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Simplicity, where have you gone? Let's be realistic for a moment: This little home theater hobby of ours, circa 2001, is usually confusing, occasionally mind-boggling, and flat-out intimidating to the uninitiated. Do we love it any less as a result? We certainly shouldn't. While we should always expect the equipment manufacturers and software providers to make things as simple as they can, the bottom line is that, in the A/V realm, confusion is often only a temporary state, brought about by increased opportunity, quality, and flexibility. These are confusing days because they are evolutionary (and occasionally revolutionary) ones. Granted, it may not be easy to get a grasp on several new soundtrack-processing formats, two entirely new audio formats, new video formats and technologies, and a radical overhaul of our television system—all at the same time. However, if you can't see some good in all of this (and if you don't find it all to be at least as exciting as it is perplexing), maybe you'd better find a new hobby.

Pioneering work by companies like TiVo Inc. and ReplayTV has had some measurable results, according to a recent study by the <A HREF="http://www.ce.org">Consumer Electronics Association</A>.

Almost a year after exiting the digital video recorder business, <A HREF="http://www.replaytv.com">ReplayTV</A> is returning with a line of new products.

It ranks as many movie buffs' best film of all time, and has landed at the top of the American Film Institute's list of the 100 Greatest American Movies, but until now, you could not get it on DVD. The film, of course, is <I>Citizen Kane</I>, Orson Welles' Academy-Award-winning masterwork credited with expanding film-making frontiers like no other movie in history.