Audio Video News

Jack Valenti has officially announced the end of his tenure as president of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA). The silver-haired 82-year-old pitchman carved his niche in entertainment industry history as the originator of the movie rating system. He also fought hard against the VCR, a device he likened to "the Boston Strangler." In recent years, Valenti concentrated on a campaign against piracy—not only the wholesale industrial variety, but against small scale copying by movie fans for personal use, an effort that has not endeared him to the civil libertarian element among home entertainment enthusiasts.

DVD: National Lampoon's Senior Trip—New Line
Video: 2
Audio: 2
Extras: 1
The longest road trip you've ever taken won't feel so bad after sitting through this 90-minute "high schoolers-hit-the-road" piece of dreck. The jokes aren't funny, every character is an overdrawn cliché, and there's absolutely no one to hold our interest, let alone root for.

Bose was nice enough to show me their new Lifestyle 38 ($2,999) and 48 ($3,999) home entertainment systems recently, with the nifty uMusic intelligent playback system: Music can be ripped from CD and stored on an internal hard drive (capacity unspecified at press time), but even without the benefit of an Internet connection all songs are automatically tagged with extensive track information, from a vast onboard database. In addition to helping organize and access your tunes as never before, this data can be used to create "smart" playlists automatically, with variety yet a related sound, nimbly transitioning from Steely Dan to Michael McDonald (former Dan member) to The Doobie Brothers (McDonald's subsequent group), as one mellow example.

John J. Gannon reviews the <A HREF="/directviewandptvtelevisions/504pioneer">Pioneer Elite PRO-730HD rear-projection CRT TV</A>, noting that the company will soon be converting their CRT assembly lines exclusively to plasma production. "If you've had your eye on an RPTV from Pioneer, the cupboard may be full now, but it won't be restocked. Ever."

Score another breakthrough for HD DVD. On June 23, Apple Computer announced the ratification by the DVD Forum of the "H.264 Advanced Video Codec" (AVC) and its inclusion in the company's upcoming software releases. The standard will be included in specifications for the High Definition DVD format, the next great leap forward for the 5" optical disc.

DVD: City of God—Buena Vista
Audio: 3
Video: 4
Extras: 4
The outskirts of Brazil's Rio de Janeiro stand in stark contrast to the festive, colorful city known for drawing tourists from around the world. In squalid, dangerous slums, children grow up relying on the protection of drug lords to survive, learning early on that the city's police force is not to be trusted. City of God, directed by Fernando Meirelles, follows one young boy who eventually finds his way out of his miserable living conditions by taking photographs of the violence within.

Can you tell us a little about your background?
I started in the specialty A/V business in 1972. Since then, I've worked for a number of audio companies, including Ohm Acoustics, Dahlquist, and with Mark Levinson at Cello.