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Verizon began taking orders late last week for its FiOS fiber optic TV service, beginning a rollout that will cost the telecommunications company billions and have it competing directly with cable and satellite operators for your TV subscription dollars.

Nothing beats using home movies to evaluate TVs. You choose what to shoot so you can stress a specific aspect of screen performance. Since you're the cameraman, you know precisely what each scene is supposed to look like.

<IMG SRC="/images/archivesart/headshot150.tjn.jpg" WIDTH=150 HEIGHT=194 HSPACE=6 VSPACE=4 BORDER=0 ALIGN=RIGHT>Your favorite <I>first-run</I> movies could be coming soon to a theater near you&mdash;your own home theater&mdash;in full high definition.

What a difference nine months can make. At CES 2005 in January the HD-DVD group hosted a gala event at a posh Vegas strip nightclub to unveil its plan to be the first HD disc format to market with the most- Toshiba said they’d have a $999 player in the fourth quarter of 2005 and representatives from major studios such as Warner, Paramount, and Universal strode to the podium amid swirling lights and pledged their support for the format to the tune of 90 HD-DVD titles at launch. All the elements seemed in place for a strong pre-emptive strike against Blu-ray, which has yet to announce a US launch date of either hardware or pre-packaged movie titles. The splashy 2005 holiday season launch was to be one of HD-DVD’s key advantages over the rival Blu-ray Disc format.