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A bored, rich widow, Laura Henderson (Judi Dench) buys a failed London theater on the eve of World War II. But she soon discovers she has no idea what to do with it. After she hires an experienced producer (Bob Hoskins) the theater is briefly successful running music hall reviews. But soon reality sets in and the competition drives them into the red.

HD DVD has (finally) arrived.

A new prerecorded video format is big news. It doesn’t come along every day. It’s been nine years since DVD was release, and it was 19 before that since LaserDisc. Enter HD DVD. Its higher transfer rate (35.5 mbps versus broadcast’s 19.4 mbps maximum) and advanced codecs (VC-1 and H.264) create a potential for audio and video quality to far exceeds broadcast HD, as well as containing a host of new features and capabilities. The first two models are the HD-A1 ($499) and HD-XA1 ($799). Both have the same performance; the step-up HD-XA model adds a better enclosure, a motorized door, RS-232, and a backlit remote.

<B>Price</B>: $22,434 as configured in SCB's reference system.

The explosion of flat-panel and microdisplays has multiplied the number of manufacturers and products on the market. Unfortunately this happy profusion leaves a performance gap on the audio side. My Sharp AQUOS LCD HDTV has excellent speakers—by TV-speaker standards—but I don't depend on them for movies. And the sound on a typical no-name LCD set is simply wretched for any content, even sitcoms. So what do you do when you've uncrated your new display only to discover that the other half of the home theater equation is a shaping up to be a big zero?