Before premium cable channels like HBO began appearing 30 years ago, you were more likely to have a bowl of waxed fruit atop your TV than a black box that changed channels.
I love George Lucas. There, I said it. Even though I have to give him a lot of awards these days, it's not so bad 'cause I get to make fun of him in a way that he seems to like.
At just 48 years of age, Drew Snodgrass had already become a digital dinosaur. While many of his contemporaries were in Circuit City drooling over 60-inch flat-panel HDTVs and the latest laptops, Drew and his wife, Chris Monty, curled up in front of a trusty 27-inch Sony wedged into a corner of the family room, a mass of wires running to a VCR and DVD player.
What do you do when you live in the middle of nowhere but want your home to have all the latest entertainment technology? That was the predicament facing Curtis Jameson as he started building his 1,400-square-foot home in undeniably scenic - but also undeniably far-flung - Nelson, British Columbia.
For years, in-wall and in-ceiling speakers were the 98-pound weaklings of the speaker world. Lacking the muscle needed for realistic-sounding music playback - let alone action-movie soundtracks - they were ignored by anyone who took sound seriously.
But the once-ridiculed category has re-emerged, surprisingly pumped and ready to kick sand in the face of that conventional wisdom.
A 15-year veteran at ESPN, Dan Patrick has come to be known as the face of SportsCenter, TV's most popular sports show. Now that ESPN has built its Digital Center for HDTV broadcasting and is expanding its high-def schedule beyond NFL and MLB games, we decided to see what Patrick had to say about the state of the broadcasting art.
PDF: What's on Free TV Here's what the major broadcast networks have to offer. PDF: What's on Pay TV Blockbuster movies, mega sports events, and premium-channel series are just the tip of the high-def
Photo illustration by Eric Yang Lowry photo by John Skalicky When George Lucas needed someone to restore the first three Star Wars films to their original glory for DVD, he turned to digital pioneer John Lowry. And when the James Bond film legacy needed to be rescued from the ravages of time, the studios called on Lowry as the best man for the job.
After spending some time with Hitachi 's DZ-MV550A, I've seen the future of camcorders. Unlike its competitors, Hitachi isn't known for professional video equipment or photography. But it is known for disk drives, so it carved out an innovative and forward-looking niche for itself by pioneering camcorders that record directly to DVDs.
In the whole, NBC's high-definition coverage of the Athens Olympics made for pretty dismal TV. The same segments repeated ad nauseam only served to show how few sports bear up to repeated viewing. Who needs to see a failed baton pass, a gymnast falling on his or her butt, or a disappointing basketball game again and again . . . and again.
This is not your father's stereo - or your iPod. The Bose Lifestyle 38 combines elements of both and adds its own share of functionality and flexibility. The Lifestyle series has been a Bose mainstay for years, offering DVD playback with 5.1-channel surround sound in an attractive, easy-to-use package.
At the low end of the gift-giving scale rests the traditional tie, money clip, or soap-on-a-rope, and at the high end - well, the sky's the limit. There's always someone on your list worth indulging, and sometimes there's even the money to do it. And while you might not be in the same league as Donald Trump or Tiger Woods, it's always fun to look.
When they first got off the ground - literally -about three years ago, the XM and Sirius satellite radio services focused their attention on the millions of people who get into their cars and drive somewhere every day.
