Audio Video News

FCC commissioner Michael Copps has promised to look into dozens of complaints that have flooded his office in the wake of promotional spots for the November 15 airing of <I>The Victoria's Secret Fashion Show</I> on the Walt Disney Company-owned ABC television network.

Vidabox LLC recently announced an interesting entry into the next-gen HD disc format war in the form of two lines of "dual HD" Media Center PCs that will playback both Blu-ray and HD DVD discs. In addition to playing standard DVDs, Vidabox's LUX and MAX dual HD systems analog and dual HDTV tuners allowing users to record as many as four TV programs at once, obviating the need for a DVR.

Most of us have had to return videos to the rental store, sometimes making a mad dash late at night while still in our loungewear or worse. But if you thought nobody was noticing, think again.

It would seem that online junkies get all the breaks. Music fans are able to find thousands of free MP3 audio files (in spite of Napster's demise), and promo clips for new films are increasingly released first online and then in theaters. And then there are the illicit copies of new films available for download (see <A HREF="http://www.guidetohometheater.com/shownews.cgi?1038">previous story</A>). Video fans can now add tax breaks to the list of Internet perks.

Divx, Circuit City's pay-per-view DVD format, may be dead, but DivX, a new video-copying phenomenon, is alive and well. The hacker-developed technology is said to allow copying and transmission of "high-quality pictures" over the Internet in much the way MP3 audio files can be shared by music fans. With DivX and a broadband connection, a full-length film can be downloaded in a few hours and stored on a recordable CD, according to several reports in late March.