Audio Video News

The film industry lost one of its legends on March 27, when writer-director Billy Wilder passed away at his Beverly Hills home. Wilder had been suffering from pneumonia. He was 95.

In the era of DVD, videotape gets no respect—some might say deservedly so. But according to the Video Software Dealers Association (VSDA) VidTrac program, considered by some to be the most accurate video rental point-of-sale tracking technology, the 2001 year-end rental revenue market share for VHS was 83.4% while DVD accounted for 16.6%. This variance means that VHS rental spending outpaced that for DVDs by $5.6 billion.

Proving to be one of the brightest spots in HDTV broadcasting, <A HREF="http://www.hd.net">HDNet</A> is adding another sport to its lineup of regular high definition television broadcasts. The company says that it has finalized plans to broadcast 80 Major League Baseball games in HDTV during the 2002 regular season. HDNet says the broadcast schedule begins with the Detroit Tigers&ndash;Minnesota Twins game on April 13.

May 1, the federally-mandated deadline for US television stations to begin digital broadcasting, will come and go without the full participation of many, according to a March 18 report in the trade journal <I>Multichannel News</I>.

In the past three years, Chinese-made DVD players have flooded the market, bringing low-cost, high-quality video to millions of consumers. Their success has also brought millions of dollars to Chinese electronics manufacturers. Now those same manufacturers are being asked to pay their fair share for the technology that is making them rich.

Things continue to look up for HDTV fans wedded to a cable provider. Following close on the heels of a similar <A HREF="http://www.guidetohometheater.com/shownews.cgi?1244">recent announcement</A> from Comcast Cable, <A HREF="http://www.charter.com">Charter Communications</A> announced last week that high definition television (HDTV) programming will be made available to some of its customers during the second quarter of this year.