Audio Video News

On February 7, 2005, Sony hosted a party to celebrate the grand opening of their new Design Center in Los Angeles, which joins several other such centers located around the world. With around 14,000 square feet of floor space, the Design Center is divided into several sections, including a large open work space with desks and movable dividers as well as several simulated living areas to see how new product designs fit into normal rooms.

As of March 1, <A HREF="http://www.sony.com/sel/">Sony Electronics</A> is offering a nice inducement to home-theater fans: a 30% reduction in the suggested retail prices of 53" and 61" high-definition rear-projection television sets. 1999 list prices for 53" and 61" HDTV RPTV models were $4499 and $5499, respectively. The equivalent models for the year 2000, the KP-53HS10 and KP-61HS10, will be priced at $3199 and $3699&mdash;a discount of approximately 30% from the previous year. Both sets are capable of displaying pictures at 1080i, the highest quality of all varieties of digital video. The price reductions are encouraging news for broadcasters as well as for consumers, as more than 120 stations nationwide now offer HD programming.

Last week, <A HREF="http://www.sony.com/displaysystems">Sony Electronics</A> announced that its newest 16:9 flat-panel plasma display, the PFM-510A1WU high-resolution 42" (viewable area, measured diagonally) monitor, is now available. Sony claims that the new monitor, originally debuted at NAB in April 1999, is one of the first on the market to offer over 1,000,000 pixel capability in a plasma display, and is capable of handling high-definition video signals.

Entertainment-industry executives should sleep better thanks to a recent announcement from <A HREF="http://www.sony.com/">Sony Corporation</A>. On November 30, Sony announced it has developed robust, multilevel copy protection for the emerging IEEE 1394 interconnect standard, which represents an escalation in the technological war against poachers of intellectual property.