Carlos Franzetti—The Jazz Kamerata (Chesky) [SACD]
By mere coincidence (or perhaps not), I sat down to review this new hybrid SACD on the rare rainy day in Los Angeles (although not quite as rare this winter). The two were a perfect fit. The Jazz Kamerata has a comfortable warmth about it, inviting you to wrap yourself in it and settle in for a lazy afternoon.
Even as DVI and HDMI were being adopted by video manufacturers as the digital links of choice, one limitation of these connections was already well known: they don't like to be used in long lengths. The generally accepted limit for an unassisted digital video cable of this type is about 5 meters or just over 16 feet, particularly with high-definition sources.
<I>Jerry Seinfeld, Jason Alexander, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Michael Richards. Aspect ratio: 1.33:1. Dolby Digital 2.0 (English), Dolby Digital 1.0 (French, Spanish). Four discs. 552 minutes. Sony Pictures 09774. NR. $49.95</I>
Everyone who visits this site knows that high-definition DVDs are nearly here. Most everyone also knows that, like many great advances in consumer electronics, a format war seems almost certain to doom this one.
As I mention in <A href="http://www.ultimateavmag.com/scottwilkinson/505sw/">my current column</A>, streaming high-quality A/V content in real time over the Internet is not practical due in part to bandwidth limitations. Currently, DSL and cable modems top out at about 3 megabits per second downstream (into the home), while DVDs typically consume 4-7Mbps of bandwidth, and standard MPEG-2 HDTV requires over 19Mbps.
In separate line shows held in San Diego and New York, Hitachi announced their new video line last month. Most of the models will begin appearing in stores before the start of the annual fall holiday buying season.
<IMG SRC="/images/archivesart/headshot150.tjn.jpg" WIDTH=150 HEIGHT=194 HSPACE=6 VSPACE=4 BORDER=0 ALIGN=RIGHT>George Lucas is a fan. I don't mean of <I>Star Wars</I> (though he is, I suspect, that, too); rather, he's a fan of digital cinema. And he wanted his magnum opus, <I>Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith</I>, to play in digital on the biggest screens in the world. That covers a lot of territory, but the screen at the Cinerama Dome in Hollywood, which measures 32 by 86 feet, just might be the biggest anywhere.
Despite the ongoing rumors of back-room talks aimed at averting a format war over the next generation of blue-laser optical discs, each camp is continuing to develop its own standard. In our <A href="http://www.ultimateavmag.com/news/051605HDDVD/">last report</A> on this game, Toshiba had announced a 3-layer HD DVD with 45GB of storage capacity. Now, TDK has upped the ante again by announcing that they've developed a 4-layer Blu-ray Disc (BD) prototype with a total capacity of 100GB; each layer holds 25GB, just as in single- and dual-layer BDs.
Everyone who visits this site knows that high-definition DVDs are nearly here. Most everyone also knows that, like many great advances in consumer electronics, a format war seems almost certain to doom this one.
