Audio Video News

Yesterday, Japan; today, America; tomorrow, the world: <A HREF="http://www.disney.com">Disney's Buena Vista Home Entertainment</A> and <A HREF="http://www.wb.com">Warner Home Video</A> have signed a pact to distribute DVDs in Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and the former Soviet Union. Distribution of more than 100 titles to more than 30 regional territories will begin this fall. Studios to be represented include Warner, Disney, <A HREF="http://beta.choicemall.com/hollywoodpictures/">Hollywood Pictures</A>, and <A HREF="http://beta.choicemall.com/touchstone/">Touchstone Pictures</A>. Some independent films have also been picked up for distribution.

July 1, 1998---"These presentations always attract more Hollywood lawyers than engineers." That's how Dick Davies of the <A HREF="http://www.1394ta.com">1394 Trade Association</A> summed up Brendan Trawl's update on DVD Copy Protection issues at the second annual FireWire Developers' Conference last week in San Jose, CA.

At the <A HREF="http://www.digitallivingroom.com/index.html">Digital Living Room</A> conference last week in Laguna Niguel, California, <A HREF="http://www.warnerbros.com">Warner Bros. Online</A> claimed that they have "blended DVD and Internet technology to simultaneously break through the online bandwidth barrier and create a completely new breed of entertainment." Not surprisingly, this DVD/web hybrid technology is called WebDVD.

Move over, fiber optics; good-bye, T1 lines. The unexploited potential of ordinary copper telephone wires will soon be mined by a consortium of computer and communications companies. Known as the Home Phoneline Networking Alliance (or HomePNA), the recently formed group intends to deliver affordable, high-speed networking over existing phone lines.

On June 17, <A HREF="http://www.unitymotion.com/unity/home.asp">Unity Motion</A> announced an agreement with <A HREF="http://www.turner.com/">Turner Engineering</A> under which Turner will supply high-definition television (HDTV) broadcast-engineering expertise to Unity Motion, which this year begins transmitting multiple channels of HDTV via satellite to subscribers in the US. In addition, Unity Motion announced that it will broadcast the first national satellite-based HDTV signal in the US on June 23-25.

Yves Faroudja, founder and Chief Technical Officer of <A HREF="http://www.faroudja.com/">Faroudja Laboratories</A>, has been awarded the Charles F. Jenkins Lifetime Achievement Award by the <A HREF="http://www.emmys.org/rindex.html">National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences</A>.

Wit overcomes beauty in a recent, informal DVD survey: When asked which San Francisco-based actress or actor they'd like to have over for dinner and a DVD movie, the majority of local respondents picked Robin Williams (55%) over Sharon Stone (23%).