Recent studies by the <A HREF="http://www.recordingmedia.org/">International Recording Media Association</A> and <A HREF="http://www.cemacity.org">Consumer Electronics Manufacturing Association</A> have revealed strong sales for home-theater products. DVD-player sales are up 179% over 1997, with over 1 million players sold this year vs. 400,000 last year, while sales of DVD discs jumped 22%. VCR sales are up 7.5% in 1998, with sales in the first 11 months of the year totaling 16.5 million units. Forty four television stations have already begun broadcasting digital TV, indicating a good start for the new format. Within five years, all 1600 stations in the US are required to be broadcasting in digital.

Another step toward a standardized audio/video home network was taken last week when eight consumer-electronics manufacturers agreed to implement a patent license program for the <A HREF="http://www.havi.org/">HAVi</A> specification. The companies involved in the announcement are <A HREF="http://www.grundig.com/">Grundig</A>, <A HREF="http://www.Hitachi.com/">Hitachi</A>, Matsushita (<A HREF="http://www.Panasonic.com/">Panasonic</A>), <A HREF="http://www.philips.com/">Philips</A>, <A HREF="http://www.sharpelectronics.com/">Sharp</A>, <A HREF="http://www.sony.com">Sony</A>, Thomson Multimedia, and <A HREF="http://www.toshiba.com">Toshiba</A>. Under the licensing program, the HAVi home-network architecture will be made available to the electronics and multimedia industries in spring 1999. Philips has been designated to serve as the licensing contact on behalf of the eight companies.

Media giant <A HREF="http://www.cbs.com/">CBS</A> continues to push the high-definition envelope with the first-ever broadcast of a prime-time dramatic series in HDTV. "The Other Cheek," the episode of <I>Chicago Hope</I> that aired last Wednesday, November 18, was produced by 20th Century Fox Television in cooperation with <A HREF="http://www.sony.com">Sony Electronics</A>' Broadcast and Professional Company using an extensive array of Sony's new HD equipment. It was relayed to 11 CBS affiliates, and it was available on the DirecTV satellite service. The program was broadcast in 1920x1080i, the highest-resolution version of HDTV.

Following the start of the United States' digital broadcasting system on November 1, both <A HREF="http://www.panasonic.com">Panasonic Industrial Company</A> (PIC) and <A HREF="http://www.philips.com">Philips Semiconductors</A> announced last week new all-format digital television (DTV) tuner/decoder cards. These cards will let computer users view DTV signals using their desktop PCs connected to a computer monitor or television set. As we reported <A HREF="http://www.guidetohometheater.com/shownews.cgi?289">last week</A>, this could help foster the availability of $500 DTV tuners for PCs by early next year.