LATEST ADDITIONS

Home networking is about to hop forward with the arrival of SkipJam, a hardware/software solution for watching, listening to, and digitally recording entertainment content housewide. With a wired or wireless network and an iMedia Center box in your stack of home theater gear, enjoy TV (including satellite) and more on the PC and share any audio/video source with an iMedia Player anywhere in the home, view/hear PC files in the living room, or bypass the computer altogether and simply network all your A/V devices directly, with high-quality audio and video including 24-bit/192-kilohertz DAC/ADCs with 114db dynamic range. Look for a hands-on review in an upcoming issue of Home Theater.

If you're like my son, no matter how big the hard drive is in your DVR it's not big enough. Humax USA announced today the nationwide availability of the T2500, the first TiVo Series2 DVR with a whopping 300 hours of recording capability. (Although it doesn't record HD, that's still over 12 days of continuous couch-potato bliss.) It'll cost you $699 for that kind of storage capacity; but when you compare it with what it would cost to 300 hours of Super Bowl commercial air time over the next 50 years, it's a steal. Since the T2500 (and the 80-hour T800) is a TiVo Series2 unit, subscribing owners can use TiVo's new Home Media features and online scheduling as part of TiVo's standard $12.95/month service package. The new features let you schedule recordings from any internet connection and move content between two or more TiVo Series2 DVRs in your home. You can also listen to music or view photos stored on your PC if you're so networkingly inclined. Now Humax just needs to release an HD DVR, and my son won't ever have to leave the couch.