Audio Video News

Five electronics heavyweights have agreed on an encryption scheme for digitally transmitted movies and music that they hope will prevent widescale piracy by consumers. <A HREF="http://www.intel.com">Intel</A>, <A HREF="http://www.sony.com">Sony</A>, <A HREF="http://www.toshiba.com">Toshiba</A>, <A HREF="http://www.hitachi.com">Hitachi</A>, and Matsushita announced the agreement in Burbank, CA last Thursday.

Microsoft Corporation and Oregon Public Broadcasting (OPB) have agreed to jointly participate in an educational-enhancement data-distribution system that takes advantage of unused bandwidth in broadcast television's vertical blanking interval, or VBI, according to a <A HREF="http://www.microsoft.com">Microsoft</A> press release dated Feb. 17.

<I>Lon Chaney, Mary Philbin, Norman Kerry, Smitz Edwards. Directed by Rupert Julian. Aspect ratio: 4:3. Dolby Digital. 92 minutes. 1925. Image Entertainment ID4097DSDVD. Not rated. $29.95.</I>

Los Angeles---Visionaries and vultures, pundits and panderers, gurus and geeks. They were all here at the Beverly Hilton for the first Networked Entertainment World Conference, a meeting of computer and software representatives, cable and online service providers, and film and television executives. Co-sponsored by Softbank Forums and the American Film Institute and attended by aspiring Web producers, game designers, and screenwriters (in addition to established industry types), the N:E:W conference was the first of what could prove to be an important annual event.

Light-emitting polymers (LEPs) in Cambridge? In Tokyo, Sharp Electronics has developed a wafer-thin liquid crystal display (LCD) with computer circuitry built in. Sharp and its research partner, Semiconductor Energy Laboratory, announced in mid-January that they have devised a technology called continuous-grain silicon (CGS) that will allow LCDs to contain their own driver chips. This will permit the integration of displays and computers into sheets of any size, from credit-card-sized personal digital assistants to large-format video screens.

A two-day stop in San Francisco on Fujitsu's road show last week was enough time to let me scoot downtown and scope out the company's new Plasmavision 42 display. Jon Iverson and I were mighty impressed by it last month at the Consumer Electronics Show, where it was demonstrated under less-than-ideal conditions. This month, in a suite on the 35th floor of the ANA Hotel, the Plasmavision once again stood out as an exceptional feat of engineering.

L<I>aserdisc. Mel Gibson, Julia Roberts, Patrick Stewart. Directed by Richard Donner. Aspect ratio: 2.35:1. Dolby Digital. 3 sides. 135 minutes. 1997. CLV/CAV. Warner Bros./Image Entertainment Widescreen Edition WB 115091. $39.95.</I>