Audio Video News

Warren Lieberfarb's "sell through" agenda for DVD pricing has had some unintended consequences. The former head of Warner Home Entertainment pushed hard for an industry-wide pricing policy that made movies on DVD one of the greatest bargains in the history of entertainment. For compact disc prices, movie fans can own archival copies of films that cost tens of millions to produce—a strategy that has had serious consequences for the video rental business.

<A HREF="http://www.jvc.com">JVC</A> should soon release its CU-VH1, a portable high-definition player/recorder intended to complement the company's GR-HD1 and JY-HD10 HDTV camcorders.

You've got great components, but how to make them easy for everyone to use? Scott Wilkinson examines the <A HREF="/accessories/1203remote">Universal Remote Control Home Theater Master MX-800</A> and finds that it has one feature that may make it better than anything else in its price range.

"Targeted marketing" is one of the most powerful buzz-phrases in the advertising lexicon. In its most benign form, it means simply offering information about products and services to those most likely to want them. In a more malevolent form, it means prying into private citizens' activities to discover what really captivates them.

From couch potato to desktop tuber: If you can't get enough TV even while toiling away at your computer, <A HREF="http://www.ati.com">ATI Technologies Inc</A>. has a family of video graphics cards just for you. In late January, the Markham, Ontario company announced new additions to its "All-in-Wonder" line of graphics cards. Among them are the All-in-Wonder 9600XT, All-in-Wonder 9600, and All-in-Wonder 9200. The All-in-Wonder 9600XT delivers more multimedia features via a graphics engine clocked at 525 MHz, with 128 MB of memory running at 650 MHz. Priced at $299 (US) this new multimedia solution includes an "FM-on-Demand" feature to receive and record favorite FM radio stations. It also offers dual VGA monitor support, integrated DVD authoring and burning, and comes bundled with MPEG-4-enabled Multimedia Center 8.8 software.