Audio Video News

Lately, the movie business has been nothing but trouble for <A HREF="http://www.seagram.com/">Seagram, Ltd.</A> The Montreal-based liquor and entertainment conglomerate reported losses totaling $199 million on a net income of $461 million for its third fiscal quarter, ending March 31.

Direct broadcast satellite (DBS) television service might soon gain a competitive edge against cable, thanks to broadcasting-reform legislation passed by the US House of Representatives on Tuesday, April 26. The bill, which won near-unanimous approval in a vote of 422 to 1, lifts restrictions on the transmission of local television signals by satellite services, which is one of the primary advantages held by cable companies. Representative Robert Brady (D-PA) cast the sole dissenting vote. So-called "local-into-local" retransmissions are banned by the <A HREF="http://www.fcc.gov/">Federal Communications Commission</A>, whose arcane regulations have been upheld by Federal judges, as happened in Miami last month in a <A HREF="http://www.guidetohometheater.com/shownews.cgi?392">case</A> brought by major networks against <A HREF="http://www.directv.com/">DirecTV</A>.

Last week, <A HREF="http://www.westaim.com">Westaim Advanced Display Technologies Inc.</A> announced that it has unveiled a flat-panel display with 2 million colors using Solid State Display (SSD) technology. The company says the 5" high-contrast, full-color prototype display has a TV-like viewing angle and full motion video that is 20 times faster than the liquid-crystal display technology.

TV fans "will never have to miss another minute of their favorite shows," said Larry Chapman, executive vice president of <A HREF="http://www.directv.com/">DirecTV</A>, in announcing his company's investment in <A HREF="http://www.tivo.com/">TiVo Inc</A>. The direct-broadcast satellite (DBS) provider has bought a 10% interest in TiVo as part of its campaign to expand its line of services.

J<I>ames Donald, Andrew Keir, Barbara Shelley, Julian Glover. Directed by Roy Ward Baker. Aspect ratio: 1.66:1 (letterbox). Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround/5.1. 98 minutes. 1967. Anchor Bay DV 10505. Rated PG. $29.95.</I>

The television-broadcasting industry is undergoing a metamorphosis. Some observers at last week's <A HREF="http://www.nab.org/">National Association of Broadcasters</A> convention in Las Vegas called it a "generation change" embodied by a new group of energetic "digital content providers"---with a different concept of entertainment---gradually replacing older producers and executives. Other reporters have pointed to technological developments such as high-definition TV and the nascent trend toward interactivity as motive forces behind the 60-year-old industry's growing transformation.

The <A HREF="http://www.eetimes.com">EETimes</A> recently reported that <A HREF="http://www.jvc.com/">JVC</A> and <A HREF="http://www.sony.com/">Sony</A> are cooperating to develop IEEE 1394 interface technologies for digital video recorders using Sony's i.Link and JVC's D-VHS format. The idea is to entice consumers to use D-VHS recorders in entertainment systems connected with 1394 cables.