Coming into early 2003, the biggest news about the two high-resolution multichannel audio formats, DVD-Audio and Super Audio CD, might be that they're both still hanging in there.
Most of the Samsung DVD players we've tested have had something "different" about them. There were, for example, a couple of models with Nuon game-playing capability, and the last one we looked at could reproduce still pictures stored on Memory Stick flash-memory cards.
The next generation of video projectors will be several magnitudes better than the best ones available now. A hint of things to come was unveiled by Sony Electronics earlier in March, with a public demonstration of its Silicon Crystal Reflective (SXRD) technology. At the heart of SXRD is a high-density fixed-pixel micro display generating over 2 million pixels (1920 x 1080 pixels) of picture data from a 0.78"-diagonal panel with a pixel pitch of 9mm each and an inter-pixel spacing of just 0.35mm.
Can you have it all? Thomas J. Norton takes a look at the new <A HREF="http://www.guidetohometheater.com/showarchives.cgi?100">Marantz DV-8300 SACD and DVD-Video/Audio player</A> to determine if universal is also better. As Norton notes, this player is almost there.
Personal video recorders (PVRs) may be hot technology, but <A HREF="http://www.sonicblue.com">SONICblue</A>'s business is as cold as Lake Superior in February. On March 19, the Santa Clara, CA owner of the ReplayTV, Go Video, and Rio brands announced it was mulling Chapter 11 reorganization. For its fourth fiscal quarter, SONICblue posted a $33.4 million net loss, with a 16% drop in sales, a total of $66.99 million.
Big-box rear-projection analog TV sets have long been a part of American domestic life. They are probably headed for extinction thanks to a Federal Communications Commission (FCC) mandate requiring digital tuners in coming generations of TV products.
Movie fans with deep resources and a hankering for ultra-quality images should take a look at Runco's VX-5000ci. This DLP projector is built from the ground up to generate stunning 16:9 pictures.
HDTV is poised to take off like a rocket, believes Bryan Burns, ESPN's vice president of strategic business planning and development. His network has made a big push with high-def programming over the past year, and is pushing it even harder this year.
DVD: Femme Fatale—Warner Brothers Audio: 3 Video: 3 Extras: 2 The good news is that the lovely Rebecca Romjin-Stamos has now removed all doubt that she can act well enough to anchor a major motion picture. The sad part of the story is that Femme Fatale is a strange blend of Run Lola Run and the worst of filmmaker Brian De Palma's own canon that made me repeatedly ask both, "What the hell is going on?" and "Why does any studio finance ridiculous De Palma movies like this?" Brunette doppelgangers, double-crosses, alternate realities: You figure it out, if you have two hours to kill.