LATEST ADDITIONS

It is not too surprising that ViewSonic has decided to make a push into the home theater projection market. The company has a healthy lineup of business projectors and has watched other projector manufacturers successfully transition over to the HT side. But is anyone else surprised that a company known primarily for LCD TVs and monitors would go with DLP for their new line of home theater projectors? Maybe it's just me.

I review stuff. Manufacturers have a right to be wary of people like me. And, when I ask for a surround receiver, the first thing they ask me is, "What speakers will you be using with it?" I tell them, "Paradigm Reference Studio 20s." The sighs of relief at the other end of the phone line are almost audible. More often than not, I get what I ask for.

Thanks to two remarkable films, I've learned more about penguins in the past few weeks than I ever thought I needed to know. The first, <I>March of the Penguins</I> was a surprising hit when it played theatrically in 2005, winning an Oscar that year as the best documentary feature. The second, <I>Happy Feet</I> (review following), won an Oscar as the best animated feature of 2006.