Audio Video News

At the upcoming <A HREF="http://www.nab.org/conventions/">National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) show</A>, <A HREF="http://www.sony.com/">Sony Electronics</A> will be showing a full line of professional products to enable DTV implementation in 1998. The company's Business and Professional Group recently unveiled its strategy and plans, which include interfacing SDTV and HDTV formats for all DTV applications through an MPEG2 environment, the industry's global standard for DTV broadcasting.

Due to the astounding box-office success of James Cameron's <I>Titanic</I>, Paramount Pictures and Twentieth Century Fox have scrapped their plans for releasing the film's home-video version early this summer.Taken by surprise at the unending box-office interest in the film (over $300 million so far), the studios say that they will have to completely rethink the home video release. Rumors are that <I>Titanic</I> will be released on video for the 1998 holiday season.

According to statistics released January 20 by the Arlington, Virginia-based <A HREF="http://www.cema.org">Consumer Electronics Manufacturers Association</A> (CEMA), sales to dealers of projection televisions, TV/VCR combinations, VCRs, and camcorders each climbed in 1997 to record-setting levels. The new Digital Versatile Disc (DVD) players also showed well, selling nearly 350,000 units since the product's inception in April.

In a move intended to broaden its home theater product line, <A HREF="http://www.projectavision.com">Projectavision, Inc.</A> of New York announced January 21 that it has signed a definitive agreement to purchase substantially all of the assets of <A HREF="http://www.vidikron.com">Vidikron Industries, S.p.A.</A>, including its US subsidiary, Vidikron of America. Vidikron, a privately held company founded 18 years ago and headquartered in Milan, Italy, is a manufacturer and marketer of high-end projection systems for the home-theater consumer and commercial markets, and serves customers in over 30 countries worldwide.

Just in case you were planning to use your computer for watching and possibly copying DVD movies in the near future, Compaq Computer Corporation, Gateway 2000 Inc., Hewlett-Packard Company, IBM Corporation, Micron Electronics, Inc., and Packard Bell/NEC are now licensed to incorporate Macrovision's DVD analog copy-protection technology in their personal-computer products.

A<B><I>ustin Powers: International Man of Mystery</B></I><BR><I>Laserdisc. Mike Meyers, Elizabeth Hurley, Robert Wagner, Michael York, Mimi Rogers. Directed by Jay Roach. Aspect ratio: 2:1. Dolby Digital. Two sides. 90 minutes. 1997. New Line Home Video/Image Entertainment 3965LI. PG -13. $39.95.</I>