Audio Video News

It seems that <I>Star Wars</I> fans can never get enough. In March 1999, more than six million of them downloaded the QuickTime trailer for <A HREF="http://www.lucasfilm.com/">Lucasfilm</A>'s <I>Episode I: The Phantom Menace</I> in the first three weeks it was available. QuickTime is <A HREF="http://www.apple.com/">Apple Computer</A>'s streaming-media technology, and it has been selected to deliver behind-the-scenes views of <I>Episode II</I> as it develops on location in Australia.

Makers of personal video recorders (PVRs) like <A HREF="http://www.tivo.com/">TiVo</A> and <A HREF="http://www.replaytv.com/">ReplayTV</A> have been fighting an uphill battle to get consumers to understand and purchase their products. This reluctance has caused some marketing executives to question whether there is much of a market for personal video services. But consumer apathy toward unknown technology shouldn't be confused with the potential for such services, according to a recently released report from market analysts <A HREF="http://www.techtrends.net/">TechTrends</A>.

It's the dream of home-theater fans and TV addicts everywhere: Video-On-Demand, better known as VOD. The concept is simple: Viewers pick movies or shows from a list and watch them via their cable, satellite, or Internet connection when they want to&mdash;no waiting for the program to start at the top of the hour, or recording something that is broadcast only while you're on vacation. But getting VOD to work, especially in anything approaching DVD quality, is another issue altogether, and has become something of a Holy Grail for VOD developers in the broadcast industry.

Locally broadcast high-definition television <I>won't</I> be coming to a home theater near you anytime soon. That's the consensus of participants and observers at congressional hearings on the subject in late July, when long-simmering disagreement over a technical standard for terrestrial transmission finally got its day in court.

West Coast&ndash;based consumer-electronics chain <A HREF="http://www.goodguys.com/">Good Guys</A> will be one of the first retailers in the nation to carry <A HREF="http://www.panasonic.com/">Panasonic</A>'s new video recorder. The DMR-E10, capable of recording Dolby Digital 2-track audio and MPEG-2 video, will arrive in all 79 Good Guys locations beginning in late September.