Audio Video News

Whether you think it's good or bad, at least it's a step in some technological direction. The September 18 issue of Entertainment Weekly will run video ads placed by CBS. You read that correctly. A print magazine will run video ads.

According to CNET (owned by CBS), the upcoming issue will feature a tiny QVGA LCD screen built inside a page. The tiny screen will be able to handle up to 40 minutes of video, and its battery will run for 65-70 minutes before a recharge (which users can do by plugging the chip to a USB plug via a miniUSB cable). The devices were built by Americhip.

Unfortunately, this seems to be just a pilot program, and not every issue of Entertainment Weekly will get the video ads. It will only go out to subscribers in New York and Los Angeles, and sadly newsstands and subscribers in other parts of the country will get the plain edition. Of course, this could simply be the very beginning of a video-in-print movement. As the technology becomes cheaper and cheaper, some day we might see inserts with LCD screens as often as we see inserts with perfume samples.

— Will Greenwald