Audio Video News

DVD is finally getting the endorsement it deserves. On Monday, September 27, <A HREF="http://www.blockbuster.com/video">Blockbuster Video</A> announced an aggressive plan to bring the format to 3800 domestic rental locations and 1000 foreign stores by the end of the year. DVDs currently enjoy shelf space in only 900 of Blockbuster's 6600 outlets.

Last week, <A HREF="http://www.cirrus.com">Cirrus Logic</A> and <A HREF="http://www.digitalharmony.com">Digital Harmony Technologies</A> announced a licensing agreement that aims to "proliferate affordable, high-bandwidth digital home-entertainment systems." Under the terms of the agreement, Cirrus Logic has licensed the rights to Digital Harmony's IEEE 1394 intellectual property, thereby merging its Crystal audio technology with Digital Harmony's non-proprietary high-bandwidth data bus.

L.A.'s Beverly Hilton Hotel will be swarming with television executives and technical gurus this week as the <A HREF="http://www.cemacity.org/">Consumer Electronics Manufacturers Association</A> (CEMA) hosts its fifth Digital Television Summit conference. The conference officially begins Tuesday, September 28, preceeded by a reception Monday evening featuring a high-definition broadcast of <I>Monday Night Football</I>.

By the first day of November, more than half the nation's television viewers&mdash;those within reach of the <A HREF="http://www.cbs.com/">Columbia Broadcasting System</A>'s 40 major stations&mdash;will be in the "footprint" of HDTV broadcasting from CBS. The network has announced an ambitious production schedule for the fall season that includes at least 12 hours of prime-time HDTV programming each week.

Researchers at Stanford University and the University of Washington in Seattle reported last week that digital high-definition TV signals (HDTV) had been successfully transmitted across the so-called "<A HREF="http://www.Internet2.org/">Internet2</A>" network. The group says that the transmission has proved the capability of Internet technology to transmit broadcast-quality video, in stark contrast to the poor-quality video loaded onto today's commercial Internet systems.

An ambitious plan to bring high-speed interactive video services to cable subscribers in the New York area has been announced by <A HREF="http://www.sony.com/">Sony Corporation</A> and <A HREF="http://www.cablevision.com/">Cablevision Systems Corporation</A>. Sony will supply approximately 3 million set-top converter boxes to Cablevision customers.

Movie fans don't normally associate an organization as stodgy as the <A HREF="http://www.AICPA.org/">American Institute of Certified Public Accountants</A> (AICPA) with the glamour of Hollywood, but as of Tuesday, September 14, the accountants' group will have had an everlasting effect on the industry and its notoriously loose accounting procedures. A new set of rules about the way the industry figures profits and losses will soon cause some irrevocable changes in the financial picture of the movie business.