Audio Video News

Last week, <A HREF="http://www.sony.com/displaysystems">Sony Electronics</A> announced that its newest 16:9 flat-panel plasma display, the PFM-510A1WU high-resolution 42" (viewable area, measured diagonally) monitor, is now available. Sony claims that the new monitor, originally debuted at NAB in April 1999, is one of the first on the market to offer over 1,000,000 pixel capability in a plasma display, and is capable of handling high-definition video signals.

The world's number-one video rental business will join the Internet gold rush early next year. <A HREF="http://www.blockbuster.com/">Blockbuster Video</A> announced October 20 that it will relaunch its website in November with sales of new and used VHS tapes and DVDs. Video rentals will be available online sometime in the second quarter of next year, company executives said.

Cable subscribers in Tampa, Florida and Austin, Texas will be the first in the nation to get movies whenever they wish. <A HREF="http://www.pathfinder.com/corp/">Time Warner</A>, the nation's second-largest cable company, is preparing to roll out video-on-demand to its subscribers in those cities by the end of the year, according to an October 15 report in the <A HREF="http://www.ajc.com/"><I>Atlanta Journal and Constitution</I></A>.

In the past 12 months, 1.8 million homes have signed on to <A HREF="http://www.skydigital.co.uk/">British Sky Broadcasting</A>'s digital Direct Broadcast Satellite service, the company reported in mid-October. Approximately 45% of them are completely new subscribers. With an estimated half-million homes connected to the COFDM DTV service, the total market penetration of digital television in the United Kingdom is now 2.3 million homes, or slightly more than 10%. By comparison, market penetration of digital delivery services (cable and DBS) in the US is now about 12%, after five years of service from <A HREF="http://www.directv.com/">DirecTV</A>, <A HREF="http://www.echostar.com/">Echostar</A>, and digital cable.

The high-resolution benefits of digital television could reach millions of consumers within a year or two, thanks to a new module from electronics giant <A HREF="http://www.motorola.com/">Motorola</A>. On October 4, the company announced its MCT5100 M-DTV module, an integrated device combining the functions of Motorola's 8-VSB demodulator, the MCT2100, with an MPEG decoder and controller. Installed in an appropriate monitor, the module will "implement a complete Advanced Television Standards Committee (ATSC) digital television," according to advance publicity.

In a recent poll conducted on the <I>SGHT</I> website, a majority of home-theater fans expressed their desire for an HDTV version of DVD to get them interested in the new high-definition formats. But so far, the storage capacity required to store the massive amounts of data needed by even 20 minutes of HDTV exceeded anything likely to be available in the foreseeble future.

As TVs become much more like computers, computers may become much more like TVs. That's one implication of a $10 million deal signed in early October by <A HREF="http://www.hearstargyle.com/">Hearst-Argyle Television</A> and <A HREF="http://www.geocast.com/">Geocast Network Systems</A>. The two companies plan to deliver a new-media program service to personal computers using a portion of Hearst-Argyle's over-the-air digital broadcast spectrum. The programming to be offered will originate with national networks, local TV stations, and other information and entertainment services.