Threat to Earlier HDTV Owners Not Passed - Digital TVs and cable boxes are just going on sale which incorporate the new plug-and-play standards agreed on a couple years ago by the Consumer Electronics Association and the cable industry. The agreement nixed two bad ideas promulgated by the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America): Reduction of the resolution of hi-def programming when received via an analog input such as component video, and Selectable Output Control by the providers (the ability to turn off your PVR if they didn’t approve of something you had recorded or were recording). Well, the MPAA is back to promoting those two ideas and wants the FCC to adopt them both. If the disaster that is the current FCC agrees with them, the six million people who already own the “wrong” kind of DTV will simply be stuck.
Online Tool for AV Connections - In line with the new plug-and-play standards, the CEA has launched a new online site to guide consumers step-by-step to proper interconnection of their various electronic devices. There are photos and descriptions of each connector, where they are located on equipment and how to use them for maximum performance. The idea is that with a few clicks of the mouse they can figure out which cable goes where. [We tried the site before posting this and need to inform you that the CEA needs to check their own connections - it comes up "server cannot be found." Suggest going to www.ce.org in a week or so to see if they figured it out...]
Telarc Awarded Label of the Year - Telarc International has been named Label of the Year by the definitive classical music publication Gramophone, based in the UK. The award recognized the Cleveland label’s over 25-year reputation for “sound quality of astounding fidelity presented in the latest formats.” The label has won 41 Grammys and many other industry awards over the years.
Edison’s First Sound Film at AES - The Heyser Lecture at the upcoming Audio Engineering Convention in San Francisco (Oct. 28-31) is by LucasFilm’s Walter Murch on “Edison’s First Sound Film and the Three Fathers of Cinema.” The film will be shown during the presentation. Ron Fair, president of A&M Records will be the keynote speaker, and an event has been added on Bass Handling in Spatial Reproduction.
October 13, 2004 
