With DVD-based video recorders and disc burners for personal computers now coming on the market, a video industry coalition has announced a comprehensive watermarking technology for digital video that it hopes will prevent a copyright-infringement nightmare like the one now plaguing the music business. The Millennium Group, consisting of <A HREF="http://www.philips.com/">Philips Electronics</A>, <A HREF="http://www.macrovision.com/">Macrovision</A>, and <A HREF="http://www.digimarc.com/">Digimarc</A>, claims that its system will inhibit unauthorized copying of DVDs and will prevent illegal copies from playing.

Last week, <A HREF="http://www.Thomson-multimedia.com">Thomson Multimedia</A> and hard-disk manufacturer <A HREF="http://www.seagate.com/">Seagate Technology</A> announced an equally owned joint venture to form an independent company, called <A HREF="http://www.cachevision.com">CacheVision</A>, that the companies say will be focused on "value-added storage-centric systems" for home consumer electronics. The companies are anticipating that advanced consumer-electronics hard disk&ndash;based storage modules may soon be needed in many consumer-electronics devices, including TVs, set-top boxes, Personal Video Recorders (PVRs), and DVD players (see <A HREF="http://www.guidetohometheater.com/shownews.cgi?735">previous report</A>).

Several eagerly awaited special DVD releases are poised to hit the shelves in coming months. <I>American Beauty</I>, winner of five Academy Awards earlier this year, will debut on DVD on October 24. DreamWorks says that the film will be released in a special "Awards Edition," which will include a "storyboard" feature with commentary by director Sam Mendes and director of cinematography Conrad L. Hall, as well as a "Making of" featurette.

Plastic film may soon be coming to a home theater near you&mdash;not as a food wrap, but as a video screen. London-based <A HREF="http://www.cdtltd.co.uk/">Cambridge Display Technology</A> (CDT), in association with its Japanese partner, Seiko Epson, has announced a new development that bonds light-emitting polymers (LEPs) to such film. Properly charged, the red, blue, and green pixels will emit bright light while using very little power. Unlike liquid-crystal displays, LEPs require no backlight and have a wide dispersion pattern.