In refusing to play ball in contract renewal negotiations with Pixar Animation Studios, Walt Disney Company probably sabotaged what could have been a very profitable long-term relationship.
I've spewed countless compliments upon this movie, or more accurately
the DVD, in the print magazine over the past year, and like a good
consumer my fondness eventually gives rise to the question, "What else
can I BUY?" Not all of my favorite movies have Star Wars in the
title, and some (Die Hard, The Hunt for Red October) have
yielded precious little tie-in merchandise, and so when an unusual
product like the Old Century Master and Commander game is
released, I am compelled to take note.
DVD: Elf—New Line
Video: 5
Audio: 5
Extras: 5
Elf is 10 feet tall. Thoroughly entertaining, Will Ferrell's breakout film is now available on two DVDs that are fun, pure and simple. Ferrell plays Buddy, who accidentally ends up in Santa's North Pole Workshop and is raised by the elves, never being told he's really human. . .even though he's 3 feet taller than everyone else. Yearning to find his real father, Buddy heads to New York to do so.
Two years ago I had the immense pleasure of reviewing Logitech first
5.1-channel speaker package with Dolby Digital and DTS decoding, their
flagship Z-680, in the January 2003 issue. While maintaining the $400
price point and those 500 tremendous watts—enough to truly transcend the
computer and invade into the home theater—Logitech has introduced a
successor, the Z-5500 Digital.
The 2004 winter holiday season could prove a jolly one for electronics manufacturers, according to the <I>Holiday Sales and Forecasts</I> report issued by the Consumer Electronics Association (<A HREF="http://www.ce.org">CEA</A>) in mid-October.
MPAA lawsuits: Online movie pirates could soon be receiving subpoenas if they don't cease and desist, according to a November 4 announcement from the Motion Picture Association of America (<A HREF="http://www.mpaa.com">MPAA</A>).
Test marketed earlier this year, DualDisc is now officially here with the October 26th release of two albums from Warner Music Group (WMG). (Two more WMG DualDisc albums are scheduled to arrive in stores on November 23rd.)
It's hard to find home theater-related products on the convention floor at the twice-per-year Audio Engineering Society (<A HREF="http://www.aes.org">AES</A>) gathering. It was therefore a treat to discover a fascinating cinema sound system at San Francisco's Moscone Center during the society's recent meeting there, October 28–30.
Sharp continues to explore the frontier of what's possible in high-definition LCDs. The company recently announced a new flagship Aquos model, the 45" widescreen LC-45GX6U. The unit is based on Sharp's "next-generation" liquid crystal display panels.
New York, NY—The Home Entertainment 2004 Show, scheduled to take place on November 4-7, 2004 at the Westin-St. Francis Hotel, has been cancelled due to the hotel labor issue in San Francisco.
New York, NY—The Home Entertainment 2004 Show, scheduled to take place on November 4-7, 2004 at the Westin-St. Francis Hotel, has been cancelled due to the hotel labor issue in San Francisco.
Yet another Internet-related company is looking to bring content - "with High Definition quality" - to your computer and TV screens. DAVETV, an acronym for Distributed Audio Video Entertainment, claims to be "a new kind of television broadcast network offering not only traditional programming such as movies, music, music videos and sports, but also new original content self-published by end users using DAVETV's secure peer-to-peer networking system."
They say you can't please all of the people all of the time, but Sony's newest DVD burner aims to do just that. Sony's new DVDirect (which Sony asks that you pronounce as "DVD Direct" even though they left out a "D" and a space) is "the first in the world capable of stand-alone, real-time DVD recording, as well as computer-attached burning." As such, Sony hopes it will appeal to those camcorder owners with poor or negligible computer skills who still want to be able to archive precious (and typically quite boring) family memories on DVD while at the same time fulfilling the needs of more computer-savvy members of the household.