Audio Video News

In addition to the predictable numbers generated by megabuck-grossing films like <I>The Matrix</I> and <I>Titanic</I> (see <A HREF="http://www.guidetohometheater.com/shownews.cgi?587">related story</A>), we figure that <I>SGHT</I> readers might also be interested in what's at the opposite end of the list. After rummaging around, we discovered the website for <A HREF="http://www.awcm.com">The Amazing World of Cult Movies</A>, self-described as "the Internet's definitive reference source for the celebration of alternative cinema."

Last week, we announced the <A HREF="http://www.guidetohometheater.com/shownews.cgi?583">stats on DVD players</A>, which have proven to be one of the hottest format launches in consumer-electronics history. This week, we follow up with recent numbers on DVD software. The results show that, four weeks before the all-important Christmas holiday shopping season, shoppers spiked DVD software sales as they snapped up movies and music videos over the Thanksgiving weekend.

Rockets launched into space move slowly at liftoff, but with thrust continually applied, they gain momentum until they break free of Earth's gravity. The Digital Versatile Disc has done something similar, according to the latest figures from the <A HREF="http://www.cemacity.org/">Consumer Electronics Association</A>: As of November 23, the DVD is the hottest-selling consumer-electronics product in history.

Last week, <A HREF="http://www.pioneerelectronics.com/">Pioneer</A> announced that next year it will be the first to offer DVD recorder/players and recordable DVDs to consumers in North America and Europe. According to Pioneer, the new machines will allow recording times of up to six hours, indicating that the recorder will compress the video beyond the MPEG-2 compression found on commercially released DVDs.

A recently released study has found that the high price of digital television sets, high capital investment costs, lack of advertising support, and scant offerings from broadcasters have restrained the penetration of digital television since its rollout in November 1998. But the report concludes that "despite its anti-climactic beginning, digital television still represents an important and potentially lucrative market in the consumer television industry."

A new Nielsen report claims that kids are watching slightly less TV than they were 10 years ago, but another study claims that they are spending almost an entire work week, every week, with media of all kinds. That's the conclusion of <I>Kids & Media @ The New Millennium</I>, released recently by the Menlo Park, California philanthropic organization <A HREF="http://www.kff.org/">The Kaiser Family Foundation</A>. TV and music are by far the biggest occupiers of kids' time, the report states, with computers and the Internet a distant second. Reading for pleasure&mdash;that done apart from schoolwork&mdash;occupies only about 45 minutes per day for 80% of the children surveyed.

All was going reasonably well with HDTV until recently, when <A HREF="http://www.sbgi.com">Sinclair Broadcasting Company</A>, which owns several TV stations around the US, threw the FCC a curveball by claiming that the adopted 8-VSB standard was insufficient to roll HDTV out around the country. Sinclair had conducted tests which, it said, proved that the COFDM technology, favored by European and Asian broadcasters, would be a better choice. (See <A HREF="http://www.guidetohometheater.com/shownews.cgi?553">previous report</A>.)