Several eagerly awaited special DVD releases are poised to hit the shelves in coming months. <I>American Beauty</I>, winner of five Academy Awards earlier this year, will debut on DVD on October 24. DreamWorks says that the film will be released in a special "Awards Edition," which will include a "storyboard" feature with commentary by director Sam Mendes and director of cinematography Conrad L. Hall, as well as a "Making of" featurette.
Plastic film may soon be coming to a home theater near you—not as a food wrap, but as a video screen. London-based <A HREF="http://www.cdtltd.co.uk/">Cambridge Display Technology</A> (CDT), in association with its Japanese partner, Seiko Epson, has announced a new development that bonds light-emitting polymers (LEPs) to such film. Properly charged, the red, blue, and green pixels will emit bright light while using very little power. Unlike liquid-crystal displays, LEPs require no backlight and have a wide dispersion pattern.
D<I>oris Day, John Raitt, Carol Haney, Eddie Foy, Jr., Barbara Nichols. Directed by George Abbott and Stanley Donen. Aspect ratios: 1.85:1 (widescreen), 1.33:1 (full-frame). Dolby Digital mono. 101 minutes. 1957. Warner Home Video 35085. NR. $19.95.</I>
Last week, <A HREF="http://www.pioneer-america.com/">Pioneer North America</A> announced plans to open the newest addition to its North American operation: Pioneer Research Center USA (referred to as PRA), which the company describes as a new research-and-development unit. Pioneer says that PRA will open in San Jose, California on July 5 and will develop both digital television and digital network technologies to be incorporated into audio-video products sold primarily in the US market.
Two years ago it was widely predicted that, by summer 2000, high-definition television would be pretty well established. At mid-year of that target date, the industry is still bickering over technical specifications and terminology, receiver prices are still high, and there is only a token amount of HD programming available.
Walter Matthau, the gruff-voiced, droopy-faced master of deadpan comic acting, died early Saturday morning, July 1, after suffering a heart attack. He was pronounced dead at 1:42am, shortly after being taken to St. John's Health Center in Santa Monica, California. Matthau was 79.
C<I>lark Gable, Claudette Colbert, Walter Connolly, Roscoe Karns, Jameson Thomas. Directed by Frank Capra. Aspect ratio: 1.33:1 (full-frame). Dolby Digital mono. 105 minutes. 1934. Columbia 03949. NR. $24.95.</I>
It's a DTV jungle out there, with manufacturers, broadcasters, consumers, and other market forces fighting for their ecological niches. Always an aggressive participant in the struggle, the <A HREF="http://www.ce.org">Consumer Electronics Association</A> (CEA), in comments filed with the Federal Communications Commission last week, stated that "ensuring that today's viewers continue to enjoy free, over-the-air service should be the primary focus of the digital television (DTV) transition." While new services should be "permitted and encouraged," argued the CEA, they should be consistent with broadcasters' "continued delivery of free over-the-air programming in the digital era."
In the long term, interactive television (ITV) may not be the joke it has been so far. On June 21, Los Gatos, California–based <A HREF="http://www.ictv.com/">ICTV</A> announced that it has pulled in $57 million in investments from financial sector and telecommunications industry heavyweights. ITCT describes itself as the "leading provider of the cable industry's most robust solution for delivery of broadband Internet TV services to digital set-tops."
In mid-June, <A HREF="http://www.dtstech.com/">DTS</A> announced a new version of its DTS-ES Extended Surround Format for home theater. Designated DTS-ES Discrete 6.1, the system is a "new, proprietary technology for the playback of discrete, 6.1-channel content from DVDs and CDs," according to a company press release. The innovation is said to "elevate the performance standard for playback of the DTS 6.1-channel Extended Surround format introduced in motion picture theaters last year."