Manufacturer <A HREF="http://www.faroudja.com/">Faroudja, Inc.</A>, famous for its video projectors, line-doublers, line-quadruplers, and other ultra-high-quality video processors, kicked off a nationwide HDTV road show last Thursday with a well-attended open house at The Audible Difference, a high-end dealer in Silicon Valley, about 25 miles south of San Francisco.

Digital Satellite System dish owners could soon be enjoying Dolby Digital surround sound. Next month, DSS dealers will start taking delivery on RCA's new DS5451 receiver. The new receiver will incorporate an optical Sony/Philips Digital Interface Format (S/PDIF) jack that sends a Dolby Digital signal to an appropriate surround decoder or A/V receiver.

Lately, there's been a deafening buzz in the high-tech community: Developing digital networks for consumers' homes is going to be the Next Big Thing. There are <A HREF="http://www.zdnet.com/chkpt/adem2fpf/www.anchordesk.com/story/story_1961.... skeptics</A>, but the clamor has caught the attention of every big computer company out there; everyone from Sun to Apple to Microsoft to IBM is getting in on the act. However, there hasn't been much noise from the consumer-electronics companies---until now.

According to Italian researchers, seizures caused by flashing video games and television shows can be minimized by using higher-frequency display rates. Such seizures affect about 10% of epilepsy sufferers between the ages of 7 and 19. In December, <I>Pokomon</I>, a popular Japanese television show with brightly flashing scenes, induced blackouts and epileptic seizures in more than 700 young victims, many of whom required hospitalization.