user

Tuesday's surprise announcement that Paramount and DreamWorks would drop Blu-ray for HD DVD caused quite a flutter in the home theater community. Following are a few notes in the aftermath of the PR explosion.

Two Japanese electronics giants have merged with the news that Panasonic will buy Sanyo.

Downloads and streaming are nothing new. But lala.com offers both with an unusual angle on streaming. Instead of paying an all-you-can-eat subscription fee, you can pay 10 cents for the right to stream a song indefinitely. If that's not convenient, you can also pay to download it in the conventional way.

As is their practice this time of every year, Mitsubishi recently invited dealers to a secret location (actually it was in Orlando, Florida) where, amidst much hoopla, wining and dining, and the all-important dealer/sales representative bonding (courtesy of the wining and dining), the company unveiled the HDTVs which will be available for delivery to home theaters later this year. Mitsubishi's introduction brought to light 17 new models and involved several of the world's most sought after display technologies.