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It's the dream of home-theater fans and TV addicts everywhere: Video-On-Demand, better known as VOD. The concept is simple: Viewers pick movies or shows from a list and watch them via their cable, satellite, or Internet connection when they want to—no waiting for the program to start at the top of the hour, or recording something that is broadcast only while you're on vacation. But getting VOD to work, especially in anything approaching DVD quality, is another issue altogether, and has become something of a Holy Grail for VOD developers in the broadcast industry.

According to research just released by <A HREF="http://www.strategyanalytics.com">Strategy Analytics</A>, manufacturers will increase worldwide shipments of set-top DVD players by 300% this year, while retail revenues across the three major regions (US, Europe, Japan) will rise by 220%, to $7 billion. SA says that this year's market is being driven by the launch of DVD-based games consoles, and that DVD recorders will fuel the momentum from 2001 on.

If it's true that a picture is worth a thousand words, then <A HREF="http://www.dvdpreview.tv"><I>DVD Preview</I></A> is likely the ultimate review "magazine" for new DVD releases. Arriving on newsstands in a cardboard package the size of a small magazine (think <I>The Reader's Digest</I>), <I>DVD Preview</I> bills itself as "a new kind of magazine coming to you on the very medium it reports on." To bring this point home, the magazine's website even has one of the recently minted ".tv" domain names (see <A HREF="http://www.guidetohometheater.com/shownews.cgi?269">previous story</A>) instead of the ubiquitous ".com."