Audio Video News

HI-FI Show management announced October 22 that <A HREF="http://www.avacademy.com/">The Academy Advancing High Performance Audio and Video</A> will be sponsoring Trade Days at <A HREF="http://www.hifishow.com">HI-FI '99</A>, The Home Theater and Specialty Audio Show, taking place at the Palmer House Hilton in Chicago from May 11-13, 1999. This marks the fourth consecutive year that The Academy has sponsored Trade Days at the HI-FI Shows. Show management and The Academy also announced today that the Music and Film Seminar Series will be expanded in 1999 to a two-track educational program. Each track will consist of the five disciplines showcased at the Seminar Series in 1998: Sales Techniques, Digital Technologies, Room Acoustics, Video Technologies, and Multi-room Design and Installation.

Until prices for HDTV receivers come down from the stratosphere and high-def programming is available full-time, most viewers will be watching the new format on legacy TVs with the aid of set-top converter boxes. Hearing the clarion call of opportunity, <A HREF="http://www.sciatl.com/">Scientific-Atlanta, Inc.</A> has introduced a line of products to help meet the early demand for HDTV. Among these products is a new HD version of their Explorer 2000 advanced digital set-top box, which will be available in January. This "all-formats" decoder will translate incoming HDTV signals into NTSC video, easing a myriad of consumers into the coming age of digital television.

A new country has taken the lead position in the modern media world. Is it in Europe or Asia? Africa? Australia? Nope, the newest media moguls on the block reside on the small South Pacific group of atolls known as Tuvalu.

Build it and no one will come. That's been the broadcasting industry's worst nightmare since discussions about high-definition television began more than 10 years ago. Many executives have expressed dismay over the fact that the <A HREF="http://www.fcc.gov/">Federal Communications Commission</A> mandated their compliance with HDTV's launch---an effort that costs each station millions of dollars in new equipment and technical training---when there is almost no audience to see it. Dozens of stations are ready for the official nationwide launch of HDTV in just two weeks, but the few people who will see the first broadcasts will be engineers, journalists, and a handful of customers and salespeople in electronics stores.

Tele-Webbers---almost sounds like a mindless new children's TV show, but instead describes what a new report claims is the next big revolution in home television. According to the report from <A HREF="http://www.inteco.com">Inteco</A>, Tele-Webbers are the eight million adults in the US who use the Internet and watch TV simultaneously at least once a week. (So do another five million, but less often.)

There's nothing else in home theater like a cinematically stunning film transferred to HDTV videotape and displayed at 720p or 1080i/p. The only problem is that the frame rates for the two formats are not the same, creating a syncing nightmare for the transfer studio. Solutions have involved running a single film frame through more than one scan of the faster DTV format to create a seamless presentation. As networks begin DTV transmission this fall, the ability to transfer film---a major source of primetime programming---and to create original high-definition content in a variety of DTV formats has become even more critical.

S<I>teve Railsback, Peter Firth, Frank Finlay, Mathilda May, Patrick Stewart. Directed by Tobe Hooper. Aspect ratio: 2.35:1 (letterbox). Dolby Digital 5.1. 116 minutes. 1985. MGM Home Entertainment 907017. Rated R. $24.98.</I>