Jon Iverson

According to a new report from market research company <A HREF="http://www.instat.com">Cahners In-Stat Group</A>, DVD sales will reach new heights over the next several years. Cahners points out that the DVD market has grown from nothing in 1996 to more than 28 million units expected to ship worldwide in 2001, and it estimates that sales will exceed 60 million units in 2004.

Are you a cable or dish person? Apparently, the answer to this question says a lot about how you watch TV. According to a recently released report, cable and satellite operators will need to consider their customers' specific interests and usage behavior in order to thrive in the emerging interactive TV market.

Last week, <A HREF="http://www.rockfordcorp.com">Rockford Corporation</A> announced that it has re-established its relationship with Jim Fosgate and has folded his development and engineering company, <A HREF="http://www.fosgateaudionics.com">Fosgate Audionics</A>, into the Rockford corporate family. Other companies in the Rockford group include Hafler, as well as autosound companies Rockford Fosgate, Lightning Audio, and Install Edge. Fosgate Audionics has primarily focused its attention on the surround sound processor market, and Rockford says that the new range of planned products will continue in the home theater vein.

Projectors are where the home theater action is this year. Texas Instruments' Digital Light Processing micro-mirror technology has been adapted by many manufacturers in their new projectors, which offers amazing gains in brightness over earlier models. Sim2 S&#233;leco, a projector company based in Pordenone, Italy and Miramar, Florida, has several beautiful projectors, including the sleek HT 200 and HT 250 models, which are capable of brightness levels of 800 ANSI Lumens and 900 ANSI Lumens respectively, and resolution levels of 800 x 600 (SVGA) and 1024 x 768 (XGA) respectively. The S&#233;leco projectors boast a lamp life of 4000 hours; the HT 250 includes an IEEE 1394 input.