AUDIO VIDEO NEWS

Once and future progressive rock titans Yes and Styx are heading out together on a US tour beginning this July 4, wrapping up August 3.

On July 17th is was announced that Movielink and Sonic Solutions have teamed up to allow users of the <a href="http://www.guidetohometheater.com/news/040606industrynews/index.html">Mo... VOD (Video-On-Demand) service to burn downloaded movies onto DVDs that will playback in standard DVD players when the download has been <I>authorized by for use by content providers</I>. In somewhat related news, Warner Bros agreed (like everyone else) to sell its shows on Apple's iTunes Music Store for $1.99 per episode.

Does the BD abbreviation stand for Blu-ray Disc or Blu-ray Delayed? The latest setback has Pioneer Elite's BDP-HD1 pushed back from July to September, while reports now have Sony's BDP-S1 sliding from July to August 15th. On the plus side, the Pioneer Elite player's price has officially dropped from $1800 to $1500.

NAD showcased a DVD player and an A/V receiver, both new at this year's CES. NAD's first DVD machine is called the T550 and will retail at $799. In addition to built-in Dolby Digital is a feature sure to please audiophiles using the machine as a music source: separate high-quality audio outputs when used with a 24/96 source. The T760 receiver includes both Dolby Digital and DTS and is modestly rated at 60W for all five channels. (NAD is known for conservative power ratings.) The T760 will retail for $999.

I've been attending the South By Southwest music festival for many years, but I can't ever recall ever hearing the particular sound I encountered late Friday night at Stubb's: squealing. And I mean the kind of squealing that means only one thing – female hormones on the march.