LATEST ADDITIONS

Better late than never. Years after mandating a changeover from analog to digital television broadcasting, the Federal Communications Commission (<A HREF="http://www.fcc.gov">FCC</A>) has launched a campaign to inform consumers about the benefits of the new format.

After returning from our honeymoon, my parents took my wife and me to dinner at one of San Francisco's swanky restaurants. To commemorate the event, I brought a prized bottle of wine - a 1982 Sterling Private Reserve cabernet. Instead of being offended that I had my own bottle, the sommelier asked if he might have a taste. But the restaurant still added a $20 corkage fee to our bill.

Each step in the evolution of the optical disc has been astounding. With its 750-megabyte storage capacity, the Compact Disc revolutionized the way music was recorded and played back. The DVD's 4.7 gigabyte capacity&mdash;twice that for a dual-layered disc&mdash;made possible the archiving of high-quality feature films on a durable, affordable medium. DVD is the first format that made building a film library a reality for ordinary movie fans. It's not a vast overstatement to say that DVD revived the film industry, creating unanticipated revenue streams.