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RCA, that good old standby brand name, is still around and doing well. About two years ago, the company's entry into the HDTV market, the F38310, made a big splash. I saw this display at the National Association of Broadcasters show in 1999, and I was surprised not only by the set's excellent picture quality but by the fact that such a big CRT display could produce that quality. Back then, RCA showed high-definition images through the Sencore video streamer, an early version of the unit I now use in my test lab. Of course, back then, the Sencore was about the only source for displaying 1080i demo footage, and no 720p material was available. Since then, RCA (now officially known as Thomson, although they still trade under the RCA name) has made improvements to the F38310. In keeping with Home Theater's general philosophy regarding product reviews, senior technical editor Mike Wood and I agreed to wait and review the new version of the F38310. It was worth the wait.

Badly named and generally underrated, bookshelf loudspeakers are possibly the most misunderstood of all speakers. First of all, they don't sound their best when placed on shelves; stands are usually recommended. Second, even though they haven't got the bottom-octave authority of powered towers, their smaller enclosures cause fewer acoustic problems, making them a perfect vehicle for vocals and the midrange frequencies in which most music resides. They lend themselves to wall-mounting almost as well as the smallest satellites, with the added benefit of genuine midbass response. The best bookshelf models—B&W's DM302, JBL's N24, NHT's SuperOne, Paradigm's Titan, KEF's Coda 7, Polk's RT-105, and PSB's Alpha Mini—deliver versatile stereo and surround sound for music or movies at an affordable price. So, it's good news that B&W has a new—um—bookshelf offering, the DM303.

General Motors has agreed to sell <A HREF="http://www.directv.com">DirecTV</A> parent Hughes Electronics, but upstart buyer <A HREF="http://www.echostar.com">EchoStar</A> may face opposition in Washington. The unanswered question: Is direct broadcast satellite (DBS) cable's competitor or an industry unto itself? How this issue is resolved will determine the fate of the merger.

Last week, Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation (NTT) reported that it has successfully developed what it describes as the world's first system for delivering 1.5 Gbps volume uncompressed HDTV video data in real time over the Internet. NTT says it will exhibit the Linux-based system during the International Broadcast Equipment Exhibition (InterBEE 2001) at the Nippon Convention Center from November 14 to 16, 2001.