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Actress Madeline Kahn Dies in New York
Barry Willis  |  Dec 05, 1999

Madeline Kahn, the comic actress whom Mel Brooks described as "one of the most talented people that ever lived," died in Manhattan on Friday, December 3, of ovarian cancer. She was 57.

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Audio Video News
DVD Software Breaks Greatest Weekly Sales Record
 |  Dec 05, 1999

Last week, we announced the <A HREF="http://www.guidetohometheater.com/shownews.cgi?583">stats on DVD players</A>, which have proven to be one of the hottest format launches in consumer-electronics history. This week, we follow up with recent numbers on DVD software. The results show that, four weeks before the all-important Christmas holiday shopping season, shoppers spiked DVD software sales as they snapped up movies and music videos over the Thanksgiving weekend.

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Audio Video News
Five Classics Newly Released on DVD Deal with the Struggle of War
Lawrence B. Johnson  |  Nov 28, 1999

A<B>ll Quiet on the Western Front</B> (DVD)<BR><I>Lew Ayres, Louis Wolheim, John Wray, Slim Summerville, William Bakewell. Directed by Lewis Milestone. Aspect ratio: 1.33:1. Dolby Digital mono. B&W. 130 minutes. 1930. Universal 20510. NR. $24.98.</I>

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Audio Video News
CEA: DVD Hottest Product in History
 |  Nov 28, 1999

Rockets launched into space move slowly at liftoff, but with thrust continually applied, they gain momentum until they break free of Earth's gravity. The Digital Versatile Disc has done something similar, according to the latest figures from the <A HREF="http://www.cemacity.org/">Consumer Electronics Association</A>: As of November 23, the DVD is the hottest-selling consumer-electronics product in history.

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Audio Video News
DreamWorks to Float Huge Loan with Investors
Barry Willis  |  Nov 28, 1999

Want to own a piece of the studio that produced <I>Saving Private Ryan</I>? If you're a big player, you may soon have a chance to do so&mdash;through your broker. <A HREF="http://www.dreamworks.com/">DreamWorks SKG</A>, the entertainment combine founded by Stephen Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg, and David Geffen, wants to raise $525 million through the sale of debt securities. The infusion of cash will be used to refinance old debts as well as to fund new productions, and will be repaid by worldwide box-office receipts, and video revenues from movies already in inventory or as yet unmade.

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Audio Video News
Pioneer Planning to Release DVD Recorder
Jon Iverson  |  Nov 28, 1999

Last week, <A HREF="http://www.pioneerelectronics.com/">Pioneer</A> announced that next year it will be the first to offer DVD recorder/players and recordable DVDs to consumers in North America and Europe. According to Pioneer, the new machines will allow recording times of up to six hours, indicating that the recorder will compress the video beyond the MPEG-2 compression found on commercially released DVDs.

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Audio Video News
DirecTV Gives Thumbs Up to Satellite Home Viewer Act
Barry Willis  |  Nov 28, 1999

The Satellite Home Viewer Improvement Act of 1999, <A HREF="http://www.guidetohometheater.com/shownews.cgi?575">recently passed</A> by Congress and expected to be signed into law by President Clinton, will usher in a new level of competition to the television broadcasting industry&mdash;and a new era of service for viewers, according to direct-broadcast satellite service <A HREF="http://www.directv.com/">DirecTV</A>. The bill allows DBS companies to provide signals from local TV stations, just as cable companies have always done.

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Audio Video News
A New Era in Television?
Jon Iverson  |  Nov 28, 1999

A recently released study has found that the high price of digital television sets, high capital investment costs, lack of advertising support, and scant offerings from broadcasters have restrained the penetration of digital television since its rollout in November 1998. But the report concludes that "despite its anti-climactic beginning, digital television still represents an important and potentially lucrative market in the consumer television industry."

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Audio Video News
Satellite Bill Wins Approval in Washington
Barry Willis  |  Nov 21, 1999

The nation's 10 million satellite TV subscribers may soon be able to receive local broadcasts through their dish antennas, thanks to a bill passed in Washington on Thursday, November 18. Direct-broadcast satellite (DBS) services had been hamstrung in their efforts to compete with cable companies because of <A HREF="http://www.fcc.gov/">Federal Communications Commission</A> restrictions that forbade them to retransmit local signals within areas reachable by stations originating those signals.

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Audio Video News
Media Consumes Full Work Week for Kids, Study Finds
Barry Willis  |  Nov 21, 1999

A new Nielsen report claims that kids are watching slightly less TV than they were 10 years ago, but another study claims that they are spending almost an entire work week, every week, with media of all kinds. That's the conclusion of <I>Kids & Media @ The New Millennium</I>, released recently by the Menlo Park, California philanthropic organization <A HREF="http://www.kff.org/">The Kaiser Family Foundation</A>. TV and music are by far the biggest occupiers of kids' time, the report states, with computers and the Internet a distant second. Reading for pleasure&mdash;that done apart from schoolwork&mdash;occupies only about 45 minutes per day for 80% of the children surveyed.

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