Home Entertainment 2001 arrives at the Hilton Hotel & Towers in New York this week for three days, May 11-13. There will be more than 80 rooms stuffed with the latest high end audio and video gear, including dozens of brand new products. For more information about the show, go to the <A HREF="http://www.homeentertainment-expo.com">HE 2001 website</A>.

Bigger is better, according to <A HREF="http://www.hitachi.com/">Hitachi</A>. The Japanese manufacturing giant has announced a 65"-diagonal rear-projection HDTV, its display illuminated by a <A HREF="http://www.ti.com/">Texas Instruments</A> digital light processing (DLP) unit with 8" optics. DLP technology creates a high-definition image using almost one million micromirrors on a chip to switch red, green, and blue light to form an image. When incorporated into a television with an HDTV receiver, display of both HDTV and high-resolution computer graphics is possible without any of the normal compromises found in traditional display technology.

Many home theater enthusiasts grumble about the slow pace of the development of digital television without considering the cost of the transition for broadcasters&mdash;approximately $2 million per studio. The great change isn't occurring only in our viewing rooms, but also in studios throughout North America.

In recent months, <A HREF="http://www.plasmavision.com">Fujitsu</A> has steadily lowered the prices for its groundbreaking 42" plasma display (see <A HREF="http://www.guidetohometheater.com/shownews.cgi?450">previous story</A>), while steadily improving the basic design's performance. Last week, the company announced that the newest models will be jumping back up in price with the latest additions to their Plasmavision product line, the PDS4221 and PDS4222. These two new models increase the number of current Plasmavision offerings to seven.