LATEST ADDITIONS

In late January, the US Department of Justice began a preliminary inquiry into the Blu-ray group, a breakaway from the <A HREF="http://www.dvdforum.org">DVD Forum</A>. Composed of Sony Corporation, Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Philips Electronics NV, seven other manufacturers&mdash;and recently joined by Dell and Hewlett Packard&mdash;the Blu-ray group is suspected of interfering with the Forum's progress in establishing a standard for high-definition/high density DVD technology.

From couch potato to desktop tuber: If you can't get enough TV even while toiling away at your computer, <A HREF="http://www.ati.com">ATI Technologies Inc</A>. has a family of video graphics cards just for you. In late January, the Markham, Ontario company announced new additions to its "All-in-Wonder" line of graphics cards. Among them are the All-in-Wonder 9600XT, All-in-Wonder 9600, and All-in-Wonder 9200. The All-in-Wonder 9600XT delivers more multimedia features via a graphics engine clocked at 525 MHz, with 128 MB of memory running at 650 MHz. Priced at $299 (US) this new multimedia solution includes an "FM-on-Demand" feature to receive and record favorite FM radio stations. It also offers dual VGA monitor support, integrated DVD authoring and burning, and comes bundled with MPEG-4-enabled Multimedia Center 8.8 software.

Sonnefeld photos by Michelle Hood Barry Sonnenfeld is the master of droll. You can see it in his work, from John Travolta's suave, minivan-driving gangster in Get Shorty to Tommy Lee Jones's slow-burning G-man in Men in Black to Patrick Warburton's oblivious superhero in The Tick.

As the age of digital television dawns, one link in the signal chain remains stubbornly analog: the video connection from the DVD player to the display. However, that is about to change. Many displays are starting to appear with a Digital Visual Interface (DVI) input. Now all we need is a DVD player with a DVI output to keep the signal entirely in the digital domain from source to screen&mdash;at least with fully digital displays.