First bout in the HD DVD tournament:Man vs. Baby. (This is a fair fight, so all ratings are relative to other HD discs, not to standard-definition DVDs.)
The story of Cinderella Man (Universal; Movie ••½, Picture/Sound •••) delivers a one-two punch: The Depression was, well, depressing, and in a fight it's probably better to win.
Watts... uh THE DEAL Promising 75 real-world watts for each of five channels, Rotel's silver giant has the power to justify its heft. And 7.1-channel home theater buffs needn't fear - you can add an extra two channels with an optional upgrade. Bring on those action flicks!
The Tower Records store at New York City's Lincoln Center isn't seeing particularly heavy foot traffic these days. Stopping by, I find just a shopper or two per aisle - pretty typical, a saleswoman says. And the customer demographic seems a bit on the mature side - hovering around 30 or older. Where are all the Rihanna- and AFI-loving kids?
"So long, farewell, auf Wiedersehen, goodbye." So goes the song. But only some of those sentiments apply to four digital-audio formats that have gone, or are about to depart, from the consumer-electronics scene. DAT, DCC, MD, and SACD never did fare "well" in the marketplace.
Keep It Real It's kind of a bizarre resolution for a plasma TV - 1,024 x 1,080 pixels - but Hitachi just might know what it's doing here. Those 1 million pixels are driven by a technology called ALiS (Alternate Lighting of Surfaces) to get the most detail out of 1080i signals (the most common HD format) and bestow a smoother, more filmlike picture.
TERABYTE POWER Unless you're Sony BMG, you'll never run out of room for your music in the AudioReQuest S4.2500. Its massive 1.5-terabyte hard disk can hold 2,500 CDs worth of music - and that's uncompressed. If you go the MP3 route, there's enough room for 360,000 songs! Even the most dedicated Deadhead could fit his collection on that.
Thanks to their portability, personal navigation devices (PNDs) are finding their way into the hands of more and more drivers of multiple vehicles. PNDs not only assist in getting you from point A to point B - as well as locate every ATM and Starbucks in between - they also offer features such as MP3 compatibility and real-time traffic info.
