Audio Video News

Pioneer is not a huge company by Japanese mega-corp standards, so when they hold a line show, we don't expect dozens of new products. But they're big in the areas of importance to home theater enthusiasts, namely plasma displays, DVD players and recorders, and AV receivers. So when they invited me to attend their 2005 west coast line show, there was no question about my response. I were there.

Mitsubishi made history yesterday during an event held at Ken Cranes Home Entertainment store in West Los Angeles, where they unveiled the first 1080p (1920x1080) DLP RPTV available to the public. With many Mitsubishi and Texas Instruments dignitaries on hand, shoppers got their first look at the 52-inch WD-52627 ($3699), which was available for purchase then and there. Also on display was the 73-inch WD-73927 ($7999), which won't be available until August. All in all, Mitsubishi will have nine 1080p models with sizes of 52, 62, and 73 inches in four product lines, which will be released in a staggered schedule over the summer.

At a recent press event held at Genesis Audio in Irvine, California, Linn launched two new lines of speakers—the Artikulat and the Komponent. The Artikulat is Linn's latest entry in the increasingly crowded, price-no-object category of audio and video kit, as they say in the UK, where Linn is based (Scotland, actually).

On June 14, Senators John McCain (R-AZ) and Joe Lieberman (D-CT) introduced a bill that would set a hard cutoff date of January 1, 2009, for the shutdown of analog over-the-air (OTA) television broadcasting. The bill, formally S.1237, is also known as the SAVE LIVES Act of 2005. Someone worked pretty hard to come up with the words to fit that acronym: Spectrum Availability for Emergency-Response and Law-Enforcement to Improve Vital Emergency Services Act.

This week, Panasonic hit the road to demonstrate their latest products to journalists in San Francisco, San Jose, and Los Angeles, California. Unfortunately, the shipping company they hired to get the gear from San Jose to LA dropped the ball (at least they didn't drop the gear!), failing to deliver the equipment on time, so most of the presentation was theoretical.