Audio Video News

According to comments filed by the<A HREF="http://www.ce.org"> Consumer Electronics Association</A> (CEA) last week, if the Federal Communications Commission is serious about developing a robust commercial market for digital cable set-top navigation devices, the agency must immediately revise its rules and the market incentives available to cable operators. The comments were filed in response to the Commission's <I>Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking</I>, regarding the commercial availability of navigation devices.

Last week, <A HREF="http://www.lucasfilm.com/">Lucasfilm THX</A> announced the availability of the first THX certified PCs under a newly created THX program that the company says is designed to deliver "the best picture and sound to date on a personal computer." A Lucasfilm press release states that "with consumers increasingly turning to the PC for entertainment content, a THX certified PC ensures that movies, music, games and more will be enjoyed with a sound and visual impact that will satisfy the most demanding multimedia user."

Personal TV will never be the same, says Kim LeMasters, CEO of <A HREF="http://www.replaytv.com/">ReplayTV, Inc</A>. On November 20, the Mountain View, California-based maker of the ReplayTV personal video recorder announced the establishment of ReplayTV Studios, a joint venture with Universal Studios to produce and broadcast original programming for the ReplayTV network.

Big, bright, and beautiful: that's Panasonic's new PT-52DL10. The rear projector set is a 52"-diagonal HDTV with a 16:9 aspect ratio, with images provided by the latest Digital Light Projection (DLP) technology from Texas Instruments. The combination is "the highest picture quality available in rear projection televisions," according to a recent Panasonic announcement. With properly decoded signals---as from the optional set-top decoder box, the TU-HDS20---the PT-52DL10 will display both 1280I and 720P images.

While computer makers are still struggling to find consensus for the recordable DVD format, with the front-running rivals DVD-RW and DVD-RAM duking it out, a few consumer electronics products incorporating DVD-R are beginning to appear. Last week, <A HREF="http://www.toshiba.com/">Toshiba</A> announced its introduction of the RD-2000, which it describes as "the world's first combination of hard disk drive and DVD-RAM video recorder" for recording TV programs. The new recorder is planned for sale in the Japanese market only, starting December 22.

The wearisome chicken-or-egg debate over the rollout of digital television went another round last week, as television manufacturers appealed to the <A HREF="http://www.fcc.gov/">Federal Communications Commission</A> to require more digital programming from broadcasters.