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Audio Video News
Satellite Broadcasters Will Be First with HDTV
Barry Willis  |  Aug 29, 1998

Satellite broadcasting will be first out of the chute with HDTV. While local broadcasters scramble to comply with FCC mandates to be HD-ready by 1999, satellite services are almost there. On August 25, U.S. Satellite Broadcasting (USSB) announced that it will lease transponder space from DirecTV at the 95°W fixed location so it can begin transmitting HDTV previews. DirecTV will also beam HD programming from the same satellite.

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Audio Video News
1931 Dracula Gets New Music in Full Surround
Barry Willis  |  Aug 29, 1998

New music revitalizes old movie: the Kronos Quartet has just completed an intense eight-day recording session at Lucasfilm's Skywalker Ranch studio in Marin County, north of San Francisco. The Quartet laid down a Philip Glass score for a reissue of <I>Dracula</I>, the 1931 horror flick starring B&#233;la Lugosi. The effort is part of a <A HREF="http://www.mca.com/home/">Universal Home Video</A> project that will bring classic early horror films to a new audience.

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Audio Video News
Consolidation in the DVD and Laserdisc Software Distribution Business
 |  Aug 23, 1998

Last week, <A HREF="http://www.image-entertainment.com">Image Entertainment</A> announced the acquisition of Ken Crane's LaserDisc/DVD Internet-based direct-to-consumer business, a division of <A HREF="http://www.kencranes.com">Ken Crane's Home Entertainment</A> of Hawthorne, CA. Long a favorite among laserdisc aficionados, and more recently DVD fans, the business was purchased for approximately $6.5 million in a combination of cash, stock, and the assumption of certain liabilities, subject to adjustment.

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Audio Video News
The Sweet Hereafter On DVD
Wes Phillips  |  Aug 23, 1998

I<I>an Holm, Maury Chaykin, Peter Donaldson, Bruce Greenwood, David Hemblin, Brooke Johnson, Arsin&#233;e Khanjian, Tom McCamus, Stephanie Morgenstern, Earl Pastko, Sarah Polley, Gabrielle Rose, Alberta Watson. Directed by Atom Egoyan. Aspect ratio: 2:35:1 (letterbox). Dolby Digital 5.1. 116 minutes. 1998. New Line Platinum Series N4654. R. $24.99.</I>

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Audio Video News
Hello, We're Glad You Made It! Welcome to the Future . . .
Jon Iverson  |  Aug 23, 1998

Prescient comedy group <A HREF="http://benway.cnchost.com/firesign/">The Firesign Theater</A> once exclaimed:

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Audio Video News
It's Official: Couch Potatoes Will Inherit the Earth!
 |  Aug 23, 1998

Interactive TV will reach 10 million viewers by 2002, but a new report from <A HREF="http://www.forrester.com">Forrester Research, Inc.</A> concludes that television providers and interactivity vendors have completely misunderstood the promise of the new medium. For interactive television to succeed, programmers must embrace lazy interactivity---an approach designed for TV viewers of short attention spans.

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Audio Video News
Piracy Prompts Film Strike in India
Barry Willis  |  Aug 22, 1998

Ongoing financial losses to the Indian film industry from widespread video piracy provoked a one-day strike last week in the city of Bombay. On Tuesday, August 14, about 5000 people---including actors, producers, directors, and technical workers---streamed into the city's business district in a protest march from the suburb of Bandra. The strike was led by the Film Makers Combine, an industry association that called on the Indian government to step up enforcement of copyright laws.

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Audio Video News
NetTV Pushes Convergence with ExtremeDVD
Barry Willis  |  Aug 22, 1998

Convergence might be the brunt of jokes in some quarters, but not at 7 Mark Drive in San Rafael, CA. That's the home of <A HREF="http://www.net-tv.net/">NetTV</A>, which has just announced its new ExtremeDVD home-entertainment system. ExtremeDVD is optimized for 3-D gaming, Internet access, satellite downloads, and high-resolution movie playback.

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Audio Video News
Two More Major Studios Announce Open-DVD Support
Jon Iverson  |  Aug 16, 1998

It's been a glorious week for folks who rent or buy open-DVD videos. <A HREF="http://www.paramount.com">Paramount Home Video</A> and <A HREF="http://www.foxhome.com/">Twentieth Century Fox</A> have each announced a string of releases that signal their entry into the open-DVD market. Both companies, relative laggards in the rollout of the new format, have said that copyright issues are the delaying factor.

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Audio Video News
Worldwide DVD Replication to Reach 1.28 Billion Units by 2002
 |  Aug 16, 1998

At the DVD Production '98 conference last week, the International Recording Media Association (IRMA) released sales forecasts for the growth and worldwide expansion of the international DVD marketplace. The numbers are part of a study on the growth and direction of the world optical-media marketplace.

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