Audio Video News

[Note: This follow-up story has spoilers.] Last week, I watched Watchmen at an inexpensive cineplex in North Jersey. Great movie, faithful adaptation, substandard equipment. Hey, the tickets were $6.50, and around here that's a bargain. ...

Although the show floor of the CEDIA EXPO 2005 hasn't officially opened yet, there are already hundreds of installers taking advantage of numerous educational classes offered by CEDIA and sponsoring manufacturers. New and old installers alike can learn about anything from remote control programming to acoustical engineering and video calibration. Of course, education is for the men and women who do the real work of installation. Those of us with the cushier jobs - the press - get to eat shrimp and drink free cocktails…

The Internet has had a profound impact on literally every aspect of our lives and it continues to transform the mobile/home entertainment space we know and love in ways we couldn’t have imagined 30 years. (Who could have envisioned streaming from “the cloud” or playing music wirelessly from a phone at a time when cassettes and LPs were being rapidly replaced with CDs?) We’re connected to and rely on the Internet every day, yet we take it for granted. It’s just there. It’s a routine part of daily life.

Video on demand (VOD) inches ever nearer: <A HREF="http://www.xingtech.com/">Xing Technology</A> and <A HREF="http://www.fantastic.ch">The Fantastic Corporation</A> have announced a partnership intended to bring live and on-demand digital video streaming to high-bandwidth satellite, cable modem, and ADSL operators.

If the early numbers are any indication, HDTV will have plenty of support from the broadcast/production end of the media business. According to a recent survey conducted by <A HREF="http://www.scri.com">SCRI International, Inc.</A>, more than 40% of broadcast and production facilities around the world have already purchased and/or expect to purchase HDTV production/broadcast equipment by the year 2000.

Pepcom held its annual Holiday Spectacular this week in New York, where several dozen companies set up booths to promote products that will be in stores for the holidays. During the event, the technology press shuffles along from booth to booth,...