Playboy CEO Christie Hefner announced yesterday plans to shut down its DVD business and focus on Internet video:
It is unavoidable that we reduce our cost structure to reflect current economic realities even as we continue to invest in our growth businesses.
We will also respond to changes in how consumers access content and advertisers use media.  Thus, [...]

If you’re a Windows user, and you need a DVD utility for ripping DVDs for your iPod, Zune, or other media player, check out DVD Catalyst Free.
It’s a free version of a commercial application, but it’s still fairly capable, converting DVD to iPhone, iPod, Zune, PocketPC, Palm, PSP and more devices. It can convert DVDs [...]

Toshiba Corporation today announced that it is killing off HD DVD.
“We carefully assessed the long-term impact of continuing the so-called ‘next-generation format war’ and concluded that a swift decision will best help the market develop,” said Atsutoshi Nishida, President and CEO of Toshiba Corporation. “While we are disappointed for the company and more importantly, for [...]

CNBC has an interesting interview with Steve Jobs, in which he confirms our take away from his MacWorld announcements: Apple is killing off the DVD:
Don’t underestimate the power of the new iTunes movie rental service either. I asked Jobs whether this meant the format war between Blu-ray and HD-DVD was over, with Apple the big [...]

Makayama Interactive has released version 3.0 of iPod Media Studio, an application that streamlines copying video or DVDs to iPods.
The upgraded software supports new video formats, such as Youtube content and subtitles are rendered much faster then before. Windows Media files (wmv and dvr-ms) and Flash video, such as Youtube content, may now be converted.
The [...]