LATEST ADDITIONS

Backward-compatibility can come at the expense of innovation, as we learned from the failure of the Digital Compact Cassette in the early '90s. The DCC format enabled a new generation of hardware both to record digital tape cassettes and to play standard analog cassettes.

Canon

"Point and click" may be the World Wide Web's catch phrase, but it could just as well apply to Canon's ES8200V Hi8 camcorder. Thanks to its six programmed auto-exposure modes, capturing the action isn't much harder than aiming and pushing a button.

Microsoft must still be smarting from a blow delivered by AT&T Broadband. On June 6, the telecommunications giant announced that it was scaling back its plans to implement Microsoft's interactive television software in its next generation of digital set-top boxes (STBs).

Film director John Waters will lead off the <A HREF="http://www.dvdconference.com">DVD Entertainment 2001 Conference & Showcase</A>, to be held August 22 & 23, 2001 at the Hilton Universal City & Towers, in Universal City, CA. Conference organizers announced on June 5 that Waters would give a keynote presentation entitled "From the Lens to Plastic: A Typically Unorthodox View of DVD," detailing how the format has brought his work to a new audience.