DIGITAL PHOTOS ON LINE

NEW YORK - If you're like a lot of people, you've got a wealth of digital photos left over from the holidays that you'd like to share with family and friends.
Thanks to the Internet, there are more options than ever. Some services even let you make images available to the general public.
Understanding the need for these companies to make a living, I don't begrudge them the pitches. But I am annoyed by services that make my friends register just to view photos:
Though I consider the ads fair, it should be OK to simply ignore them. Not so with Kodak Easy Share 
I wanted to like Kodak Easy Share , the offering from Eastman Kodak Co. (Remember film?). Lately, many friends and relatives have used Kodak Easy Share  to send me online albums of weddings and an engagement. They were relatively easy to call up -- and save if you register for an optional, free account. I have more than 30 albums on Kodak Easy Share!

Shutterfly all focus on the basics: Add photos. Share them. Order prints, mugs and other goodies.
Shutterfly and Kodak Easy Share  come out on top:
· The ability to share a group of photos, rather than the entire album or a single photo only.
· Friends viewing large albums see small versions of photos, or thumbnails, 20 at a time. · Optional software for organizing and adding photos online is available for Mac and Linux computers. Yahoo's drag-and-drop plug-in requires Windows computers using the Internet Explorer browser.
Yahoo gets votes for:
· You can send photos from a camera phone.
· You can share photos by sending an e-mail or instant message or by giving out a Web address. Shutterfly limits it to e-mail.
· With Yahoo, you can share photos with everyone, only those you specifically invite or those who appear on a list of friends. Shutterfly limits sharing to invites.
·
Copyright 2008 The FREEDMAN Group. All rights reserved.

NOTE
Or you can order tvCD here and create digital slide shows that will play on your TV through your DVD or CD player.
 
Nero has announced that their MPEG-4 encoding technology, Nero Digital, is now fully integrated with NeroVision Express 3. Here's part of their press release:
Nero, leaders in digital media technology, announced today that NeroVision Express 3, its video authoring and editing application included in the comprehensive digital media suite Nero 6, will now include Nero Digital(TM), the world's leading MPEG-4 solution.

With outstanding video and audio quality, Nero Digital(TM) is at the center of Nero's strategy for content creation, delivery, and protection. Featuring cutting-edge AVC/H.264 video encoding, and HE-AAC audio, NeroVision Express 3 can now capture directly to Nero Digital's(TM) High Definition video format with surround sound, or export and burn to Nero Digital(TM) for playback on compatible devices. With the addition of VCPS in the near future, Nero Digital(TM) output files will provide the required level of security against unauthorized re-distribution.

NeroVision Express 3 is able to author or edit video from virtually any input source and record video files to DVD Video, Video CD (VCD), Super Video CD (SVCD), miniDVD, and now Nero Digital(TM). Chapters can be created using automatic scene detection, videos can be trimmed in a fast and flexible way and customized menus can be created using pre-defined layout templates and button frames. Extensive editing is available for more advanced users, while fast and friendly wizards for the keen enthusiast mean no matter what skill level, the user is always in control.
If you'd like to try it out, NeroVision Express 3 can be downloaded from Nero's website.

 
HP Ships DVD+R DL Drive; Philips Boosts Disc Output

Leading DVD+RW format proponents HP and Philips gave a push to the format family's 8.5GB double-layer (DL) version last month with HP's announcement of a $99 DVD writer incorporating double-layer compatibility and Philips' promise of expanded double-layer media shipments.

HP's dvd530i writer features double-layer recording technology at up to 2.4X speed and single-layer recording at up to 8X. In addition to DVD+R DL media, the dual-format drive can write to 4.7GB DVD±R/RW as well as CD-R/RW discs. The device comes with software to let users edit and author video and save photos, video, music or data to DVDs or CDs.

HP claims that while competing DVD+R DL writers have met with compatibility issues, double-layer discs created with the dvd530i achieved in testing a near-90 percent compatibility rating with most DVD players and DVD-ROM drives.

The dvd530i is expected to be available at major retail outlets in the U.S. and Europe in August; a 16X model is expected to be available later this year.

Meanwhile, Philips announced it was increasing shipments of its own DVD+R DL media in all major world markets. Philips developed its DVD+R DL discs in cooperation with Mitsubishi Kagaku Media (MKM), based on initial investigations carried out in 2001 by Philips Research.

 
Plextor ConvertX PX-M402U 9

Plextor is the leading manufacturer of DVD/CD Recorders. However, in an attempt to provide more complete solutions covering from DVD creation to DVD recording, Plextor has introduced the ConvertX series for real time video encoding. Their latest product in this series is the PX-M402U.

The PX-M402U follows on the footsteps of the M401U, but has real-time, hardware based MPEG-4 encoding, along with real-time Dolby Digital audio encoding. This external device is also suitable for laptop users, making encoding as easy as possible. It can capture DVD quality video from multiple sources, such as TVs, VCRs or camcorders.

- Features

The device uses the Hi-Speed USB2.0 interface, making it compatible with all computers running Microsoft Windows XP. Of course, it can be connected to a slower USB1.1 port, but this is not recommended, since the transfer rate on such ports will not allow for real time video encoding. On the other hand, USB2.0 connectivity allows high bitrate video capture using MPEG-2 compression, maximizing data throughput to the host computer.

Most available encoders will encode audio in normal stereo or wide stereo 2-channel format. Dolby Digital is a key feature of the M402U. It converts the audio input to Dobly Digital channels, muxing them with the produced video stream. However, this is not hardware based real time encoding, but instead, the software handles the audio signals in such a way that produces Dolby Digital audio.

The PX-M402U is the first capture device to be officially DivX certified. This is a very interesting feature, since users can benefit from this popular format for sharing videos easily over the internet.

- Specifications

The device is compatible with both PAL and NTSC transmission formats, ensuring compatibility for all users around the world.