Audio Video News

Universal Studios, the only Hollywood studio currently supporting HD DVD exclusively, announced that it will release over 100 HD DVD titles in 2007, comprised of new and classic films and television shows. Many will be new titles released day and date with DVD discs, and over 90% of the titles released will be HD DVD/DVD combo discs.

Netflix has moved into the movie and TV download business with Watch Now, a supplement to its DVD rental subscription that will allow users to stream this content to a computer. Unlike download services that require the download of a large file in its entirety, customers can start watching Netflix' streaming video feeds within seconds.

The Grinch came to steal HD DVD's Christmas a little late this year, as the Internet lit up late last week with the news that a hacker calling him/herself "muslix64" had cracked HD DVD's AACS copy protection with an apparently self-written Java-based utility called "BackupHDDVD." Stories over the 'Net calimed that muslix64 had successfully used the utility to move copies of Warner's <I>Full Metal Jacket</I> (one of the worst looking HD DVDs released so far) and Universal's <I>Van Helsing</I> to his/her hard drive. On top of that, muslix64 released the code to this utility, inviting others to take a crack (pun intended) at copying their own HD DVDs.

For 2007, Home Entertainment Show makes a return engagement to New York City&mdash;one of the most popular destinations ever for this event! The venue is the elegant and gracious Grand Hyatt New York Hotel, where the consumer-electronics industry and music lovers alike will descend on May 11&ndash;13, 2007 to see and hear the latest high-end home audio and video entertainment products, gaming consoles, imaging products, and more.

JVC has developed a new optical engine what squeezes 58" and 65" 1080p HD-ILA RPTVs into cabinets with depths of just 10.7" and 11.6, respectively, officially reviving the concept of "big screen" RPTVs that can hang on the wall. THe HD-58S998 will be available in January at an estimated $3,299, while the HD-65S998 will debut in March at approximately $4,199.

If you've been reading <I>UAV</I> regularly you know that the remaining first generation Blu-ray disc players scheduled for release this year are just starting to trickle in. <I>UAV</I> has recently posted its takes on <A HREF="http://www.ultimateavmag.com/hddiscplayers/1106panasdmpbd10/">Panasonic's DMP-BD10</A> and <A HREF="http://www.ultimateavmag.com/hddiscplayers/1206sonybdps1/">Sony's BDP-S1</A>, and rest assured that a full review of Sony's PlayStation3 is being fact-checked by Sony and will appear soon.