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Audio Video News
PBS Demonstrates Enhanced Digital TV and Data Broadcasting
Jon Iverson  |  Oct 31, 1999

Is the world ready for interactive television? The <A HREF="http://www.pbs.org">Public Broadcasting Service</A> (PBS) apparently thinks so. Last week PBS, along with several of its member stations, LG Electronics, and <A HREF="http://www.lgerca.com">LG Electronics Research Center of America</A> (LGERCA), began demonstrating "enhanced digital television and data broadcasting" to their viewers as part of PBS Digital Week 2.0.

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Audio Video News
C-Cube to Unload Chip Biz; DiviCom to Join with Harmonic
 |  Oct 31, 1999

One of Silicon Valley's most aggressive semiconductor companies has surrendered to the siren song of merger and acquisition. On October 27, Milpitas, California-based <A HREF="http://www.c-cube.com/">C-Cube Microsystems</A> announced that it has entered into an agreement to combine its <A HREF="http://www.divi.com/">DiviCom</A> digital television subsidiary with <A HREF="http://www.harmonicinc.com/">Harmonic</A>, a Sunnyvale designer and maker of digital and fiber-optic systems that deliver video, voice, and data via cable, satellite, telephone lines, and wireless networks. DiviCom products enable digital video broadcasting over the same variety of networks. Blending the two companies may be a good fit for the coming age of digital TV and Internet-based "infotainment."

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Audio Video News
HDTV Not Up to Snuff?
 |  Oct 24, 1999

Wading into the recently erupted battle over the future of HDTV (see <A HREF="http://www.guidetohometheater.com/shownews.cgi?553">related article</A>), the <A HREF="http://www.CEMAcity.org">Consumer Electronics Manufacturers Association</A> (CEMA) filed a Motion for Immediate Dismissal with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) last week in response to a proposal submitted earlier by Sinclair Broadcasting. CEMA claims its Motion (available for reading on its <A HREF="http://www.CEMAcity.org">website</A>) is aimed at urging the Commission to avoid a "costly, dead-end path of reopening the digital television (DTV) standard approved in 1996."

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Audio Video News
Sony Electronics Announces Availability of High-Definition Plasma Display
Jon Iverson  |  Oct 24, 1999

Last week, <A HREF="http://www.sony.com/displaysystems">Sony Electronics</A> announced that its newest 16:9 flat-panel plasma display, the PFM-510A1WU high-resolution 42" (viewable area, measured diagonally) monitor, is now available. Sony claims that the new monitor, originally debuted at NAB in April 1999, is one of the first on the market to offer over 1,000,000 pixel capability in a plasma display, and is capable of handling high-definition video signals.

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Audio Video News
ATSC Transmission Standard Flawed, says Sinclair Broadcasting
Barry Willis  |  Oct 24, 1999

Unheard by the general public, a debate has been raging in engineering circles about the <A HREF="http://www.atsc.org/">Advanced Television Standards Committee</A>'s transmission protocol for high-definition TV. Mandated by the <A HREF="http://www.fcc.gov/">Federal Communications Commission</A>, the standard, known as 8-VSB (trellis-coded 8-level vestigial sideband), has come under fire from several directions, most notably from <A HREF="http://www.sbgi.com/">Sinclair Broadcasting</A>, which has called for an overhaul of the standard after a series of DTV reception tests in the Philadelphia area.

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Audio Video News
Blockbuster to Take Video Sales and Rentals Online
Barry Willis  |  Oct 24, 1999

The world's number-one video rental business will join the Internet gold rush early next year. <A HREF="http://www.blockbuster.com/">Blockbuster Video</A> announced October 20 that it will relaunch its website in November with sales of new and used VHS tapes and DVDs. Video rentals will be available online sometime in the second quarter of next year, company executives said.

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Audio Video News
US Digital TV Strategy Faltering?
 |  Oct 17, 1999

The FCC's plan to convert US households to digital television by 2006 is on the verge of collapse, according to a new report by consultants <A HREF="http://www.strategyanalytics.com">Strategy Analytics</A>. Their report, titled "Interactive and Digital Television: Issues in the Transition Phase," predicts that fewer than 5% of US households will be watching over-the-air DTV by 2005, with terrestrial broadcasters expected to use their digital capacity increasingly for data services. Terrestrial broadcasters can use their digital (DTV) capacity for either HDTV (high-definition TV) or SDTV (standard-definition TV), and there is currently debate over whether the industry should change the technical specifications of the ATSC standard.

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Audio Video News
Coming Soon: Movies on Demand from Time-Warner
Barry Willis  |  Oct 17, 1999

Cable subscribers in Tampa, Florida and Austin, Texas will be the first in the nation to get movies whenever they wish. <A HREF="http://www.pathfinder.com/corp/">Time Warner</A>, the nation's second-largest cable company, is preparing to roll out video-on-demand to its subscribers in those cities by the end of the year, according to an October 15 report in the <A HREF="http://www.ajc.com/"><I>Atlanta Journal and Constitution</I></A>.

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Audio Video News
Setting The Parent Trap on DVD
Fred Manteghian  |  Oct 17, 1999

L<I>indsay Lohan, Dennis Quaid, Natasha Richardson, Elaine Hendrix, Lisa Ann Walter, Simon Kunz. Directed by Nancy Meyers. Aspect ratio: 1.85:1 (widescreen). Dolby Digital 5.1. 128 minutes. 1998. Walt Disney Home Video 16888. PG. $24.95.</I>

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Audio Video News
10% in UK Now Have Digital DBS
 |  Oct 17, 1999

In the past 12 months, 1.8 million homes have signed on to <A HREF="http://www.skydigital.co.uk/">British Sky Broadcasting</A>'s digital Direct Broadcast Satellite service, the company reported in mid-October. Approximately 45% of them are completely new subscribers. With an estimated half-million homes connected to the COFDM DTV service, the total market penetration of digital television in the United Kingdom is now 2.3 million homes, or slightly more than 10%. By comparison, market penetration of digital delivery services (cable and DBS) in the US is now about 12%, after five years of service from <A HREF="http://www.directv.com/">DirecTV</A>, <A HREF="http://www.echostar.com/">Echostar</A>, and digital cable.

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