Barry Willis

<B><I>In a special guest Blog, erstwhile Stereophile and UAV contributor Barry Willis remembers Randy Tomlinson, his friend of over 25 years...</I></B>

The flat-panel "arms race" reached a new level in mid-December, with an announcement from Samsung's display manufacturing division that it had successfully created a 102" –diagonal plasma display panel (PDP).

Frank Biondi is making a very lucrative career of resigning from high-level positions. The former television executive and second-in-command at Viacom, Inc. has been forced out of the chairmanship at Universal Studios. The film-production company has not done well at the box office lately, a factor in the depressed stock price of its parent organization, Montreal-based Seagram, Ltd., which owns 80% of Universal. Former Hollywood talent agent and Creative Artists Agency co-founder Ron Meyer, who was Universal's president and chief operating officer, will take Biondi's place.

Warren Lieberfarb's "sell through" agenda for DVD pricing has had some unintended consequences. The former head of Warner Home Entertainment pushed hard for an industry-wide pricing policy that made movies on DVD one of the greatest bargains in the history of entertainment. For compact disc prices, movie fans can own archival copies of films that cost tens of millions to produce&mdash;a strategy that has had serious consequences for the video rental business.