Last week, Apple and NBC-Universal’s relationship ended in a messy split. The usual he-said, she-said followed: Apple accused NBC of wanting to double prices on some TV shows; NBC said no, they just wanted to have some flexibility in pricing. There may have been another factor at work, however: Apple’s desire to cut prices drastically on TV shows.

Sources close to the discussions between Apple and the networks told Variety that Apple wants to chop per-show prices in half from $1.99 to 99¢ each—the same price Apple charges for DRMed music. Unsurprisingly, Apple is meeting with a lot of resistance from the studios on the idea.

The iPod maker’s argument is simple: lower the prices on TV shows, and you’ll more than make up the difference in increased volumes. Left unsaid is how Apple believes 99¢ TV shows would help sales of iPods. With video content priced the same as music, Apple could use the cheap episodes to market the iPod as a way to stay on top of one’s favorite shows, and inexpensively at that. Nate could finally catch up on That’s So Raven for less than a price of the DVD.

After months of hearing about Universal Music Group’s displeasure, DivX yesterday filed a preemptive federal lawsuit of its own that asks a judge to exorcise the “specter of litigation” currently haunting DivX.
Related Stories

At issue is DivX’s Stage6 video hosting service, which is a bit like YouTube but requires the DivX codec instead of Flash. According to a copy of the complaint seen by Ars, Universal has told DivX that the site is “knowingly involved in the infringement of UMG’s copyrighted materials, and exploits that widespread infringement for its own commercial gain.” In response, DivX points out the obvious: it complies with the DMCA and Universal has an easy method to request the takedown of any music video that infringes its copyrights.

According to DivX, Universal has been not interested in supplying actual DMCA takedown notices and instead “has chosen to posture and threaten DivX in the hopes of extracting an unwarranted windfall.”

Toshiba has unveiled a ground-breaking technology that boosts recording density by 50% on an 80-GB, 1.8″, single-platter drive. Using what it calls Discrete Track Recording technology, Toshiba was able to pack 120 GB storage on a single 1.8″ platter. The new development will hugely benefit media player, UMPC, and ultra-portable laptop segments where 1.8″ drives with maximum possible capacity are in great demand.

Apple has released an update to iTunes that blocks users from creating free custom ringtones and then syncing them to an iPhone. Despite Apple’s best efforts to thwart users, a workaround has already been found and posted to the Internet.

A method of using iTunes to create ringtones for the iPhone using songs not purchased from the iTunes Store was first posted by Macrumors.com on Friday. Users confirmed after installing iTunes 7.4.1 last night that the method no longer worked.