LATEST ADDITIONS

LG Electronics
LG's new plasma is available in three different sizes—42, 50, and 60 inches—to suit theaters of any size. The 50-inch DU-50PY10 is fully integrated, with ATSC/NTSC/QAM tuners and a built-in CableCARD slot. The television also features a 1,366 by 768p resolution and a rated 3,000:1 contrast ratio. The TV uses LG's proprietary XD Engine, which, according to the company, minimizes distortion, improves brightness, and enhances the overall picture quality. Inputs are plentiful, including HDMI, DVI with HDCP, RGB, and IEEE 1394. Pricing wasn't available at press time.

Cable TV may be nearing the end of a long growth season, yielding subscribers to competition from satellite services like DirecTV and EchoStar's Dish Network. Recently published figures from Kagan Research LLC show that the cable industry overall has lost 900,000 subscribers over the past two years.

Thomas J. Norton warms up the <A HREF="/directviewandptvtelevisions/704rca">RCA Scenium HDLP50W151 DLP rear-projection television</A> and settles in for an appraisal, noting, "After a brief flirtation with LCoS, Thomson has chosen TI's DLP for their high-end RCA Scenium line."

Unlike the editors of Home Theater Magazine who live in palatial estates written off their taxes as "business expenses" (note to the IRS: multiroom mansions are a job requirement for product testing purposes; no audits are necessary, really), not everyone is fortunate enough to live in a home with enough floor space to devote to a pair of (or five, six, or seven) perfectly positioned home theater speakers. (You poor, poor, pitiful people, you...) There are even some folks out there who refuse to see the beauty inherent in big, bulky, behemoth speakers dominating the visuals (and the available square footage) of the average living room. (I could mention the standard sexist question about the wearing of pants in the family; but since I'm in the process of installing in-walls throughout the Wilkinson abode, we'll just move on, shall we?) Some people don't even have available wall space for in-wall speakers. Atlantic Technology's two new in-ceiling speakers are the sonic salvation for situations such as these.