29-09-99 |
RiTRAX - Another Low-Budget RiTEK brand arrives! |
TraxData PressRelease |
TraxData has sold 50% of their brand to the Taiwan based RiTEK forming a 10 year business partnership called RiTRAX.
The two partners will jointly develop the brand while the distribution companies in the Traxdata Group will pay a license fee to RiTRAX on a per-CD basis. In exchange, these companies will get a guarantee of supply of 900 million units and other advantageous terms. TraxData will abandon the CD Hardware market and it will mainly focus their strategy on media and professional products.
This agreement is the second between a major CD-R manufacturer/vendor here in Europe. Last June the PDO division from Philips signed an strategic alliance with RiTEK. It is not clear when the RiTRAX brandname will be used as the TraxData website has not been changed at all - Thanks Erik van der Paelt
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Brujo MP3/CD Player Shipping Now! |
As of today netDrives is shipping the Brujo MP3 Player, a standalone MP3/CD-Player for a home stereo system.
It automatically identifies both Audio (CDDA) & MP3 CD's & can be controlled from a IR remote control or from the front panel. It is currently priced at US$ 300,-... More info here. |
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New CD-ReWriters |
Plextor announced the PlexWriter 8/4/32A, their first 8xW/4xRW/32xR IDE/Atapi CD-ReWriter as until now they only made SCSI CD-Writers. No release date has been set yet.
Yamaha announced the CRW8424S, this will be their first 8xW/4xRW/24xR CD-ReWriter. It will be released this November - Thanks Ian Ballard.
TDK announced the veloCD Model 8432ai, this drive most likely will hold the above mentioned PlexWriter 8/4/32A. It will be available in Q4 of this year at an estimated price of US$349. |
CD-R, Audio & MP3 Software Releases |
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28-09-99 |
Sony PCVA-CRW1 External CD-ReWriter |
Sony introduced the PCVA-CRW1, their first FireWire CD-ReWriter. The drive is build in an external casing and for now will mainly be used on the iMAC platform, as the iMACs feature FireWire/i.Link ports.
Sony PCVA-CRW1 Specifications:
- 4x Write/ReWrite & 24x Read
- Supports CD-ROM, CD-ROM XA, CD-DA, CD Extra, CD-Text, CD-I
On the back of the drive it features 2 i.LINK (IEEE1394-S400) ports and two audio out ports. |

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FireWire is the name for the high speed data transfer protocol IEEE1394. When the FireWire concept was first announced a few years ago, it was envisioned that it would become a new standard that would replace SCSI & IDE and link all our consumer electronics equipment and computers together. But until now is has only been used for transferring Digital Video (DV) information directly from a camcorder (or VCR) to hard drive. The main advantage of this protocol is the transfer speed. Three kinds of speeds are possible 100 Mbps (S100), 200 Mbps (S200) & 400 Mbps. This is much faster than all currently available (single device) SCSI, IDE & USB (2.0) solutions. It is a pity that, until now, it hasn't had any major application on the PC platform.
Officially FireWire has been renamed to i.Link as Apple, who originally developed the standard, wants to retain the "FireWire" trademark for itself. Both FireWire & i.Link are branding names for the same IEEE1394 standard. |
CD Protections Update |
Added the recently released MusicGuard protection to the CD Protection page. |
CD-R, Audio & MP3 Software Releases |
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CD-Writer Firmware Releases |
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27-09-99 |
CD/DVD Utilities Update |
Added the CD Speed 0.5 to the CD/DVD Utilities page. |
The Week in Review |
CD/DVD NewsWire |
Important CD/DVD/MP3 News: |
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CD Media World Message Forum |
Added the CD Media World Message Forum. If you have pressing questions just go to this forum, "Sign In" and ask your question(s)! Use the "Search" function to see if someone else already asked the question and if it was answered. |
25-09-99 |
Sony Digital Music Walkman |
Sony introduced its first Walkman supporting digital music downloaded from the Internet.
The new Walkman, which features Sony's "Memory Stick" technology, was introduced yesterday at the 20th anniversary of the Walkman in New York. Smaller than a piece of chewing gum, the Memory Stick is a storage medium competing with memory flash cards for dominance in electronic devices, such as PCs and digital cameras. It is expected to arrive in U.S. stores in January 2000 and retail for about $400. |
Diamond Rio 500 MP3 Player |
Diamond Multimedia started shipping its latest portable digital music player, the Rio 500. The Rio 500 is the follow-up of the popular Rio portable MP3 player, last October the first device widely available to play MP3 files.
The Rio 500, again features 64 MB of memory, which can be expanded to 96 MB and it now can connect to the USB port for faster transfers. It stores up to two hours of digital-quality music and up to 32 hours of spoken audio programs.
The Rio 500 can be pre-ordered for US$ 269. |
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CD/DVD Utilities Update |
Added the CDCheck 1.8.4.79 to the CD/DVD Utilities page - Thanks James Hebert for pointing it out!
CDCheck is small utility which is able to check the contents of a CD-R for possible corrupted files.
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The Week in Review |
CD/DVD NewsWire |
Important CD/DVD/MP3 News: |
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20-09-99 |
Innogear Portable MiniJam MP3 Player |
Innogear’s MiniJam is both an MP3 Player and voice recorder. Minijam is able to playback MP3 files and Audible’s spoken audio as well as record voice messages.
The MiniJam has as all other portable MP3 Players 64 Mb internal memory and it connects to the USB port. |
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CD/DVD Utilities Update |
Added the CDR Identifier 1.45 & CD Vergleich 0.98b to the CD/DVD Utilities page. |
The Week in Review |
CD/DVD NewsWire |
Important CD/DVD/MP3 News: |
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19-09-99 |
CD Media Info |
Added CD Info/Pictures: |
- Azona CD-R74 Multi Speed & CD-R80 Multi Speed
- Rimax CD-R74 MaxWrite & CD-R80 MaxWrite
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CD-R, Audio & MP3 Software Releases |
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18-09-99 |
Software Releases |
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MP3 MediaWorld Opened |
We have opened a new exciting domain:
M P 3 M e d i a W o r l d
It holds a lot of MP3 Files: Top Hits, Movie Themes, Full Albums, Archives, the Dutch Top 40 and more than 500 Golden Oldies! Have a look for yourself! The site will be updated EVERY day so it will always contain the latest in MP3 files & software!!! |
16-09-99 |
CDR Identifier Update |
Added the CDR Identifier 1.44 to the CD/DVD Utilities page.
- Added 2 new codes/manufacturers:
- 97m 23s 60f - 97m 23s 69f : Customer Pressing Oosterhout
- 97m 15s 10f - 97m 15s 19f : Ritek Co.)
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CD-R, Audio & MP3 Software Releases |
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CD-Writer Firmware Releases |
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The 1.0M firmware update for the the latest Teac CD-Writers updates the following:
- The writing quality with respect to 79-minute disc is to be improved.
- The recognition time of the logically erased CD-RW disc is to be reduced.
Thanks Anders Karlsson for the info! |
13-09-99 |
Cabo Portable MP3 Player |
Best Data introduced the Cabo, another 64 Mb Portable MP3 Player. And as most MP3 devices it is expandable with a 32 Mb SmartMedia card to 96 Mb. Not much else is known as they don't have anything on this new product on their website...
The player can record and play for ten hours on two triple-A batteries. It is priced at $239. |
The Week in Review |
CD/DVD NewsWire |
CD/DVD News: |
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Software Releases |
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11-09-99 |
raveMP Portable MP3/CD Player |
The raveMP, made by Sensory Science, is another portable MP3 player to hit the market.
The raveMP comes in two models. The MP2050 which holds 64 Mb and is expandable to 96 Mb and the MP2100 which has the additional Sennheiser MX4 Earbuds headphone.
Next to being an "ordinary" MP3 player it can store 4 hours of voice recording and it can also hold up to 64000 telephone numbers.
The raveMP is already being sold for about US$300 and the additional 16 Mb & 32 Mb Flash-Rams are US$50 & US$90 a piece. |
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10-09-99 |
The lp3 hardware MP3 Music Player |
lp3 Inc. introduced the lp3 is a hardware add-on that allows for playing MP3 files while running other programs, without the slowdown, skipping, or stuttering of a software-only player.
lp3 works directly with WinAMP software and plays MPEG 1 and 2 layers 2 and 3 (.mp2 and .mp3) files of 8 to 256 kbps. |
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The device plugs into the parallel port and it features a pass-through option to also connect your printer of ZIP drive. The parallel devices connected to the lp3 can only be accessed when playback is paused. lp3 works with Win9x, WinNT & Win2k. Support for Linux is currently under development.
No price as been given yet and it will be released for sale to US and Canadian customers on September 27th, 1999. First shipments will be around November 1st, 1999. |
CD-Writer Firmware Releases |
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Yamaha CRW6416S 1.0c Firmware Update Information:
- Update OPC/R-OPC function for news CD-R medias
Problem fixed where Continuous playback of files such as video file on CRW6416 connected to SCSI card equipped with beige G3 Mac suddenly stops and the system hangs up.
Problem fixed with the REX-PCI32/REX-PCI33 SCSI card from Ratoc Systems Inc., formatting a RW disc with DirectCD would end in failure or the host controller would reset when copying files to a CD-RW disc. These problems appear only when PC and CRW6416 powered up with a RW disc inside the drive.
Thanks to Nicolas de Saint Remy from the CD-R technical staff - Yamaha France for sending it. |
09-09-99 |
Pine Portable MP3/CD Player |
Pine Technology has introduced the Pine SM-200C. This is the first portable music device which combines a FM radio, CD drive, and MP3 player into a single machine the size of a normal portable CD player!
The main difference between the current portable MP3 players is that the Pine doesn't have any flash-memory to store MP3's. It can only playback CD's containing MP3's.
Pine's player can displays song titles and includes a remote control, an equalizer and has, like a normal portable CD-Player, an anti-shock buffer of 10 seconds.
The SM-200C is priced at $299 and will be available in November... More at CNet. |
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Software Releases |
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For a complete overview see the CD-Writer, DVD-Writer & Audio/MP3 Software pages. |
08-09-99 |
CD Media Info |
Added CD Info/Pictures: |
- Sega Dreamcast GD-Recordable
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Mob turns to Software Piracy |
As if drugs and gambling weren't lucrative enough, organized crime operations are raking in millions by producing and selling counterfeit software.
A three-month investigation by Sm@rt Reseller shows that portions of the Chinese Mafia are smuggling illegal aliens into this country and forcing them to pay their debt by pirating software. And the stakes are high. Experts say software developers, distributors and resellers lost $11 billion in sales to piracy last year. And that's just the beginning... More at ZDNet |
Software Releases |
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For a complete overview see the CD-Writer, DVD-Writer & Audio/MP3 Software pages. |
07-09-99 |
CD Media Info |
Added CD Info/Pictures: |
- Seantram CD-R74 Gold/Green, CD-R74 Gold/Blue, CD-R80 Super 8, CD-RW74 & CD-RW74 4x
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We have been testing CD-R's which are manufactured by Seantram which are of VERY bad quality! This quality problem has also been confirmed by a few readers of the CD Media World who e-mailed us about Samsung CD-R's which only hold their data for approximately 2 weeks!
More info concerning these bad quality Seantram CD-R's can be found on our Features page. |
05-09-99 |
CD Media Info |
Added CD Info/Pictures: |
- Medea Infiniti CDR-74is Professional Sterling
- Medea Infiniti A CDR-74i Professional Audio
- Medea Infiniti CDR-74i Professional
- Medea Infiniti CDR-80i Professional
- Medea Infiniti CDRW-74i Professional
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Thanks to Yusuf I. Okhai from Medea International (Scotland) for sending the Medea CD Media! |
Software Releases |
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For a complete overview see the CD-Writer, DVD-Writer & Audio/MP3 Software pages. |
03-09-99 |
Software Releases |
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For a complete overview see the CD-Writer, DVD-Writer & Audio/MP3 Software pages. |
The Week in Review |
CD/DVD NewsWire |
CD News: |
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DVD News: |
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Misc News: |
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