Audio Video News

Shame on you, RadioShack. And you too, HH Gregg, FYE, Fred Meyer Stores, Ultimate Electronics, and Boscov's. You've been selling analog televisions without adequately warning consumers that these sets are about to become obsolete with the end of analog broadcasting on February 17, 2009. That's why the Federal Communications Commission has just slapped you with $96,000 in fines. Not much, admittedly, but it's a start.

Samsung sent over information earlier today confirming its plans for its next-gen disc players throughout this year. The BDP-2400 Blu-ray Disc player has been officially "removed from the 2007 Holiday Line-up," but the BD-UP5000 Duo HD Blu-ray/HD DVD combi player remains on track for a mid to late December debut.

In the beginning, there was Napster, and it was good, albeit illegal. Over the years the file-sharing pioneer went legit and became a subscription service. Now Napster is looking to improve its game by untethering its 770,000 subscribers from its proprietary software. Soon Napsterites will be able to access a library of five million tracks from any net-connected computer without downloading the Napster application itself. Welcome to Napster 4.0.

Say goodbye to outmoded TVs that stand in the way of progress. Best Buy is taking out the garbage, becoming the first big electronics chain to banish analog TVs from its stores. You go, mega-retailer!

What are all those corporate logos doing on the BitTorrent homepage? Isn't this bastion of P2P technology a den of thieves? Apparently Paramount, 20th Century-Fox, Warner Bros., Lionsgate, Comedy Central, MTV, and other movie and TV studios are willing to entertain a different idea.

Musicians are the backbone of several industries: recording, broadcasting, music publishing, live performance, etc. Several of those industries are currently waging a rhetorical free-for-all over what musicians get paid. It's like watching a pit full of weasels fight over a burger.

If doubling the refresh rate of an LCD to avoid motion artifacts is a good idea, is tripling it an even better idea? Showgoers at Japan's CEATEC show got an eyeful of a JVC prototype last week that does just that.