Audio Video News

I've always been impressed with Sam Runco's familial attitude toward his employees and dealers as well as the consumer-electronics press corps and even the entire industry. This attitude is especially evident during his company's annual spring retreat in Mexico, held this year at the Meliá Cabo Real resort on the Sea of Cortez, halfway between Cabo San Lucas (famous home of Sammy Hagar's Cabo Wabo bar and tequila business) and the lesser-known but much more quaint San Jose del Cabo. Not only does Runco invite his top 10 dealers and a few fortunate journalists, he encourages them to bring their families, stressing the importance of making and maintaining personal connections within the CE community.

Normally the disclaimer* comes at the end, but why hide uncomfortable news? When it comes to home entertainment equipment and someone starts talking about a piece of gear being "wireless", they don't mean "wireless" - they mean "nearly wireless". Okay, now that we've gotten that out of the way, let's talk about Panasonic's new rear-speaker wireless-ready home theater systems. Oh, by the way, "wireless-ready" means you'll need an optional piece of gear to make the system nearly wireless. (But don't let that put a barbed-wire fence around your lofty goal of having free-range wireless chickens. There ain't no totally wireless lunch from any company in this neck of the woods, pardner, but that don't mean you can't dream...)

Digital rights management (DRM) was one of the hottest topics to be discussed at the recent Digital Hollywood conference, held March 31, 2005, at the Loews Santa Monica Beach Hotel in (where else?) Santa Monica, California. DRM is a key issue holding up the finalization of the specifications for both HD DVD and Blu-ray, the two competing contenders to become the next-generation optical-disc format.

The Home Entertainment Show, scheduled to take place in NYC April 28–May 1, is only weeks away! Throughout the Show, ticket holders can experience the finest consumer electronics and convergence products on the planet—PLUS enjoy a variety of live music performances by popular jazz, folk, rap, blues, and classical music recording artists.

DVD: The Forgotten—Columbia/TriStar
A twisting, turning, supernatural story, The Forgotten stars Julianne Moore as Telly, a woman grieving the loss of her 8-year-old son. The only problem is, everyone around her insists that the boy she misses so desperately never actually existed. As she continues to cling to her memories, she finds herself sinking further into a nightmare. Although the heart of the film is about the unbreakable bond between parent and child, the story offers enough government conspiracy and X-Files-type intrigue to give it wider appeal.

It's no secret that the original DVD release of <I>Titanic</I>&mdash;about a zillion years ago in DVD time&mdash;was a technical dud. Oh, it looked okay, and the excitement of actually being able to put it on your very own shelf to watch whenever you wanted kept the disappointment to a low simmer. But it was released during the period when studios were just beginning to adopt the anamorphic or "enhanced for widescreen" format. Unfortunately, <I>Titanic</I> was not a beneficiary of that superior technology. As ordinary letterbox transfers go, it was among the better ones. But it wasn't what it should have been.