<I>Elijah Wood, Ian McKellen, Liv Tyler, Viggo Mortensen, Sean Astin, Cate Blanchett, John Rhys-Davies, Bernard Hill, Christopher Lee, Billy Boyd, Dominic Monaghan, Orlando Bloom, Hugo Weaving, Miranda Otto, David Wenham, Brad Dourif, Karl Urban, John Noble. Featuring Andy Serkis as Gollum. With Ian Holm and Sean Bean. Directed by Peter Jackson. Aspect ratio: 2.35:1 (anamorphic). Dolby Digital 5.1 EX, DTS 6.1 ES, Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround. Four discs. 250 minutes (film). 2004. New Line Home Video N6932. PG-13. $39.99.</I>

TacT is a company with a mission. Their amps are all digital, and their 2-channel and AV preamplifier-processors are dedicated to solving the single biggest puzzle in home audio reproduction: the effect of the room.

The first meeting of the new Blu-ray Disc Association, or BDA, a larger, more formally organized version of the original Blu-ray Disc Founders group, was held in Tokyo, Japan on October 4, 2004. It was formed to promote the Blu-ray format and finalize its technical standards.

Despite the encroachment of progressive-scan component and DVI outputs from DVD players, and HD video displays with their own built-in deinterlacing and scaling, there is still a market for standalone video processors. They provide flexible switching. Many will convert inputs of all flavors to a single output format. And most CRT projectors still need a separate processor to upconvert standard-definition sources.