't have anywhere to upload it that can hold under the bandwidth strain. So, until I have a solution (hopefully within the week), I'm forced to sit on it.

Ok, looks like part of my mail box got corrupted and some mail was lost. If you sent me an eMail and haven't received a reply in the last 24 hours then mail me.

I still got tons of things to catch up on, looks like my download mirrors are dying. I'm hoping to get another mirror up soon, but hopefully the ones currently active will hold out. If you can supply me with an FTP accessible web space so I can host my various downloadable files (Zoom Player, DVD Genie, etc...), please Mail me.

I'm going to make the next Zoom Player beta a slightly larger release than I initially intended, and I have a lot of things unrelated to arrange so it looks like the next beta may be delayed till possibly the weekend, I can't really give a firm date.

I'M BACK!
Not sure all of you knew, but I was in Thailand for the last month.

Now I'm back at my old keyboard and catching up on 100's of eMails (this may take a while). I will have a Zoom Player beta update within the next 48 hours, so stay tuned.

It looks like all seven seasons of Star Trek:The Next Generation are up for pre-order:
Season 1 (March 26th)
Season 2 (May 7th)
Season 3 (July 2nd)
Season 4 (September 3rd)
Season 5 (November 5th)
Season 6 (December 3rd)
Season 7 (December 31st)

Looks like people who bought DVD+RW got shafted. According to this C|Net article, these drives will NOT be compatible with the DVD+R format, going against previous claims from the DVD+RW Alliance.

Which brings up my own personal point of view, which says "Don't buy it until it's a finalized standard and dirt cheap". I'd say sometime in 2003, or possibly late 2002.

Announcing Zoom Player v2.50.

Once again we're at a point of release. Once again there's tons of new features, most of them requested by you. There are too many new features to list here, so ...

Make sure you read the What's new file.

To download Zoom Player, click here.

In other news, ther's an interesting article in The Tech Report comparing DVD-R/DVD-RW and DVD+RW drives. Everything from speed to compatibility with DVD Players, well worth the read.

I'm so out of it ...

I have posted 2.50 release candidate 2 on the forum and pretty much didn't remember posting it on the front page till now.

In any case, 2.50 final will probably be released in the next 48 hours. Tons of new stuff in since v2.40, not so much bug fixes as new features, and trust me, there's a lot of them. I'm still looking for mirror web space for the 2.50 release as I'm not sure what's the situation with the Pisho mirror presently.

With the impending release of Zoom Player v2.50, I need another download mirror.

If you can provide me with around 5mb of web space accessible through FTP which can handle the bandwidth, please contact me at:

It looks like DivX 5.0 is out.

There seems to be two version, which is slightly confusing. It seems that the more advanced version, which has more features, also shows banners. I'm not quite sure how this will work. If they try showing banners during video playback, people would be pissed. But if it's only during encoding, I guess that'll be ok.

In any case, I still don't see these on the DivX home page, but you can grab both versions at Doom9 if it doesn't crash due to the stress.

Updated the Video Capture 103 article again to reflect changes in Decomb v3.6.

He keeps changing it and I keep updating. Still, very nice IVTC code!

Looks like more and more TV series are being released on DVD, especially in Europe.

This time around it's a box set of the first half of the first season of West Wing check it out.