It shouldn’t hurt to be an audio/video signal.

Why do the Japanese get all the good stuff first? Godzilla destroyed Tokyo (1954) a full 44 years before he was unleashed on New York (1998). (And the original was much better than the schlock Hollywood tried to foist on us as a "modern" version.) Not to mention they've got gobs more camera phones than we do. And now, Sharp - part of the global powerhouse of top-shelf consumer electronics companies plugging the Blu-ray Disc format - is introducing a new Blu-ray Disc recorder that includes a built-in hard drive and a standard DVD recorder. The new gizmo is claimed by Sharp to be the first high-definition recorder in the world to combine three recording disc drives.

Vogel's has an alternative to standard projection screens. It comes in a can, and it's called Mighty Brighty. Vogel's says the process is as easy as picking a wall and picking up a paintbrush. The screen paint comes in three different packages: the MPW 10 with enough pre-mixed paint and base coat to cover five square meters; the MPW 20 with enough material to cover up to six square meters plus ContrastBooster and BrightnessBooster paint components that can be used to customize the performance of the screen to match your projector; and the MPW 30 that contains enough paint to cover an entire wall so the screen is invisible when you're not watching TV.

We have heard the soundtrack of the High Definition future on DVD, and it's compatible with the jillion¹ or so digital surround sound receivers currently delighting home theater owners around the globe - or so says Dolby Laboratories and DTS. In separate recent announcements, each company proudly touted the fact that their audio technologies have been selected as a mandatory part of both the High-Definition Digital Versatile Disc (HD DVD) and the Blu-ray Disc high-definition video disc formats. The two rival disc formats are locked in a good-versus-evil, battle-to-the-death struggle to convince studios, manufacturers, consumers, and anyone else who will listen that their format makes the most sense (and cents) for the future of packaged optical media. Although most people immediately think video when they hear about High Definition on disc, the announcement of mandatory audio standards is an excellent reminder to all concerned that audio quality is just as important as video clarity.