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Audio Video News
Humpty Dumpty Had a Great Fall . . .
Barry Willis  |  Feb 15, 1998

Los Angeles---Visionaries and vultures, pundits and panderers, gurus and geeks. They were all here at the Beverly Hilton for the first Networked Entertainment World Conference, a meeting of computer and software representatives, cable and online service providers, and film and television executives. Co-sponsored by Softbank Forums and the American Film Institute and attended by aspiring Web producers, game designers, and screenwriters (in addition to established industry types), the N:E:W conference was the first of what could prove to be an important annual event.

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Audio Video News
Sony Pictures, MGM Prepare for Court Battle
Barry Willis  |  Feb 14, 1998

All it will take is $20 million to make things right between <A HREF="http://www.mgm.com">Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer</A> and <A HREF="http://www.spe.sony.com">Sony Pictures Entertainment</A>. A suit filed on February 8 by MGM's Orion Pictures Corporation in Los Angeles Superior Court charges Sony and its subsidiaries, Columbia TriStar Home Video and Columbia Pictures Entertainment, with "substantially underreporting revenues" and "failing properly to account for monies received" for distributing Orion's films on video outside the US. Orion had an exclusive distribution contract with Columbia/Sony from 1985 to 1992.

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Audio Video News
Sharp Promises Wafer-thin PC/LCD Combination
Barry Willis  |  Feb 14, 1998

Light-emitting polymers (LEPs) in Cambridge? In Tokyo, Sharp Electronics has developed a wafer-thin liquid crystal display (LCD) with computer circuitry built in. Sharp and its research partner, Semiconductor Energy Laboratory, announced in mid-January that they have devised a technology called continuous-grain silicon (CGS) that will allow LCDs to contain their own driver chips. This will permit the integration of displays and computers into sheets of any size, from credit-card-sized personal digital assistants to large-format video screens.

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Audio Video News
SDTV, HDTV, and Sony at NAB '98
 |  Feb 08, 1998

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.

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Audio Video News
Fujitsu's Plasmavision Presages Great Things Ahead
Barry Willis  |  Feb 08, 1998

A two-day stop in San Francisco on Fujitsu's road show last week was enough time to let me scoot downtown and scope out the company's new Plasmavision 42 display. Jon Iverson and I were mighty impressed by it last month at the Consumer Electronics Show, where it was demonstrated under less-than-ideal conditions. This month, in a suite on the 35th floor of the ANA Hotel, the Plasmavision once again stood out as an exceptional feat of engineering.

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Audio Video News
Film Buffs are Hopping with News about Two Blockbuster Properties
Jon Iverson  |  Feb 08, 1998

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.

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Audio Video News
Conspiracy Theory Almost Succeeds
Barry Willis  |  Feb 01, 1998

L<I>aserdisc. Mel Gibson, Julia Roberts, Patrick Stewart. Directed by Richard Donner. Aspect ratio: 2.35:1. Dolby Digital. 3 sides. 135 minutes. 1997. CLV/CAV. Warner Bros./Image Entertainment Widescreen Edition WB 115091. $39.95.</I>

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Audio Video News
1997 was Record-Setting Year for Video Products.
 |  Feb 01, 1998

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.

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Audio Video News
Lumivision Releases the First DVD Containing Eight Different Languages
 |  Feb 01, 1998

January 27, <A HREF="http://www.lumivision.com">Lumivision Corporation</A>, released what it claims is the first film on DVD that uses all eight available audio tracks in Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound. Lumivision was also one of the first companies to release DVDs for sale in the Western Hemisphere.

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Audio Video News
Vidikron to be acquired by Projectavision
 |  Jan 25, 1998

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.

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