Open Season (Sony). This Blu-ray Disc's picture, shot digitally in high-def and authored with MPEG-4 compression, is incredibly three-dimensional and realistic. Boog the bear's fur looks like you could reach out and stroke it, and other objects look extremely solid.
Most folks shopping for a home theater receiver or amplifier are bound to have their eyes peeled for a single number: the power rating. Ideally, this spec will tell you how much juice a particular amp can deliver to a given set of speakers under normal conditions.
Q. I'm about to buy a whole-house video and audio distribution system, and I'm being told that I can tranfer HD video around the house using double Cat-5e connections without loss of picture quality. It sounds too good to be true. Is it? Kapil Wadhwani via email
Porcupine Tree: Fear of a Blank Planet (Atlantic). As personified by this concept album's young protagonist, the worldview of the Planet isn't just blank.