LATEST ADDITIONS

Did you know that David Gilmour's third solo album is out on LP as well as CD? Amazon.co.uk is listing a vinyl version of On an Island for 15.99 British pounds—a little under 28 U.S. dollars—and it's even coming out today, same date as the CD release. The "voice and guitar of Pink Floyd," as he's billed on his upcoming tour, has been busy lately. Last year he reunited with three other former members of Pink Floyd in the G8 concert series, sold his house in London for 3.6 million pounds (6.3 million dollars), and gave the proceeds to an organization for the homeless, while putting finishing touches on the new album. Judging from the Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack of his three-year-old In Concert DVD, Gilmour is still in his prime. Hey Dave, got a couple of extra tickets for the sold-out April dates at Radio City Music Hall? Well, I had to try. More on Pink Floyd tomorrow.

Walking around at CES 2006 it wasn't difficult to ascertain what's coming down the road in video: 1080P and lots of it. While in years past it's been simple to embrace 720P front projection due to the lack of 1920x1080 HD sources, that argument is losing some steam. There's more HD on satellite and cable all the time, and according to the companies involved HD DVD and Blu-ray will arrive in the first half of this year. And Marantz and all the other companies who are in the 720P DLP business made it clear that this year will see them enter the 1080P DLP business.

If it weren't for the courts, Directv would be able to simply broadcast ABC, CBS, NBC and FOX's primetime HD lineups over their existing birds without so much as a yawn. But thanks to the network's local affiliates and the cable companies who presented legal arguments (i.e., paid a lot of lawyers a lot of money) to prevent that from happening with standard definition stations, the option wasn't even on the table when talk of network HD came around. Hence, we have the billion dollar solution to the million dollar problem. Thank you, yer Honor, may I have some more.

On Tuesday Apple introduced the iPod Hi-Fi and two new Intel-based Mac Mini computers, each orders of magnitude faster than their predecessors. Of course, the iPod Hi-Fi stole the headlines, but it was one of Mac Mini's new features, Front Row with Bonjour, that offered the best and clearest glimpse of what an Apple-powered digital living room might look and feel like.