Net loss: Video vendor Hollywood Entertainment Corporation would be doing well if it weren't for its publicly traded online operation <A HREF="http://www.reel.com/">Reel.com</A>, which just can't make a profit no matter how hard it tries. The nation's second-largest video rental chain, <A HREF="http://www.hollywoodvideo.com/">Hollywood Video</A> enjoyed strong growth last year but was driven into the red by losses incurred by the Internet business, which reported a fourth-quarter net loss of $21.7 million.
Just a week after a consortium of electronics companies announced its commitment to a new <A HREF="http://www.guidetohometheater.com/shownews.cgi?1228">high-capacity DVD</A>, the DVD Forum voted to approve the use of low-bit-rate compression for high-definition DVD. The vote was approved by 11 of the Forum's 17 members, with Matsushita, JVC, and Philips abstaining.
If you want to be the first on your block to see <A HREF="http://www.starwars.com/"><I>Star Wars: Episode I---The Phantom Menace</I></A>, you'd better get in line soon---if you can figure out which theater is going to show the film. Theater allocations for the long-awaited May 19 debut hadn't been decided as of last week, but exhibitors eagerly agreed to some strict requirements for running the film. One restriction---that no tickets be pre-sold---will thwart ticket scalpers and deprive ticket agencies of sizable fees.
S<I>tar Wars</I> is with us as much today as it was 22 years ago, when the first film of the series was released. In fact, it has been around so long that it seems an inherent part of popular culture, like <I>Huckleberry Finn</I>---in the public domain, free for anyone to use as they wish. George Lucas, creator of the blockbuster film and its two sequels, has long looked the other way regarding possible copyright infringements. Fanzines, fantasy periodicals, and filmed spoofs have elaborated on <I>Star Wars</I> characters and story lines for two decades without fear.
The march of progress comes at a price to the environment. Old computer monitors and television sets often wind up in landfills, where they can leak lead, cadmium, mercury, and other toxic chemicals into the groundwater. The federally mandated changeover to digital television, projected to be complete within the next six years, may exacerbate the problem as millions of consumers consign their old displays to the trash.
Score one for Matsushita Electric Industrial Company. On July 1, Panasonic's parent organization became the first manufacturer to deliver a large-capacity high-definition DVD recorder—just in time for the Athens Olympic Games next month.
<A HREF="http://www.sonicblue.com">SonicBlue, Inc.</A> has been hit with a copyright infringement lawsuit over its new ReplayTV 4000. The device is a personal video recorder (PVR) that allows users to skip past commercials and send copies of recorded television programs over the Internet to other Replay-equipped viewers. The Silicon Valley company plans to introduce the ReplayTV 4000 early in November.
A new Nielsen report claims that kids are watching slightly less TV than they were 10 years ago, but another study claims that they are spending almost an entire work week, every week, with media of all kinds. That's the conclusion of <I>Kids & Media @ The New Millennium</I>, released recently by the Menlo Park, California philanthropic organization <A HREF="http://www.kff.org/">The Kaiser Family Foundation</A>. TV and music are by far the biggest occupiers of kids' time, the report states, with computers and the Internet a distant second. Reading for pleasure—that done apart from schoolwork—occupies only about 45 minutes per day for 80% of the children surveyed.