Audio Video News

Convergence might be the brunt of jokes in some quarters, but not at 7 Mark Drive in San Rafael, CA. That's the home of <A HREF="http://www.net-tv.net/">NetTV</A>, which has just announced its new ExtremeDVD home-entertainment system. ExtremeDVD is optimized for 3-D gaming, Internet access, satellite downloads, and high-resolution movie playback.

Cablevision's network DVR, long delayed by court battles with the entertainment industry, finally reached some homes in April, having cleared its final legal hurdles.

HD DVD might be taking another leap ahead on the interactivity front. The most recent firmware update for Toshiba's first-gen HD DVD players adds "support for certain anticipated network delivered content in future HD DVD discs." Those of you who can get your HD-A1 or HD -XA1 player to an Ethernet connection can download the update from the 'Net, or you can contact Toshiba to get the update on a disc.

Move over, fiber optics; good-bye, T1 lines. The unexploited potential of ordinary copper telephone wires will soon be mined by a consortium of computer and communications companies. Known as the Home Phoneline Networking Alliance (or HomePNA), the recently formed group intends to deliver affordable, high-speed networking over existing phone lines.

Where do captains of industry go when their cash cows begin to produce sour milk? To Washington DC, where they beg for regulatory intervention. That's where CBS Station Group Manager Mel Kazmarin was last week, and that's what he was doing---asking the Federal Communications Commission to reconsider its prohibition against one TV network owning more than 35% of the available commercial broadcast stations in the country.

Pay-TV bundles bulging with never-watched channels have been the bane of consumer groups. They’ve long supported the concept of à la carte cable, which would let subscribers buy just the channels they want. Verizon’s FiOS Custom TV package isn’t exactly à la carte—but it does put the typical pay-TV bundle on a drastic diet. And that “skinny” package, as some call it, is making some networks very unhappy.

The fall television season will be more high definition intensive than ever, thanks to a beefed-up HDTV schedule from ABC and CBS.