Audio Video News

Video-on-demand (VOD) is coming soon to more than 1.2 million homes in Los Angeles, courtesy of <A HREF="http://www.chartercom.com/">Charter Communications, Inc.</A>, the fourth-largest cable operator in the US. Charter has completed an agreement with Redwood City, CA&ndash;based <A HREF="http://www.divatv.com/">DIVA Systems Corporation</A> to provide VOD software and hardware for customers in Long Beach, Pasadena, Alhambra, Monterey Park, Glendale, and Burbank.

The month of March was the best ever for factory-to-dealer sales of digital television sets and displays, reported the <A HREF="http://www.cea.org/">Consumer Electronics Association</A> on April 27. Unit sales totaled 24,332&mdash;a 7% increase over February sales, and 343% over March 1999. Since the introduction of DTV in August 1998, a total of 202,586 DTV units has been sold to dealers, according to the CEA's latest figures.

Steven Spielberg has held out long enough. With as many as 12 million DVD players expected to be in movie fans' homes by the end of the year, Hollywood's most successful director has decided to release his films on digital discs.

C<I>her, Judi Dench, Joan Plowright, Maggie Smith, Lily Tomlin, Baird Wallace, Charlie Lucas, Massimo Ghini, Paolo Seganti, Paul Checquer. Directed by Franco Zeffirelli. Aspect ratios: 1.85:1 (anamorphic), 1.33:1 (full-frame). Dolby Digital 5.1, Dolby Surround 2.0 (French). 117 minutes. 1999. MGM Home Entertainment 907918. PG. $24.98.</I>

Last week, <A HREF="http://www.tvguideinc.com"><I>TV Guide</I></A> announced that it has partnered with <A HREF="http://www.seachangeinternational.com">SeaChange International</A> to bring to market a version of the TV Guide Interactive electronic program guide with a video-on-demand (VOD) service. The companies say that the collaboration will combine the TV Guide Interactive application with SeaChange's ITV system, and that this is the first major deal for TV Guide Interactive in the VOD area and will be the market's first fully integrated interactive program guide/VOD offering.

The <A HREF="http://www.fcc.gov/">Federal Communications Commission</A> has begun looking into problems presented by the proliferation of digital cable systems, problems that could offer pirates the opportunity to make an infinite number of perfect copies of high-definition movies from transmissions over pay-per-view channels like Showtime and Home Box Office. The lack of a reliable copyright-protection technology is hindering the rollout of high-definition television.

The <A HREF="http://www.ce.org">Consumer Electronics Association</A> reported last week that manufacturers' shipments of video products grew by "an incredible" 30% during March. "The strong March increase brought total first-quarter sales to 13.3 million units, a 21% increase over the first quarter of 1999. The growth in March was reflective of a larger trend of prosperity in video product sales, as all categories posted double-digit increases for both the month and year-to-date," stated the organization.