Further to previous news on these pages about Nick Mason's book on the history of Pink Floyd, we received an email from Nick himself, yesterday, updating us on progress with the book.

In the email, he talks about the release of the book in September, and also sets out the focus of the book. "This book is intended to be a fairly personal take on our history, rather than a definitive date by date exercise." He has been involving the other members of the band, families, and characters directly involved as co-workers on the various tours and recordings.

A new DVD has been released in Germany, called "Best Of Beat". This 22-track compilation includes Janis Joplin, The Byrds, and most importantly, Pink Floyd, and the frankly bizarre See Emily Play promo recorded in Brussels, Belgium, in 1968!

This weekend's New York Times reports on a possible 25th anniversary remaster of the movie, Pink Floyd The Wall, by industry expert John Lowry, who has been responsible for astonishing remasters of the likes of Star Wars, Indiana Jones, and Casablanca.

In a fascinating piece entitled: "600 Macs, 4,000 Lines, One Giant Leap for DVD's", the article (which can be read here in full) discusses the new technology that Lowry Digital is employing to give dramatically better pictures on DVD. Pictured right is Lowry himself amidst the 600 Macintosh computers, with a combined capacity of 2400 gigabytes, which provide the processing power to scan the original prints of classic films in incredible detail.

Lowry is currently working on nine classic James Bond films for MGM, and it is said that once he is finished with those, MGM want him to work on a 25th anniversary remaster of Pink Floyd's The Wall movie. Whether this will happen, is anyone's guess at present. Certainly, the band's management are saying that there aren't plans for this to happen...

We now have some detail on the TV broadcast of the EU expansion celebrations, which includes Roger Waters premiering fifteen minutes of his new opera, Ca Ira.