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Home theater fans will enjoy perusing <A HREF="http://www.jvc.com">JVC</A>'s new video products&mdash;especially its combination digital TV decoder and high-def&ndash;capable hard disk recorder, due at dealers this fall.

Compared with the "in the lab" box for one of our test reports on, say, an A/V receiver, the lab data for a TV review may seem skimpy. While there aren't a lot of numbers, the ones we do generate can give you a pretty good idea of what to expect from the set - particularly its color reproduction, which is arguably the most important aspect of a TV's performance.

Given that Spider-Man has been spinning his webs in comic books for almost 40 years, it's about time the wall-crawler made the leap to the big screen. Besides starring in his own flick this spring, Spidey has his sticky fingers into - appropriately enough - the World Wide Web.

When I reviewed Toshiba's TW40X81, the smallest (40-inch) RPTV in Toshiba's first full line of HDTV-ready sets, I raved about its picture quality (SGHT, March/April 2000). I was so taken with it, in fact, that I bought the review sample. I still use it, but a lot of video displays have bobbed under the bridge since then, and Toshiba is now two generations beyond that earlier design. The company's smallest rear-projection set is now the 42-inch-diagonal 42H81. But the 50H81, at 50 diagonal inches, is only slightly more expensive, and has the advantage of a significantly larger picture in a still (relatively) manageable cabinet. Like all HDTV-ready sets, it can display hi-def broadcasts, but only with an optional, outboard HD tuner.