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Audio Video News
The Mouse Does Blu-ray
 |  Jul 20, 2006

Exclusive Blu-ray Disc supporter Buena Vista Home Entertainment has announced its first wave of titles on the HD format. Hitting Stores on 9/19 from Walt Disney Pictures will be one time trade show demo favorite, <I>Dinosaur</I>, along with <I>Eight Below</I>. Rounding out this first small group are Miramax's <I>Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back</I> and <I>The Great Raid</I>.

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Audio Video News
The Past and the Future of TV - Now on DVD
Darryl Wilkinson  |  Jul 20, 2006
Late last week, CustomFlix Labs, Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Amazon.com, announced that CBS News had selected CustomFlix and Amazon.com to distribute thousands of hours of prime-time and classic news content. The treasure trove of past CBS News content includes broadcasts from "60 Minutes", "CBS Evening News", and a variety of long-form documentaries produced by CBS News Productions over the past 10 years.
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Audio Video News
Samsung BD-P1000 Blu-ray Player Defect Announced
Thomas J. Norton  |  Jul 20, 2006

Samsung has announced that the first production run of its BD-P1000 Blu-ray Disc player, which includes all players now in use and in stores, has an error in the programming of a Genesis chip used in the design. A noise reduction feature in that chip which cannot be user defeated has apparently been set to a level high enough to noticeably soften the image—an error that could account for the mixed reports on the player and the Blu-ray Disc format that have been published to date, here and elsewhere.

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Ears On
DVDs Are Popular, New Movies Less
Mark Fleischmann  |  Jul 20, 2006
Consumers are buying more DVDs this year—but are also buying fewer fresh movie titles. That's what the folks at NPD's VideoWatch are saying. Sales of new DVDs rose seven percent during the first quarter of 2006. However, only nine percent of consumers said they intended to buy DVDs of movies running in theaters during the first five months of 2006, down from 11 percent in the same period of 2005. Maybe Hollywood needs to make better films. Overall, says NPD, for the year ending in April 2006: "47 percent of all videos were rented, 30 percent were purchased from a store, 15 percent were from subscription services, eight percent from pay-per-view (PPV) or video-on-demand (VOD) services and one percent was downloaded directly from the Web."
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Portable Player Reviews
Insignia IS-PDVD10 Portable DVD Player
Nikhil Burman  |  Jul 19, 2006
It folds open like open like a book, but there's no literacy required.

Summertime for many of you means travel time. And let's face it, folks—long plane flights can be a dreary hell. A good book helps, and, if you can sleep, that's the best way to kill time, unless of course drink carts and people headed to the bathroom keep bumping your shoulder every five minutes. But a portable DVD player can really help the time pass, and perhaps even help you forget about the tight space you're packed into.

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Media Server Reviews
Nyko Intercooler 360
Chris Chiarella  |  Jul 19, 2006
The most important Xbox 360 accessory you'll ever own.

Remember the buzz shortly after the launch of the Microsoft Xbox 360 last year regarding concerns of the super-powered system overheating amid all of that heavy bit-lifting? Nyko has stepped up and done something about it.

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The 2006 DVD Hall of Fame Inductees
Chris Chiarella  |  Jul 19, 2006
These DVD champions are going to a better place.

As the annually updated list of the top 100 DVDs of all time hits stands in the August issue of Home Theater magazine, we thought we'd take a moment to honor the number-one picks from each category in last year's ranking. We purge these "best of the best" titles each year to help keep the list current, although they still receive our highest recommendation: Buy them all as part of your own ultimate DVD library. Best Music DVD

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Ears On
Students Shun Legal Downloads
Mark Fleischmann  |  Jul 19, 2006
Students at Cornell, Purdue, George Washington University, and other schools won't download music from university-approved services even if it's free, according to The Wall Street Journal. These and other schools began offering free (often meaning subsidized) downloads to prevent illegal downloads from attracting lawsuits and choking servers. But these experiments have flunked for several reasons. Onerous DRM restrictions are often attached. For instance, the download may be free, but transferring to a music player or burning a CD may not be. At Cornell, students lost interest in Napster when they discovered they'd lose the right to use their downloads upon graduating. The non-iTunes services have also met resistance from iPod and/or Mac users, the latter an estimated 20 percent of the student population.
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Ears On
HD DVD Fakes Film Grain
Mark Fleischmann  |  Jul 18, 2006
HD DVD has adopted a Thomson-developed technology that would insert simulated film grain into high-def movie releases. The problem: Digital video compression codecs tend to lose the natural grain in film-based cinematography. The, um, uh, solution: "Thomson has come up with a way that allows the film grain to be put back, or at least simulated, into the movie after it's been compressed and decompressed," says Gavin Shutz of the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers. Film Grain Technology™ will appear in two HD DVD players from Toshiba and one from RCA. It has also found its way into Sonic Solutions HD DVD production tools. So even if you shun the fakery in players, it will still find its way into at least some movie titles. OK, I haven't seen it yet, but isn't fake film grain the aesthetic equivalent of artificial edge enhancement? What ever happened to the idea of reproducing the source as accurately as possible?
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Test Tool Reviews
ISF HDTV Calibration Wizard
 |  Jul 17, 2006

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The Imaging Science Foundation teamed up with Monster Cable for this setup DVD, which is designed to allow even novices to adjust and setup their HDTVs without fear of techno-intimidation. In other words, although the ISF is involved, this isn't a test disc made by and for ISF calibrators. It's a quick and easy to use tool for the average Joe to simply and easily take his TV as far as it can go short of a full ISF calibration. Educational, effective and relatively easy to use, even for non-techies who want to get the most out of their movie and TV watching at home.

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