<B>The Optoma HD7100</B>
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Optoma's latest flagship projector has me playing Old Man River again. I remember a time (not long ago) when a single-chip DLP front projector with a high-def pixel count and premium-ish feature set cost a lot more than the $3499 that's pegged for Optoma's new top-of-the-line HD7100. And don't get me started on CRTs!

<B>Sony Pictures Goes <I>Full Throttle</I> On Blu-ray</B>
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On Friday Sony Pictures Home Entertainment made a curious announcement that it had authored its first full-length Blu-ray Disc in 1920x1080 high definition, and was shipping the disc to manufacturers of Blu-ray players for testing. Following Holt's Law that the technical quality of a piece of software is inversely proportionate to its artistic merit, this landmark Blu-ray title is none other than the box office disappointment <I>Charlie's Angel's: Full Throttle</I>.

<B>Blu-ray Launch Pushed Into June</B>
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The writing has been on the wall with this one for a while. Sony and the other studios participating in the Blu-ray launch have moved off the originally scheduled May 23rd release date, pushing out to late June. This news comes weeks after Samsung announced that its BD player would not be ready for release until June 25th. Shockingly, Samsung's player is currently scheduled to be the first Blu-ray player to market, beating Sony, Panasonic and Pioneer.

<B>The Force Will Be With You- For Three Months</B>
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The Lucasfilm Empire has announced that on September 12th of this year it will release the "original unaltered" <I>Star Wars</I> Trilogy- <I>Star Wars</I>, <I>The Empire Strikes </I>, and <I>Return of the Jedi</I>- on DVD. Each film will be available as a two-disc set with the 2004 digitally remastered DVD versions that have already appeared. Taking a page from Disney, these original trilogy releases will only be available until December 31st.