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Audio Video News
HP Butting Heads With Blu-ray Group Over Standards
 |  Nov 17, 2005  | 

Intrigue in the format war continued Wednesday with the Blu-ray Disc group announcing that while it would allow mandatory managed copy, it would not (for now) adopt iHD-based interactivity. Hewlett-Packard (HP) had officially requested that the Blu-ray group incorporate both technologies, which are supported by Toshiba's HD DVD format and are key reasons that Microsoft and Intel have thus far supported HD DVD and not Blu-ray Disc.

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Audio Video News
Deep Rifts Exposed in Sony BMG Faux Pas
Mark Fleischmann  |  Nov 15, 2005  | 
In a turn of events that’s as bizarre as it is disturbing, a major music label’s overzealous attempt to protect its content has widened the great divide that increasingly separates the music industry from consumers. Sony BMG’s boneheaded misuse of hacker technology has potentially compromised the security of millions of PCs, inspired a bunch of computer viruses, provoked class-action lawsuits, caused a firestorm of protest in online forums, and even attracted veiled criticism from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
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Audio Video News
Xbox 360 Universal Remote
Darryl Wilkinson  |  Nov 14, 2005  | 
Perhaps you're thinking, "Hey, that new Xbox 360 looks pretty hot," along with the thought, "Man, how many remote controls do I need to figure out in order to use my home entertainment system?" It might just be, then, that the idea of adding a remote control for the Xbox 360 into your living room will be too much for your precarious state of mind.
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Audio Video News
LocationFree PSP
Darryl Wilkinson  |  Nov 14, 2005  | 
Sony's PSP (PlayStation Portable) can now utilize Sony's LocationFree technology.
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Audio Video News
Quick Hits On Blu-ray, Portables Dominating Audio Market
 |  Nov 13, 2005  | 

<B>PS3 Will Be Priced To Sell Blu-ray</B>

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Audio Video News
Onkyo Delivers iPod And XM-Ready AVR
 |  Nov 10, 2005  | 

If you ever want a snapshot of what's hot in consumer electronics at any given time, or perhaps even a glimpse of the future, take a look at the connectivity of the current crop of A/V receivers. Onkyo announced in October that it was shipping the TX-SR603X, the immediate successor to its best-selling AVR, the TX-SR602. The new receiver not only offers more power than its predecessor (seven channels of 90-watt power), it requires only a "Connect-and-Play" antenna to receive XM satellite radio and connects directly to Onkyo's DS-A1 iPod dock/charger.

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Audio Video News
DVDO unveils the iScan VP30
 |  Nov 06, 2005  | 

Would a DVDO by another name smell as sweet? DVDO, the company that years ago made waves in the industry by offering a $500 line doubler at a time when line doublers cost $10k and up, is now DVDO <I>Powered by Anchor Bay Technologies</I> (ABT). The parent companies associated with the DVDO brand name seem to come and go, but the constants that remain are remarkable performance and features at reasonable prices. The DVDO iScan VP30 looks to continue that trend.

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Audio Video News
Toshiba Takes HD DVD To China
 |  Nov 03, 2005  | 

Toshiba is apparently going to attempt to swamp the market with HD DVD players ahead of the arrival in stores of standalone Blu-ray disc players or PlayStation 3, but is taking a high-risk route in doing so. The HD DVD developer and backer reached an agreement with and licensed their technology to Chinese manufacturers, opening the door to inexpensive players and the kind of price wars that have turned current standard definition DVD players into ubiquitous commodity items.

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Audio Video News
What Comes After High-Def? 4K!
 |  Oct 30, 2005  | 

<I>UAV</I> readers have been flooded with so much news lately about the transition to HDTV- with respect to both the HD DVD vs. Blu-ray format war, and this country's transition to digital TV broadcast- that I almost feel bad bringing this one up. But it's true- in late October Warner Bros. began field trials of digital cinema presentations in Japan featuring so-called 4K resolution, which is, gulp, an image with a pixel count of 4096x2160.

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Audio Video News
Step Away from the Remote Control
Darryl Wilkinson  |  Oct 30, 2005  | 
A recent study1 has found that remote controls are lost or misplaced more often than car keys, eyeglasses, small poodles, and great ideas for surveys. Tampa, Florida-based PRISM Sales International believes it has found a way to end the agony of the lost remote2 forever (or at least until the batteries in this new product run out).
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Audio Video News
Congress Locking In On 2009 DTV Transition
 |  Oct 27, 2005  | 

Committees in the House and Senate have both agreed that 2009 is to be the year that analog broadcasts end in the US, but many details, including the exact date of the inevitable transition to DTV, aren’t yet resolved.

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Audio Video News
The Little DVD Player that Could
Darryl Wilkinson  |  Oct 24, 2005  | 
Once a marvel of technology, the portable DVD player is now on its way to becoming a "been there, spun that" kind of product category. (Oh, how quickly we take electronic things for granted nowadays…) So manufacturers - and there are many - of this kind of portable device have to focus their design attention on enhanced features or reduced weight/size/cost in order to attract the attention of the much loved, cash-carrying consumer. (Yeah, don't go looking around the room. I'm talking about you.)
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Audio Video News
Listen to - and Watch - the Hand
Darryl Wilkinson  |  Oct 24, 2005  | 
Pity those poor manufacturers of portable audio and video devices whose names don't begin with an "A" and who don't make gadgets with a model numbers starting with a lower-case "i". HandHeld Entertainment, makers of one of those "not an iPod audio/video" portables, sees an avenue to fame and success in offering a handheld portable player that costs significantly less than an iPod from Apple. Prior to Apple's much ballyhooed introduction earlier this month, HandHeld Entertainment announced plans for the next generation of their digital video/audio/photo media players.
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Audio Video News
Warner Officially Adopts Blu-ray
 |  Oct 23, 2005  | 

Some are calling it the end of the format war, others are calling it the beginning. Warner Home Video announced last week that it has joined the Blu-ray Disc Association and will release its films on Blu-ray, and, ostensibly, HD DVD as well. Universal is now the only studio of the six majors to be committed to HD DVD and not Blu-ray.

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Audio Video News
Coming Soon To A Set-Top Box Near You: MPEG-4
 |  Oct 20, 2005  | 

DirecTV and LG Electronics made a joint announcement that the Korean electronics giant has begun production of the first DirecTV set-top boxes that will decode signals encoded using MPEG-4 video compression. The boxes will be sold under the DirecTV brand name and will empower a massive increase in DirecTV's lineup of HDTV channels that is scheduled to begin this fall.

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