Audio Video News

CES doesn't officially open until Thursday, January 6, but for the horde of assembled press, it begins on January 5. While workers swarm over the Las Vegas Nevada convention center in what appears to be a hopeless attempt to have everything ready by Thursday's official opening, wall-to-wall press conferences are being held. Tolerated as a necessary chore by the scribes, the press conferences nevertheless serve a useful purpose for manufacturers, giving them a captive audience to do with as they will. This year the festivities were more efficiently organized than usual, the only shortcoming being the lack of sufficient pauses between events.

As if dozens of surround-sound formats weren't enough, some new ones are being introduced at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week. Among them is MP3 Surround, a multichannel version of the 2-channel compression scheme that has become ubiquitous on the Internet as it fueled the success of MP3 players such as the Apple iPod. MP3 Surround is being unveiled by Thomson Electronics and the Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits, co-creators of MP3 (which is shorthand for MPEG-1 Audio Layer 3), and Agere Systems, a semiconductor and software company.

Although the new DualDisc format - a two-sided hybrid disc with a CD on one side and a DVD-A on the other - has had a rough beginning, a recent announcement from Dolby and 5.1 Entertainment's Silverline Records label brings to light another benefit of the flipping disc.

<A HREF="http://www.voom.com/">VOOM</A> isn't going anywhere, at least not yet.

Chips galore: <A HREF="http://www.ati.com">ATI Technologies Inc</A>. announced December 20 that in 2004 its digital television division shipped more than five million chips for high-definition TVs, HD cable and terrestrial set-top boxes. ATI's "NXT Theater" and "Xilleon" chips are claimed to "enable consumer electronics manufacturers to create a wide variety of products that feature exceptional reception and video display performance," according to the announcement. OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) that purchase ATI chips also "have access to ATI's extensive software support and reference designs to help them bring to market unique products that conform to worldwide industry standards." ATI Technologies will be exhibiting its DTV solutions at the upcoming International CES 2005 at booth 3/30342 at the South Hall, Upper Level, in the Las Vegas Convention Center.

Despite the results of recent statewide elections banning same-sex marriages, consumer electronics retailers and manufacturers may not want to dismiss the gay, lesbian, and bisexual (GLB) community quite so readily. A recent nationwide Harris Interactive/Witeck-Combs on-line survey found that the tallied responses are indicative of "the enthusiasm and affinity that gay and lesbian consumers have for electronic technology and their propensity to seek out the latest trends in consumer electronics and television." The survey looked at preferences for service providers (both cellular and TV) as well as HDTV ownership and intent to buy and HDTV.

Video-on-demand: The Holy Grail of the cable industry, VOD is getting a boost from underutilized ("dark") fiber optic networks. Early attempts at VOD were glitchy at best, but computer technology is increasingly making the service a reality via large-capacity servers that can offer thousands of hours of programming to thousands of digital cable subscribers. Many of the fiber networks are owned by telecommunications companies that lease use to cable providers. Cox Communications Inc., Time Warner Inc., and Comcast Corporation have all bet heavily on the potential of fiber optics to deliver more to their subscribers. "80% to 90% of the fiber installed during the telecom boom is still sitting unused," reports Peter Grant in a recent analysis in <I>The Wall Street Journal</I>.