LATEST ADDITIONS

Regular readers of Home Theater might know that I also write the “Top 100 DVDs of All Time” article each year, which means that I have at least 8.3-dozen discs at home. And those discs tend to pile up. But how else is a cinephile supposed to build an impressive video library? Kaleidescape is too rich for my blood, DVD jukeboxes are too difficult to manage, and downloading movies to my computer isn’t really a living-room experience. So there’s the Apple TV, which recently began high-def movie rentals, not purchases, from major studios directly to the box. The Xbox 360 also allows paid download-to-own TV shows, some in high def, although all movies are rental only. And then there’s VUDU. The VUDU box is essentially a movie machine, a library on a hard disk drive inside a box. It’s an entertainment portal that sits quietly next to the TV until called into action.

When the Tampa Bay Buccaneers decided to retire their Jumbotron screen last fall, they weren't worried about finding a place to dump it. After all, Sony, manufacturer of the 14,000-pound behemoth, had publicly announced that it had partnered with Waste Management and that any Sony product brought to a designated Waste Management collection site would be accepted at no charge.