The $285 million deal between Avid and SoftImage merges the dominant force in digital non-linear editing with the effects house which provided content for seven major films including Titanic...

Minister plans to restrict pay-per-view sports.

The Minister for Arts, Sile deValera is place legislation before the Dail to restrict pay-per-view sporting events. The legislation will prevent restricted access to top sporting events such as GAA finals and important soccer matches.

Net News

Amazon.com announced the acquisition of Internet Movie Database, probably with the intention of adding movies to its inventory of books and music titles.

Godzilla Noticeboard

Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin, the team behind Godzilla, had a website designed to include welcome incoming messages about how great the film was. Unfortunately not all the messages were that congratulatory, some were even critical.

Saving Private Ryan

Although the release date for 'Saving Private Ryan' has been put back in the US until July, the build up for Stephen Speilberg's picture, which was partly shot in Ireland last year, has begun. 'Saving Private Ryan' is apparently a deeply emotive World War II epic about the attempts to rescue the last surviving son of a widow from the heart of war-torn Europe.

BskyB failing to meet UK EU targets

TV3 may be worried about BskyB selling advertising in the Republic and their argument against this move is that they will not produce any of the Irish content that is required of TV3, but it appears this is not only an Irish problem. Chris Smith, the UK Culture Minister, has accused British Sky Broadcasting of failing to meet European Quotas.

Sky Plan seperate Irish Ads

British Sky Broadcasting, the satellite giant is planning to start screening seperate commercial breaks for Ireland. BSkyB made a bid to insert seperate commercials for Ireland 6 years ago but RTE managed to block it at the time since it was the major shareholder in Cablelink which carries Sky channels and had some influence as a monopoly media player.

51st Cannes Film Festival Awards

Theo Angelopoulos was awarded the major prize, the palme d'Or, at the closing ceremony of the festival for his film 'Eternity and a Day'. English film-maker John Boorman who resides in Ireland was named best director for the second time for his film 'The General', the first Irish entry selected for competition since Cal in 1984.