WORLD’S BIG@ESTVIDEO PUBLICATION 95 DEC. 1992

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Philips Presents The Imagination Machine

There are a lot of CD players that deliver great sound. But only one that transforms your television from something you look at and listen to into something you actually experience.

It's called the Imagination Machine.” It comes from Philips, the inventors of CD technology. And it's the world's first CD - Interactive Player

You Can Hold Some Of The Worlds Experiences In Ihe Palm Of Your Hand.

Asa (CD audio player, the Philips Imagination Machine delivers stunning musical babicipimne

And, when the simple connection is made to your television, the door is apenes to the bag Ridin world Hones entertainment and education.

In the same way yy that compact discs capture music, the wide variety of CD-Interactive titles have captured some of the world's truly amazing experiences and put them on standard 5-inch discs called CD-s.

Major publishers already involved in the

BPM ae acs em production of CD-I titles include: Time-Life, The SHThson Institution, ABC Sports Presents and Mercury Records. And, with the new Photo CD technology available through selected retailers offering KODALUX Processing Services, you can create your own CD family photo albums.

To see and hear CD-Interactive in action, call 1-800-532-6363 to arrange for a demonstration near you. Just five minutes with the Imagination Machine and youl discover it's more than a CD player. It's an experience!

Ps EE ae Tee off in a televised go Ito tournament. Compose a minuet with Mozart. Let your kids explore Richard Scarry’s Neighborhood. Take your family on a private tour of the Smithsonian. And much more. The Imagination Machine and a wide variety of CD-I titles lets you do it all from your living room.

Another First From Philips PHILIPS

FEATURES

MID- DRIVE

SPECIAL HOLIDAY GIFT GUIDE

PRIME-TIME PRESENTS 32 High-tech holiday hardware. By Ron Goldberg BREAKING TRADITION 36 Holiday viewing that still surprises. By April P. Bernard BIG GAME HUNT 38 Stalking 92’s top titles & action CDs. By Martin Brochstein HOME THEATER MAGIC 40 The $200,000 Cello Music and Film System may be the world’s best home theater. By Brent Butterworth FLAT-SCREEN EXPRESS 44 The $1 billion race to invent big, hang-on-the-wall TVs. By George Mannes ADVENTURES IN THE SCREEN TRADE 50 One shopper’s odyssey, through a jungle of sets & thickets of salespeak, nis ; nises to discover his ideal TV. By James M. Barry

Th REVIEWS 56 Beauty and the Beast, Alien 3, Sister Act, more EDITOR’S CHOICE / The Graduate at 25. By Kenneth Korman a7 DIRECTORY / The latest releases on tape and disc 66

VIDEOTESTS SHARP VC-H96U VHS VCR, 14 Sony KPR-41EXR95 41-inch TV, Hitachi VM-H39A Hi8 camcorder, JVC GR-SZ1 S-VHS-C camcorder. By Berger-Braithwaite Labs

DEPARTMENTS CHANNEL ONE / To HD, or not to HD 6 FEEDBACK / Letters from readers 8 GAZETTE / CD-ROM for the movie buff, Flying Saucers Over Hollywood, more 10 NEW PRODUCTS / Sharp’s radical ViewCam 28 HANDS-ON TEST / Videonics TitleMaker 30 OFF THE AIR / How wide is too wide? 116

Cover:

Decorating the holidays with the gift of video. Photography by Vittorio Sartor.

Video Magazine Volume XVI Number 9

Bureau

VIDEO Magazine (ISSN 1044-7288) is published monthly by Reese Communications, Inc., 460 W. 34 St., New York, NY 10001. Second-class postage paid at New York, NY and additional Mailing

The is prohibited. Single copy price $2.95; $3.50 in Canada; £2.50 in U.K. One-year subscription (12 issues) $15.; Canada, $22.47 (includes GST #R125938423) U.S.; foreign, air mail, $40 U.S. Canadian

ky Audit _ international publication permit #546488. Address subscription orders, change of address, correspondence and inquiries to: VIDEO, Box 56293, Boulder, CO 80322-6293, or call toll-free 800-365-1008. Change of address takes 60 days to process: send old address label, new address, and zip code. All material listed in this magazine is subject to manufacturer's change without notice, and publisher assumes no responsibility for such change. Printed in the U.S.A. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to VIDEO, Box 56293, Boulder, CO 80322-6293. For microform copies of issues or articles, write to: Serials Acquisition Dept., University Microfilms, Inc., 300 North Zeeb Ad., Ann Arbor, MI 48106.

4 VIDEO DECEMBER 1992

The Commitments 0691303 The Empire

Strikes Back 0782904 Return Of The Jedi 0783209 Backdraft *0559005 Alien 0000208 Aliens 0360909 The Abyss * 0881102 Die Hard * 0367607 Die Hard 2 * 0041806 Ghost *0826008 E.T.: The Extra-

Terrestrial * 0681106 Batman (1989) * 0642504 The Godfather 0000802 The Godfather: Part Ill 0842302 Back To The Future * 0211409 Back To The Future

Part Il * 0921304 Back To The Future

Part Ill *0497008 Predator * 0364901 Predator 2 * 0104307 Robin Hood:

Prince Of Thieves * 0976803 Home Alone * 0104208 Scarface (1983) 0216804 Goodfellas *0969808 The Blues Brothers 0211706 Dune 0211102 Kindergarten Cop 0523407 Lethal Weapon 0630806 Lethal Weapon 2 * 0642702 National Lampoon’s

Animal House 0211508 Forbidden Planet *0844407

Hearts Of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse 1002500

Here's a great way to build a collection of your favorite movies—on laserdiscs! Just write in the numbers of the 3 laserdiscs you want for $1.00 each, plus shipping and handling. In exchange, you simply agree to buy two more laserdiscs in the next year, at regular Club prices (currently as low as $29.95, plus shipping and handling)—and you may cancel membership at any time after doing so.

Free Magazine sent every four weeks (up to 13 times a year) reviewing our Director's Selection— plus scores of alternate choices, including many lower-priced laserdiscs. And you may also receive Special Selection mailings up to four times a year. (That's up to 17 buying opportunities a year.)

Buy only what you want! If you want the Director's Selection, do nothing-it will be sent automatically. If you'd prefer an alternate selection, or none at all, just mail the response card always provided by the date specified. And you'll always have 14

It’s A Wonderful Life (45th Anniversary Ed.) 0392308

The Last Boy Scout * 0779108 Odyssey *0844308 The Man Who Would K Beverly Hills Cop 0205302 Be King 0085803 Beverly Hills Cop Il 0431908 PM dinted For Red anaeoen Henry & June * 0499301 TROIble aoarvon The Grifters 0383000 nae Dibgbo8 & oo Bugs Bunny Classics 0297705 Edward Scissorhands 0104604 veren The nl i ac The African Queen 0051102 The se Of *0633206 Beetlejuice 0633008 EA Dangerous Liaisons *0638700 American Graffiti 0211300 e Reversal Of Fortune 0969709 Blue Velvet * 0515007 SEE DETAILS BELOW. Always *0921502 Harry Connick, Jr.: 7 Singin’ & Swingin’ 0968107 marae Cals reat Star Trek: ‘ The Motion Picture *0203505 Big DeG7#08 Star Trek Il: New Jack City 0971507 The Wrath Of Khan * 0201301 2 Fatal Attraction 0439307 Star Trek Ill: ide Chariots Of Fire 0601401 The Search For Spock *0201608 ATARI nan GT Star Trek VI* All Dogs Go To Heaven 0289702 Star Trek IV: 0805309 1001007 48 Hrs. 0202200 The Voyage Home: jas cssucus Another 48 Hours 0827808 Star Trek V: The Final Frontier *0448605 peamleRAge20) see aceue Superman: The Movie *0001305 plack Help Oe) Superman I 0601500 Becmnest gebence Hard To Kill 0953505 ae ete. #0216200 Born On The Fourth x i Of July #0489104 The Addams Family* Wayne's World* SAssBiACiON wit ald Field Of Dreams 0920306 paopeed poses =< ii Double Indemnity 0210104 Presumed Innocent *0962100 Caddyshack 0602300 Bead Warrier oe2e0? Above The Law 0633602 Chinatown *0202507 Bonnie & Clyde 0607200 Bird On A Wire *0497305 Brainstorm *0260000 Henry V (1990) *0040303 Coming To America 0441600 North By Northwest *0844209 7 The Wizard Of Oz 0001404 Patton 0788703 Star Wars Bugsy The Sound Of Music *0003905

days to decide; if not, you may return the selection at our expense.

Money-Saving Bonus Plan. If you continue your membership after fulfilling your obligation, you'll be eligible for our generous bonus plan. It enables you to enjoy great savings on the movies you want—for as long as you decide to remain a member!

10-Day Risk-Free Trial. We'll send details of the Club's operation with your introductory package. If not satisfied, return everything within 10 days for a full refund and no further obligation.

For fastest service, use a credit card and call us toll free 24 hours a day:

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Note: Columbia House Laserdisc Club reserves the right to reject or cancel any membership. Offer limited to EaHinshiol WSs [excluding /Aleskal vApplicabla sales/iax added 40 oll orcers #1400 Ni Fruiktdos Avenue, Terre Haute, IN 47811-1112

HOW TO BUY

HOME THEATER SPEAKERS

What is a home theater without loudspeakers? Not a very effective one to be sure. Fortunately, many manufacturers of home theater components have added these im- portant ingredients, designed espe- cially for use with video, to their home theater product lines.

Satellite speaker systems con- tain the necessary speaker compo- nents. They differ, however, in the number of speakers provided. All satellite systems will contain two front satellite speakers and a subwoofer, which will provide the deep, seat-rumbling sounds so im- portant to creating a theater-like ambience. To complete the pack- age, you'll need to add two sur- round, or rear channel, speakers so that you can enjoy the full Dolby Sur- round Sound Y try effect. Some

Professio val systems will Aucivige have these Associatlo: speakers in- cluded. Still other systems will include a center channel satellite speaker, which will output the video’s dialogue realis- tically and thus let the system de- liver the full effect of Dolby Pro Logic.

Regardless of the size and power handling capability, look for front channel and center channel speak- ers that are magnetically shielded. Other variations on the theme in- clude in-wall models as well as self-powered ones. What is right for you depends on the size of your viewing room, the needs that the home theater must fulfill, and, as always, your budget.

To find out more about home

theater speaker systems, consult your local PARA dealer. PARA is an association of specialty audio/video retailers. To locate a PARA dealer near you, call:

(708) 268-1500

Circle 2 on Reader Service Card.

CHANNEL ONE

Te: HD, or not to°HD

An atmosphere of inevitability about high-definition television has been build- ing over the past several years, spurred by the Federal Communications Commission’s aggressive pursuit of a terrestrial broadcast standard, by rapid- fire technological innovations, and by the courting of the HDTV selection committee and broadcasters by five suitors, each claiming to have the best system. The testing is completed now and the data is being analyzed as the advisory committee considers which system it will recommend to the FCC, a decision scheduled for February. After official field tests, the FCC is expected to announce a standard later in 1993.

We recently had the opportunity to see some of the vigorous HDTV lobbying under way in Washington at a gathering of the Maximum Service Television Association (MSTV). This was the sixth annual HDTV conference conducted by MSTV, a broadcasters group. It was titled Countdown to Con- sensus, since it would be the last such meeting before the FCC decision.

The only consensus evident, however, was among broadcasters who are extremely wary of high-definition technology and most reluctant to embrace it. In an era of dwindling audience share and advertising revenues, these broadcasters are unable to see how the significant investment required to up- grade their facilities for HDTV would bring them additional revenue.

Broadcasters, especially in smaller markets, feel beleaguered. Throughout the day, conferees struggled to get a handle on how much they would have to invest in HDTV conversion and how they could earn it back. Estimates ranged from $2 million to $15 million, leading one to note if that were truly the magnitude of the investment, he just would go out of business.

Another asked FCC Chairman Alfred Sikes point-blank, “We're forced to invest $10 to $15 million with little or no chance to recoup it. What’s the benefit in addition to more lines of resolution?”

Sikes, who delivered the meeting’s keynote address, gave a two-part an- swer: First, HDTV technology will open new avenues of creativity we can’t even begin to imagine today. Second, failure to upgrade could sound a death knell for the traditional broadcast system. “If General Motors hadn’t upgraded its plants a few years ago, it would be dead today,” said Sikes. “Any industry that fails to upgrade is dead.”

Richard Wiley, a former FCC chairman who now heads the Advisory Committee on Advanced Television, sounded the same tone in his remarks. “Advanced digital is not just about pretty pictures,” Wiley said. “It’s part of a worldwide imaging revolution.”

We agree with the chairmen that digital technology represents the future of video and communications. Video Magazine’s readers know well that the movement has already begun and will soon accelerate, thanks to direct-broad- cast satellites and other digital platforms. We expect savvy broadcasters will find ways to adapt and evolve in the coming digital age. It won’t be a simple transition. But the digital train will soon be leaving the station, and those who aren’t on board will surely be left behind.

James M. Barry Editor

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“Warton need tS sare professional quality videos.

Yo don’t have to be a professional to get profes- Canon’ 6-mode Programmed AE—our exclusive sional quality results. All you really need is the auto-exposure system that ensures perfectly exposed Canon UCS3. videos, even under extreme shooting conditions.

The UCS3 is like no ordinary camcorder. It offers Of course, there are other things to like about the Hi8 format for superior picture definition. An advanced — new UCS3. Like the fact that it offers extraordinary digital processor for even sharper, more brilliant Hi-idelity stereo sound. And comes equipped with

colors. And an improved AF system for faster, more a stereo zoom microphone that allows you to move-in precise focusing. on sound as you move-in on your subject.

In addition, the UCS3 gives you the superior optics So if you want professional quality videos, you don’t of a Canon 12x zoom lens. And offers the brilliance of 1 need a network. You need the UCS3.

Circle 3 on Reader Service Card. Can On

Choosing a shooting format

After reading your comparison of five S-VHS-C camcorders (‘‘Five Star Shootout,” Aug. ’92), I fail to see the purpose of the entire S-VHS-C format. Who were these camcorders made for? You state that “the picture quality of camcorder formats like VHS-C and 8mm usually doesn’t cut it for serious home video.” People interested in seri- ous home video should use S-VHS. Palm-sized camcorders were not intend- ed to be used to shoot “serious home video,” and people not interested in editing their footage certainly aren’t se- rious. Furthermore, these camcorders cost just as much as excellent S-VHS camcorders — so no sensible market ex- ists for them and no sensible person would purchase one.

Christian Kugel

Brenham, Texas

In “Five Star Shootout” you conclude that some people will enjoy the extra resolution of S-VHS-C camcorders and the benefit of having tapes compatible with an S-VHS VCR. I believe the real- ity is that people looking for quality camcorders don’t have S-VHS VCRs at home, and can’t drop another $1,000 af- ter the camcorder purchase.

The alternative is using the cam- corder for the player, which is what hap- pens with Hi8. Hi8 has twice as many machines to choose from, offers two hours of recording time as opposed to 30 minutes, and has video input recording, a rarity on S-VHS-C camcorders. When purchasing a small, high-resolution con- sumer camcorder, why not opt for the format that has more going for it?

Robert Lebzelter Conneaut, Ohio

Chopped-up classics

Readers who may have bought any of the Disney reissues of the Rocky and Bullwinkle shows should know they’re getting chopped-up versions. Disney has edited out episode transitions to reduce the amount of “filler” and keep the time under 60 minutes for each cassette.

Hatchet Job: it was 5 Dare: not Boris and Natasha, says a reader, that chopped Bullwinkle reissues.

“Wossamotta U.” was subjected to the worst mangling, with almost 10 percent of its 40-minute running time lopped off. Disney has one hell of a lot of nerve to mutilate someone else’s work, then label it “Classic Stuff.”

William Sommerwerck

Bellevue, Washington

Reformed Betaphile

I must admit that when I first read Roderick Woodcock’s suggestion to a reader (“QGA,” May ’92) that he buy an S-VHS VCR instead of an ED Beta machine, I really thought he had come off the spool. I own two Sony EDV-9500s and one EDV-7500 and they are superior performers in every way. However, I now realize I’ve been duped again, as Sony seems to have abandoned the format. When I needed some tape in a hurry, I went directly to the Sony outlet on Route 17 in New Jersey. When I asked to buy some EL500 blank tapes, I was treated like I had two heads. Then I paid full list price ($20 each). After I calmed down, I did some detective work and purchased a JVC BR-S6000 S-VHS VCR. Then I made some side-by-side comparisons with the EDV-9500, using a laserdisc for the source material. The difference was so slight I would have to recommend the S-VHS format. Peter Milo Suffern, New York

Video Magazine welcomes your comments. Letters may be edited for clarity and space. Address correspondence to Feedback, Video Magazine, 460 West 34 Street, New York, NY 10001.

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8 VIDEO DECEMBER 1992

: President and nag | Jay Rosenfiel Cs a Editor, James M. ‘Barry ou mM “Managing Editor, Stan Pinkwas

- Technical Editor, Lancelot Braithwaite Senior Editors, Kenne!

Brent Butterworth Assistant Editors, Brian Clark, April P. Bernard

Arthur, Bob Barlow, Frank Beacham, Ivan Berger, James Caruso, Steve Daly, Steve Ditlea, Bruce Eder, Ron Gi

Harrington, David Lach

McComb, Marian:

Roderick Woodcock —

Art Director, Lonnie elle Associate Art Director, Vs

Art Assistant, Luis Production M

Production Typesetting, Janet M Holland —

Publisher, Eric C. Schwartz oe

Associate Publisher, Linda DeRogatis a Cir

hae Rodney. Bell

porate Offices, West 34 Street, New Y 212- 947-6500, (212-9

ast Advertising M | Third Street, Suite 490, Santa lonica,

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REESE. COMMUNICATIONS @ INCORPORATED

Editors: Bob als hoe } .

AVOID COMMON MISTAKES @ - RIGHT FROM THE START. &

ISHER’S NEW Hi-Fi VCR WAS CREATED TO RECORD,

‘ : 2 FVH8902 playback and relieve anxiety. It’s virtually goof-proof. 4-Head Mid-Mount No unhappy endings where beginnings were supposed to be. With VHS Video Cassette / mie : : : VCR built into it, you record your favorite show simply by aia kl pressing the show code number that appears in your local TV list- VHS Hi-FiStereo _) Flying Erase praia se te: Hee Wl. Sh i . Recording and Head ings. If you rent a lot of movies, you ll appreciate the self-cleaning Phiykaak CVCR Pluss” heads. You can even set the clock without a Ph.D. Get a great pic- MTS/dbx Stereo Programming ture and great sound and avoid mistakes. oud SAR (Second, |” Ui Programmed FISHE R Audio Program) Universal Remote Control Decoder with Shuttle

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EDITED BY KENNETH KORMAN

02299 W 10-apr-1992

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THE GODFATHER, Part 11] at the onera

Just the Facts: Cinemania icons give basic info, while a menu offers categories for more details.

ROM with a view

At a particularly sinister moment in GoodFellas, Joe Pesci asks his poker cro- nies, “What’s that movie that Bogart made, the one where he played a cow- boy?” Although someone ventures The Oklahoma Kid, the answer comes too late; an irate Pesci shoots the bar- tender’s foot off. Too bad the wise- guys weren't PC literate. All they had to do was boot up Cine- mania, and poor Spider might still be walking today.

Cinemania is a

Microsoft Marquee: Cinemania’s opening visual.

database of Oscar nominees and win- ners? The capsule reviews were culled from Leonard Maltin’s Movie and Video Guide, and the bios, as well as other nu- merous articles, are courtesy of Baseline.

But wait, there’s more. Static text is something you can get out of a book, so who needs a computer? Well, wouldn’t it be nice to see a still from the movie you’ve just looked up? There are more than 500 of them here, as well as 1,500 photos of stars, directors and producers. Still not con- vinced? How about audio snip-

log from almost 100 different films? Now you'll always know when Gloria Swanson is really

multimedia film reference stored on a CD-ROM disc, the ultimate movie “book” for the tech- no-cineaste. You want details? How about 19,000 movie listings (ranging from 1914 to 1991), 3,500 biographies -and filmographies, and a complete

ready for Mr. DeMille, and why Alfonso Bedoya don’t need no stinking badges.

Videophiles will get a special kick out of Cinemania, because not only does it indicate a film's availability on video, it lets you print out a “shopping list” you

pets of famous dia- |

can take with you to the video store. You can find any title or individual quickly, with searches by genre, actor, director, release date, star rating or Academy Award status. Want to delve deeper into your search? Click one of the highlighted words and you can jump straight to a related topic: Bogart + western = Treasure of the Sierra Madre. And for those who've always wondered what a “key grip” does, Cinemania con- tains a handy glossary of movie terms.

Now how much would you pay? How’s $79.95 —a bargain for CD- ROM —and $30 for annual updates available to registered purchasers. The catch is that you'll need a well-endowed PC for all this. But Cinemania is intuitive to use and a lot of fun. Now what was that movie where the guy had a rela- tionship with his computer and never left his room? Let's see.....

—Ron Goldberg

Plan 9’s lowly legacy

Few films have ever achieved the mix of adulation and revulsion inspired by Plan 9 From Outer Space (1959). This made- for-pennies science-fiction epic — writ- ten, directed and produced by the legen- dary auteur Edward D. Wood Jr. (Glen or Glenda, Night of the Ghouls) — has gained the reputation as one of the all- time turkeys, a title that is instantly placed on every “‘worst movies of all time” list. With its ridiculous script, stu- pid plot and overall technical incompe- tence, Plan 9 offers everything you'd ever hope to find in a truly dreadful movie.

But is there more to the Plan 9 story? This question sent Mark Patrick Car- ducci scurrying all over Los Angeles for several months in search of an answer. The result is Flying Saucers Over Holly- wood: The Plan 9 Companion, an invigo- tating lll-minute video tribute to the cinematic schlocker. Filmmaker Car- ducci (who co-wrote the fright film Pumpkinhead) explores the history and | legacy of the 1959 cult classic through some incredible anecdotes from actors and production people who worked on the film, commentary from aficionados

10 VIDEO DECEMBER 1992

a. ia “FLYING SHliPERS OVER HOLLYWOOD

—— ne

NG SAUCERS

lune 24 —

like director Sam Raimi (the Evil Dead series) and clips from Plan 9 and other Wood works. Carducci draws a surpris- ing conclusion: Yes, Plan 9 is an enter- tainingly awful movie, but it should be appreciated — even respected — for sev- eral reasons.

Carducci admires Wood for “his de- termination in making films his own way and with no money. He had a way to turn a phrase, and the dialog has a bi- zarre eloquence to it. Although he couldn’t afford special effects, at least he used symbols for special effects. There was a certain chutzpah to what he was doing.” Still, Carducci wanted his pro- duction to present an impartial look at Plan 9, because “some people like it, while others are offended by it.”

Originally called Grave Robbers From Outer Space, Plan 9 tells the tale of alien invaders who plan to take over the Earth by transforming dead humans into deadly zombies. The ensemble cast in- cludes TV horror hostess Vampira, 350- pound former wrestler Tor Johnson, Hollywood psychic Criswell and a sadly decrepit Bela Lugosi, who died before filming actually began and was replaced by a chiropractor in a cape who bears lit- tle resemblance to the actor. Wood merely inserted silent footage of Lugosi he had shot earlier where needed.

-'“My friends and I decided to have a party on May 6, 1991, the date Criswell predicted flying saucers would land in Washington, D.C.,” says Carducci. “We

watched Plan 9 on laserdisc. Makeup

man Harry Thomas and actor Conrad Brooks showed up, and they recalled the film’s production. We videotaped them, and realized a few weeks later we should make an entire film about Plan 9.” Flying Saucers Over Hollywood: The Plan 9 Companion is available for $24.95 (plus $3.50 shipping) from Atomic Pic- tures, Box 15824, North Hollywood, CA 91615. —Irv Slifkin

Clancy’s fancy

Harrison Ford studies the image on a computer screen, electronically magni- fying a tiny speck again and again until he transforms a vague outline into a clear image. This sequence from Patriot Games (Paramount) is eerily reminis- cent of Ford in an almost identical scene from the 10-year-old sci-fi cult classic Blade Runner. The difference is that what was once a part of Blade Runner's futuristic fantasy world is now featured in one of writer Tom Clancy’s accurate and detailed portraits of modern intel- ligence technology.

So Future Shock: Patriot Games’ Harrison Ford, aided by a computer, zeroes in on a terrorist camp.

In another powerful scene from this adaptation of Clancy's best-selling tech- no-thriller novel, Ford and fellow intel- ligence personnel use satellite surveil- lance to pinpoint and destroy a terrorist hideout. For all of us who’ve watched real destruction on CNN and seen phrases like “smart bomb” join the ver- nacular, this scene’s cold, distant por- trayal of “sterile” killing is now easier to identify with than the more graphic vio- lence we've grown accustomed to in movies. The technology somehow makes the scene feel disturbingly real.

Clancy’s technical expertise and ex-

aa

TIMESHIFT

TEN YEARS AGO IN VIDEO MAGAZINE ad

A Chicago viewer has sued a local station complaining about the poor quality of a 3-D movie it broad- cast... Three satellites were lost in a single week in September, two in the Atlantic Ocean and one that just ran out of gas...Highly promising CBS cable, offering the finest mix of cultural and food-for-thought pro- gramming around, called it quits af- ter a little more than a year on the air, blaming the economy...Accord- ing to a study by the California Board of Education, kids who watch Dukes of Hazzard regularly score 4 percent lower on achievement tests than kids who watch it only a little or not at all. Even worse, kids who watch Charlie's Angels, CHiPS and The PTL Club score 10 to 15 percent lower than non-viewers. The good news is that kids who watch M*A*S*H and the nightly news scored 4 percent higher than other kids...Sony is readying its first shipment of stereo VCRs for the be- ginning of next year and wants to make sure folks have the perfect pro- gramming for them. You know all those music video clips you see on MTV, Don Kirschner and USA Net- work? Well, now you and your kids will have a chance to pay for them...Recommended gifts for the holiday season: the Schudel Vid- eo Telekaster ($495), an add-on magnifying device that turns a 13-to 14-inch TV into a low-powered pro- jection system; the Winegard AT5001 indoor antenna ($54), which stands more than six feet tall; the Kloss Novabeam Model Two Moni- tor ($2,200), the best front-projec- tion set available to home users at any price; the Sony KV-2645RS big- screen 26-inch monitor ($1,250), a stereo-ready set that’s a videophile’s

includes a 19-inch TV, a seven-watt audio amplifier, an AM/EM tuner, an audio cassette deck and speakers with separate woofers and twee-

ters. .

DECEMBER 1992 VIDEO 11

THE NATION’S first live simulcast inn TSC and HDTV was dem- onstrated by the Advanced Televi-

sion Research

Video Flashes Consortium in Washington,

D.C., on September 30. An evening news program of WRC-TV, a local NBC affiliate, was transmitted con- ventionally, as well as in HDTV, to a nearby hotel. The side-by-side com- parison of 4:3 NTSC with 16:9 HDTV dramatically showed the advantages of the digital system, and that the two signals can be transmitted without in-- terference.

MA AAAAAAAAAAAL

THE FIRST ANIMATED FEATURE nominated for a Best Picture Oscar can now be dissected frame by frame with Walt Disney’s $50 “work-in-prog- — ress” CAV laserdisc of Beauty and the Beast (Image Entertainment). A unique combination of finished color — film and pencil animation, the letter- boxed disc also boasts an alternate version of “Be Our Guest,” theatrical trailers and preliminary animation of the Beast’s “transformation” scene. © Disney has no plans to release the fin- | ished film on disc.

Clancy’s fancy continued from page II

actitude caused some friction with the creators of the film, but the writer was pleased with the realism of these scenes, according to Mace Neufeld, one of Patri- ot Games’ producers. When Ford and the filmmakers visited the CIA anti-ter- rorist center, they found a number of Clancy and Ford fans eager to help the production. Says Neufeld: “We got in because Harrison had a cup of coffee with some of the guys and said, ‘Gee, wouldn't it be great if I could see the anti-terrorist room?’ ” The next thing they knew, they were in the inner sanc- tum with the production designer sketching away. —Jon Silberg

A tale of : 2 videophones

“Is Your Head Melting, Or Is My Video- Phone On the Blink Again?” asked The New York Times headline. “AT&T's Vid- eoPhone Doesn’t Measure Up To Its Price Tag,” answered The Wall Street Journal. With opening notices like these | in two of America’s most prestigious

STILL WAITING FOR SKYPIX? Don’t hold your breath. The pioneer- ing effort to set up a direct-broadcast satellite system is foundering. After missing startup deadlines and losing time it had leased for satellite trans- ponders, SkyPix filed for bankruptcy. The company, mired as well in several lawsuits, had billed itself as “the entre- preneurial story of 1992” for its prom-

_ ise of a system that would offer dozens

of movie channels plus traditional ca- ble programs. At presstime, SkyPix was due to submit reorganization

plans. ‘

KEVIN ADAMS’ 30-MINUTE TAPE Can't Take That Away From Me won Grand Prize in Sony's eighth annual Visions of U.S. video contest. Two 14- year-old Seattle residents, Gabriel Ju- det-Weinshel and Aidan Fraser, took First Prize for fiction video. Deadline for next year’s contest is tentatively set for June 15. Watch this space for fur-

ther details.

WE UNCOVERED MANY HIGH- tech surprises at October’s Custom Electronic Design and Installation As- sociation (CEDIA) show in Dallas. — First was a 58-inch, 16:9 widescreen rear-projection monitor from Pan-

Call Watching: MCI's videophone, at $750 per unit, is half the price of AT&T's VideoPhone.

newspapers, you would think the people

at AT&T would go into overtime trying to get the good word out about its new $1,499 voice and picture telephone. Think again.

For months, Video Magazine has at- tempted to acquire the VideoPhone to see if this is the breakthrough product that will herald a new age of video com- munications. Before the negative no- tices, we were told no units were available. After they appeared, we were told the phones were getting “new soft- ware” and were not available.

Undeterred, I visited an AT&T phone store in New York City, where the VideoPhone 2500 is on display. Posing as a customer, I suggested to the sales clerk that I might plop down three grand on

asonic, which the company plans to market next spring for about $6,000. Harman Video showed a front projec- tor/line doubler package that pro- duced a big, near-HDTV quality picture for a relatively paltry $10,000. And Runco showed a prototype of a $5,000 high-end laserdisc player that combines a rugged Matsushita side- changing transport with improved dig- ital video and audio circuitry.

° A TOP COP HAS COME OUT shooting, and the camcorder is his weapon of choice. Accused of using “Gestapo tactics” to collect traffic fines and other court-ordered judg- ments, New York City sheriff Philip Crimaldi has ordered his repo squads to videotape every one of the 117,000 cars, trucks and businesses his office seizes in a typical year. If local officials want to pursue their charges, “they can look at the videotape,”’ says Crimaldi. ‘

THAT OLD CAMCORDER OR video camera you don’t use could be furthering the cause of human rights rather than gathering dust in a closet. The Witness program provides video equipment to human rights activists around the world. Call 212-598-3646

for more information.

the spot to buy a pair of VideoPhones if I could get an actual demonstration. Per- haps I could videophone someone in an- other store? Nope, said the clerk, AT&T wasn’t doing demos.

But there was a sales video I could watch. As the tape, fed by a VCR, start- ed to play, a swirling glob of mushy col- ors appeared on the VideoPhone’s three- inch-square LCD screen.

“Ts that supposed to be a person?” I asked.

“T think so, but I’m not sure,” the clerk replied.

“Does it always look this bad?” I asked.

“Sorry, but there are no controls to adjust it,” said the clerk.

Not content to let AT&T rest on its laurels, MCI Communications has an- nounced its own videophone. Priced at $750, half the AT&T price, it will be available early next year.

Both phones use compression tech- nology to send 10 color video frames per second over standard telephone lines, although neither phone will be compati- ble with the other. Both plug into a home phone jack and permit video calls for the same price as a conventional call.

Will the pictures be worth watching? Stay tuned. —Frank Beacham

12 VIDEO DECEMBER 1992

are the intelligent choice in ‘Il not only want to carry a You actually can.

nation, call 1-800-BE-SHARP.

come. SHARP PRODUCTS”

SHARP ISION SHARP.

LCD VIDEO PROJECTION SYSTEMS » LCD DIRECT VIEW VIDEO MONITORS *« CAMCORDERS ¢ VCR°-» AUDIO“ EREXISONS LCD

Circle 5 on Reader Service Card.

BERGER-BRAITHWAITE LABS

il!

artaenoentesnatnment ont RARER THERESA, prmenyniaeimnnasermmeminnnaUren ean tasarontseninmint ont

— 1 £h KP

'Many people who do a lot of time- shifting or who collect videotapes love the VHS EP (or SLP) speed, which squeezes six hours of video onto one T-120 tape. But record- ing at EP causes a significant drop in

VHS picture quality VCR compared with SP,

although advances in EP recording have helped close the gap. With the VC- H96U, Sharp dramatically improves EP

Sharp Vo-H9GU VHS VER

VIDEOTEST

661 SHARP

Price: $570

Weight & Size (h/w/d): 10.4 Ibs.; 3-5/8 x 15 x 12-5/8 inches

Tape Format & Speeds: VHS; tecord—SP, EP; play—SP, LP, EP

Video Heads: 6

Cue & Review Search: SP/LP—5x, EP—15x

Fast Forward/Rewind Time: approx. 5 min. for T-120

Front-Panel Controls: buttons for power, eject, rewind/search, play, fast forward/ search, stop, pause/still, record, setup, TV/VCR, add/erase, + and -; slide switches for noise reduction on/off and fine head on/off

Remote Control: IR

Hi

AL-PICTUR

Fi MIS STEREO

JONTROL SYSTEM

VHS) HOY

POWER EJECT

pictures by using an extra set of heads optimized for EP playback Conventional four-head VCRs use the same pair of heads for EP and spe- cial effects. These heads use a gap (the tiny slot in the head where its magnetic field is concentrated) about 30 microns wide to lessen. noise in special-effects. modes like search and still. Unfor- tunately, 30-micron head gaps are much larger than the diagonal video tracks re- corded on the tape at the EP speed. The result is that on playback, the head picks

-up the edges of other tracks, as well as

the track it’s supposed to read. This causes noise. The VC-H96U’s dedicated 19-micron EP heads eliminate the over-

search up to 9 marks in either direction

wireless with buttons for VCR—power, eject,

Sharp aimed its

VC-H96U VHS

hi-fi VCR at the

many people who like to tape at the slow EP speed. The deck carries an extra set of video heads with a 19-micron head gap de- signed for better EP playback. Com- bined with automatic noise reduction and a midmount transport, this con- figuration produces stunning results. In both SP and EP, the picture quali- ty of the VC-H96U is really out- standing. Audio quality and ease of use are both very good, making over- all performance very good to excel- lent. At $570, it’s a great buy —some decks at this price have more fea- tures, but few can match its picture.

TVVCR, menu, call, onscreen, 10-digit key- pad, 100, -, +, add/ erase, display, cancel, SP/EP record, record, standby, stop, play, pause/still, slow, slow speed/DPSS - and +, frame advance, 2x, re- wind/search, fast for- ward/search, tamper proof, zero back, repeat and skip search; TV (post-1985 Sharp mod- els)—power, TV/video, channel up and down, volume up and down, mute

Jacks: rear RF in and out and video/stereo audio in and out, front video/stereo audio in

Program Start Locator/Index/Cue: index—auto mark,

14 VIDEO DECEMBER 1992

Audio: linear mono, hi-fi AFM stereo

Tuning Method: frequency synthesis

Channel Selectors: programmable scan on VCR, scan plus direct access on remote

Preset Method: auto program with manual add/erase

Cable Tuning Range: A-8, 2 to 13, A to W, AA to BBB, 65 to 94, A-5 to A-1, 100 to 125

Timer: 8-event/1-year plus simple timer with 24-hr. delay

Special Features: still frame, frame advance, slow motion, speed play, midmount trans- port, onscreen instruc-

tion coach, front-panel input, skip search up to 2 min., random repeat, tamper-proof function, auto head cleaning, auto noise reduction

Absent Features: au- dio dub, video dub, insert edit, titles/graph- ics, fying erase head, jog/shuttle dial, remote pause jack, record speed control on VCR, VCR Plus, headphone jack, mic jack, record- ing level control

RESULTS

Horizontal Resolution: 250 lines

_S/N Ratios (dB): un-

weighted video—46.6 SP, 42.6 EP; weighted video—52.3 SP, 51.1

EP; chroma AM—48 SP, 43.5 EP; chroma PM—40.9 SP, 39.1 EP Audio Frequency Response: hi-fi—20 Hz-20 kHz, +0.1/-1.8 dB; linear (-3 dB)—80 Hz-11 kHz SP, 75 Hz-4 kHz EP

Hi-Fi Dynamic Range: 86.4 dB

Linear Audio S/N: 43.1 dB

Audio, Distortion: hi- fi—0.3%, linear—0.9%

RATINGS Picture: excellent Audio: very good Ease of Use: very good

Overall: very good/excellent

PAUSE/ AY FRR MSTOP MST

Head Game;

Two of the video heads on Sharp’s VC-H96U use 19-micron head gaps optimized for EP recording and playback.

MID-DRIVE

CENTER

VIDEOTEST PHOTOGRAPHS: LES MORSILLO

MOUNTED MECHANISM

lap and clean up the EP picture.

However, squeezing six video heads and two audio heads on the same drum is difficult because it also requires two extra transformers, which are used to transfer signals from the spinning part of the drum to the stationary part. If Sharp had used the flat rotary transformers found in most VCRs, the transformers would have been too close together and crosstalk (signal leakage from one chan- nel into another) would have resulted. Instead, Sharp uses stacked cylindrical rotary transformers to reduce the inter- ference.

The result of all this careful engi- neering is a cleaner EP picture much closer to that obtained at the SP speed. A midmount cassette transport mecha- nism reduces mechanical vibration fur- ther, improving picture quality at all speeds.

Sharp also made the machine very easy to use by restricting the number of controls on the VCR, putting all but power and eject inside a compartment to produce a clean uncluttered look, and adding a simplified onscreen instruction manual for the common functions. The VC-H96U has many modern features, like front input jacks, frame advance, slow motion, double-speed play, segment repeat (which marks and repeats a user- selected segment of tape), skip search (which advances the tape in 30-second increments at the touch of a button) and a tamper-proof function locking sys- tem. It doesn’t have the features you

continued on page 26

In an effort to make big-screen TV more practical for those with lit- tle space, and more attractive to those with an aversion to giant, room-dominating components, some manufacturers have begun offer- ing slim rear-pro-

VIDEOTEST

662

SONY 41-inch

rear- ariel oe By projectiOn. tubes upward,

they can trim TV set more than a foot of depth, making the sets thin enough to fit in most living rooms. Sony’s KPR-41EXR95 is perhaps the most ele- gant realization of this concept. It pro- duces a 41-inch picture, but its cabinet is only 20 inches deep — about the same as

Lean and Mean: Sony's KPR-41EXR95 41-inch TV set is only as deep as most 20- inch sets, and offers top-notch rear-projection performance.

With the KPR- 41EXR95, Sony carries the trend toward slim rear-

HIGHLIGHT

projection sets to a new level—the set is only as deep as most 20-inch di- rect-view sets. As a re- sult, it can bring the large picture required for home theater into much smaller rooms.

And it works this mira- cle without sacrificing quality or features. Pic- ture quality is excel- lent, and audio, ease of use and overall perfor- mance are very good to excellent. At $2,799, it’s a bit pricey, but un- deniably hard to resist.

a 20-inch direct-view set.

The set carries enough features to satisfy almost any videophile. It offers picture-in-picture and a Hughes SRS audio system, which produces surround- sound effects using only the two speak- ers inside the set. Its crowded rear panel offers three video inputs, as well as a monitor (selected source) output, and the front panel has an input for easy camcorder connection.

DECEMBER 1992 VIDEO 15

Circle 16 on Reader Service Card.

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4 I I I I I | | I I I I I I I =

16 VIDEO DECEMBER 1992

NEW TECHNOLOGY, LOWER PRICES...

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CNN ¢ USA Network » TNT** « WGN ° Family Channel * HBO & Cinemax* ¢ Sci-Fi Channel ¢ Black Entertainment TV * ESPN** ¢ Mind Extension University » CNBC Disney Channel* * The Discovery Channel * The Movie Channel* « MOR Music ¢ Headline News « Arts & Entertainment * The Nashville Network ¢ Superstation TBS * and MORE!

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Three program palette modes let a user optimize picture and sound for dif- ferent types of program material. The movie mode boosts sharpness and cre- ates theaterlike audio effects. The sports mode boosts brightness and provides stadium sound effects. And the news mode reduces picture noise while opti- mizing audio for voices.

The set also offers switchable noise reduction, selectable color temperature (10,500 or 8,850 Kelvins), channel cap- tioning, onscreen labels (such as “WHS” and “LD”) for video inputs, three on/off timer settings, channel block (which locks out channels you don’t want the kids to watch), convergence from the remote control and onscreen menus in English, Spanish or French.

The sides and back make it look more like a graceful, gently curved sculpture than the bulky projection TV sets we’re used to. The front is quite simple, with the screen reaching to within a few inches of the top and sides. Below the screen sit buttons for power, channel, volume and input. A small compartment below hides video/stereo audio jacks for video 3 input (duplicated on the rear) and buttons for demo, re- turn/favorite and the menu system.

The remote control also operates many brands of VCRs, laserdisc players and cable boxes. It offers the usual con- trols for channel, volume, mute, sleep (30-, 60- or 90-minute off timer), input select and other functions, plus picture plus and minus buttons and menu sys- tem controls. Picture-in-picture controls include on/off, swap, freeze, input select, position (in any corner of the screen), channel (when the inset picture comes from the tuner) and audio swap, which switches to the audio that accompanies the inset picture. A sliding cover reveals buttons for controlling a VCR or a laser- disc player.

Using the set is relatively straightfor- ward. The primary operating control is the remote. Direct channel access re- quires that you press the enter button after making a keypad selection. Many options, including almost all picture and audio adjustments, are made with four buttons.

Some operations — such as adjusting brightness, tint and other picture pa- rameters— require many button pushes. However, the reduced number of but- tons minimizes remote clutter. The demo button in the front compartment serves as a simplified instruction manu- al, and tells you what appears on each submenu.

Unlike some other Sony sets, the KPR-41EXR95 has no second tuner for the PIP—you’'ll have to connect a video source to use the feature. To watch two

continued on page 27

Sony

KPR-41EXR95 41-Inch Rear- Projection

Monitor/ Receiver

Price: $2,799

Weight & Size (h/w/d): 158.8 Ibs.; 46-3/4 x 36-5/8 x 20 inches

Screen Size: 41 inches diagonally

Speaker Size: 5-inch woofer and 1.4-inch tweeter for each chan- nel

Type of Tuning: frequency synthesis

Method of Tuning: programmable scan on set, scan plus direct access on remote

Broadcast Tuning Range: 2 to 13, 14 to 69

Cable Tuning Range: 125 channels—A-8, 2 to 13, A to W, W+1 to W:+58, A-5 to A-1, W+59 to W+84

Remote Control: IR wireless with switches for VIR 1/2/3/MDP and TVi/cable box; buttons for muting, sleep, pow- er, 10-digit keypad, enter, TV/video, display, jump, A/V window + and -, menu, return/fa- vorite, picture + and -, and volume +/- rocker; PIP buttons—channel + and -, freeze, TV/video, position, swap, audio, PIP and off; covered VTR/MDP buttons for TV/VTR, code set, standard, power, chan- nel + and -, rewind/ search, play, fast for- ward/search, stop play and record (2 buttons)

Inputs: rear—1 S-vid- eo/video/stereo audio, 2 video/stereo audio, cen- ter speaker (right/left pair, 50 watts max.), 1

RF; front—1 video/ster- eo audio (duplicate of video 3)

Outputs: 1 S-video/vid- eo/stereo audio, 1 video/stereo audio (loop-through of input 3), 1 fixed stereo audio, 1 variable stereo audio

Internal Audio Amplifier Power: 2 x 12 watts

Special Features: very shallow footprint, Hughes SRS sound, PIP, multibrand remote, picture palette, three- setting on/off timer, op- tional VCR shelf, channel block, English/ Spanish/French menus, switchable noise reduc- tion, selectable color temperature

Absent Features: headphone jack, front- panel S-video input, second tuner for un- aided PIP, external speaker connectors, in- ternal Dolby Pro-Logic decoder

RESULTS

Horizontal Resolution: 760 lines

Picture S/N (at picture tubes, in dB): lumi- nance—56.8 dB, chroma AM—64.6, chroma PM—63.4

Accuracy of Colors: excellent

Audio Frequency Response: line out—20 Hz-20 kHz, +/-1 dB; speakers—20 Hz-15 kHz, +/-10 dB

Audio S/N: 71.3 dB

Total Harmonic Distortion: less than 1%, SRS off

RATINGS Picture: excellent

Audio: very good/excellent

Ease of Use: very good/excellent

Overall: excellent/very good

12 MORE REASONS TO BUY A JVC

12 free tapes from JVC let you capture hours of priceless memories. And because it’s Compact VHS, you can play your cassettes back on any VHS VCR (via provided VHS playpak). Not every camcorder maker can say that. And this holiday season, no other camcorder maker is offering this...

This offer is available only at authorized JVC dealers.

ee ee ee ee eae Ree he ee ee nn REPO en EE GR MRL Ae pee Seater eer a | I ' GET 12 FREE JVC VIDEO TAPES* = civic: | I only VHS, and 1

“omnpac ; ! ! WHEN YOU BUY ANY JVC CAMCORDER Compact VHS | | OFFICIAL * REQUEST * FORM provided VHS playpak) can be I H To get your 12 FREE JVC VHS-C compact video cassettes enclose: conveniently played on any VHS VCR. | 4 1. A photocopy of the purchase receipt of any JVC video camcorder clearly Offer good in USA only. PO/APO addresses ; 1 indicating a purchase between 11/1/92 and 12/31/92. : a 3 cay 1 I allowed. Allow 6-8 weeks for delivery. I 1 2. This completed Official Request Form including UPC number. Offer rights not assignable or transferable. I : (Official Request Form only. No reproductions will be accepted.) No group or organization refunds will be ‘ I Mail to: JVC Tape Offer, P.O. Box 210, Cataumet, MA 02534-0210 honored. Offer expires 1/31/93. I ! Limit one request per family or household. Void where prohibited. ! ; Consumers will receive 12 JVC EC-30 ; 1 VHS-C compact video cassette tapes, ! . Name (Please print clearly) approx, retail value $60.00. *Each tape : 1 has an approximate recording time of f - Address 20 minutes for Standard Play Mode } I (60 min. for Extended Play Mode). I I City State Zip (must be included) These promotional tapes are not meant 1 : for resale. } I UPC Number (from camcorder box) 1 1 Offer void if correct proof-of-purchase requirements and the Official Request Form are not included. ©1992 JVC Company of America, 1 “ Elmwood Park, New Jersey 07407. |

vo

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w

Universal Studios

wo

Ski Lessons

v

Softball Game

Air Race

Nancy'6 Shower

Dance Recital

Mardi Gras 92

fA “ ‘ae 4 bee

THE RUNCO CINEMAPRO 750 SERIES §f PROFESSIONAL DIGITAL PROJECTOR A positive projection on the future of

home theater. i

Runco has raised the stan- dard for front projection TV with its new CinemaPro 750. Projecting an extremely bright picture, the 750 has Super Delta-Brite lenses with enhanced phosphors. This technology enables the 750 to deliver a dynamic peak picture brightness of 750 lumens — 25 percent more than Runco’s previous model, the 600.

Also included in the 750 is an innovative and advanced video

processor that contains several sophisticated components including a 2H adaptive comb filter, black level expander and 2d

BOGEN 3169 CINE/VIDEO TRIPOD THE IDEAL

CAMCORDER COMPANION

Easy to use and easy to handle, the 3169 combines Bogen 3001 Tripod Legs 7% and a 3130 QR Micro Fluid Head with Quick Release

| Plate. The Bogen 3001 Tripod is the lightest (about 3 lbs.) @ and the smallest (folds to 20 1/2 in.), but is one of the most

fe versatile tripods we offer. Sturdy, hard finish aluminum legs Pe ata erence te ae eee | feature 3 click stop spread angles and each has a sure grip, Convenience features also abound in this model. An easy to use Me quick-acting, non-fouling lever lock. The Bogen 3169 is on-screen menu system takes you through the set-up of the unit

i ; ; : : 2 and the enclosed learning remote control lets you access virtually Just one of a wide choice of tripods, fluid heads, dollies and all of the other commands of the 750 as well as many other pieces m accessories.

of home theater gear. See your dealer or write to Bogen Photo Corp., 565 East Crescent Avenue, Ramsey, N.J. 07446-0506; (201) 818-9500

For more information, contact Runco at 26203 Production Ave., Suite 8, Hayward, CA 94545; Tel: (510) 293-9154; Fax: (510) 293-0201. N

.

your Calcorder is $° advanced hOw Come it cant Shoot st¥ajght?

Hear Ye! i

GREAT SOUND FOR THE HEARING IMPAIRED

Chaparral, a leading manufacturer of sophis- ticated home entertainment products, has come up with the perfect entertainment solution for the hearing impaired — the dB50 assistive listening device. The dB50, a wireless personal listening system, lets the hearing impaired enjoy audio/video programming without blasting the sound throughout the room. It uses Chaparral’s EquaTone™ stereo technology, which provides tone adjustment for the left and right ear individually and in full stereo. It can be used any- where in your house or yard within a 150-foot range. And you can tune the compact wireless receiver to all FCC-designated listening broadcast frequencies, and listen at the level that’s ideal for you while family and friends listen to normal TV sound.

To hear more, call Chaparral at 800-435-7253.

Do your videos cause motion sickness? There’s only one solution. The Steadicam JR™. You can walk, run, climb stairs —and your videos never shake. Fits 8mm, Hi-8, VHS-C and S-VHS-C camcorders weighing 4 pounds or less.

3 For more information or the STEADICAM] name of the dealer nearest you, — Se call (800) 955-5025.

Cinema Products Corporation, 3211 S. La Cienega Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90016 # (310) 836-7991

‘INSTANT _ PROGRAMMER’

, VCR Plus+ Instant Programmer is the =.= perfect holiday gift for anyone who's ever

missed their favorite show. They'll find it’s the fastest, easiest way to tape the programs they want to see.

VIDEO torx tore

Connect your camcorder, VCR or other video sources to the WinVision™ board to create your own computer images, importing them into your favorite applications. Retouch, edit, get printouts, even send faxes (With your PC fax board - Why oy mail pictures? Fax Grandma shots of the birthday party before you cut the cake! ~ Print up to multi-page life size posters on most dot matrix, ink jet or laser printers ~ Create image data bases (real estate, insurance, personnel, etc) ~ Create your own greeting cards for next Holidays, add pictures to store pamphlets, club newsletters An WinVision™ is a PC compatible card (IBM XT, AT, 386, 486 and clones) and comes with powerful image retouching and enhancing software: PhotoFinish™ 1.01 for Windows (min. Windows 3.x, EGA or better and mouse) or PC Paintbrush IV Plus™ for DOS users (min DOS 3.x, CGA or better, hard disk and mouse). A fax card “~~ jommended, as it enables you to send images away as a Frugal Fax Video Phone! ‘han VGA resolution, 64 to 256 grays, HiQ notch filter to eliminate color without distortions mode required, real time capture in less than a second | edit, retouch and paint tools, special effects and filters, like mosaic, emboss, motion blur irites images as PCX™, TIF, BMP, GIF, MSP, TGA and EPS (Write only)

a in: ite Be Your imagination sets the limit!

Simply punch in the PlusCcode™ numbers, which are published in TV Guide and most newspaper listings, for the shows you want to watch. VCR Plus+ Instant Programmer does | the rest.

It automatically turns on your VCR, changes the channel (even on vour cable fox) and recards the nrooram for voi

SHOP WITH VIDEO'S

HOLIDAY fi

SHOWCASE

Get more information

on any advertisers featured

in Video Showcase or find out where the nearest dealer is for that

roduct. Simply circle the product number = a eo option and O AJ O PO LY FO R PCs

we ll do the rest. gin Games Offers

Showcase #1 Showcase #5 onopoly® Deluxe

A. Send me litercture A Send me literature P ly® Ke

B. Send me dealer —B._ Send me dealer For Windows

information information oly, the best-selling board-

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information ii poly Deluxe, ps ie , is an exact replica of the

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A. Send me literature A Send me literature ig BS DORI SO MG: heel and deal and|

oS e dealer 5 Saal ws dear gives players the ability to wheel and deal anc

informobion a SRS e real estate moguls. mputer version allows for up to ten players, either |

Showcase #4 Showcase #8 , computer or both, and features advanced effects

A rer me paves : a oe a ag and effects and animated tokens. Game pieces come J

———— ee er tog - on the computer screen — a running horse, a walk- de, a driving car, etc.

Name doly Deluxe lets the user customize the house rules ii fers a time limit option for those interested in a dif- | approach.

Address ‘al holiday gift, Monopoly Deluxe is available at

: 5 Ii ‘ested retail price of $49.99. For more informa- 3

City tate Ip ontact Virgin Games, Inc., at 800-874-4607. \

Phone

VS11

THE RUNCO CINEMAPRO 750 SERIES PROFESSIONAL DIGITAL PROJECTOR

A positive

! BOGEN 3169 CINE/VIDEO TRIPOD

THE sae projection on

=) | CAMCORDE wt the future of Mee ” mee © OMPANION home theater.

if Easy to use and easy to handle, / \ the 3169

| if \ combines Bogen

3001 Tripod Legs and a 3130 QR Micro Fluid Head with Quick Release Plate. The Bogen 3001 Tripod is the lightest (about 3 lbs.)

Sy and the smallest (folds to 20 1/2 in.), but is one of the most | | ,

versatile tripods we offer. Sturdy, hard finish aluminum legs Oe ca, aaa inonq eae a

feature 3 click stop spread angles and each has a sure grip, Convenience features also abound in this model. An easy touse

quick-acting, non-fouling lever lock. The Bogen 316%1¢ on-screen menu svstem takes vou through the set-up of the unit

| just one of a wide choice of tripods, fluid heads, doll

| accessories.

See your dealer or write to Bogen Photo Corp., 565 Ea Crescent Avenue, Ramsey, N.J. 07446-0506; (201) 81.

Runco has raised the stan- dard for front projection TV with its new CinemaPro 750. Projecting an extremely bright picture, the 750 has Super Delta-Brite lenses with enhanced phosphors. This technology enables the 750 to deliver a dynamic peak picture brightness of 750 lumens — 25 percent more than Runco’s previous model, the 600.

fe 1 7 4 ° , | 4 ov j ; | \ q ¥ u y

Also included in the 750 is an innovative and advanced video processor that contains several sophisticated components including a 2H adaptive comb filter, black level expander and 2d

HEAR }

ear individually and in full stereo. It can be use where in your house or yard within a 150-foot And you can tune the compact wireless receive FCC-designated listening broadcast frequenci« listen at the level that’s ideal for you while fam | friends listen to normal TV sound.

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VIDEOTESTS

ZOOM MODE EIS

@@ .x

O.FITER FADE B.LIGHT

*FOCUS

CAMER.

Hi-Fi STEREO

A

DATE

a

|

EJECT a VIDEO

PLAY/PAGE

DISPLAY

RESET

REVIEW

HITACHI

ON/ OFF

STOP/SHIFT

TITLE

PAUSE

Image Improvement: Hitachi's VM-H39A uses a CCD sensor with unusually high resolution to minimize picture degradation when its digital image stabilizer is activated.

For a couple of years, camcorder manufacturers have called their smallest machines “pocket-size,” even though you’d have a tough time finding a pocket they would fit in. But with the VM- H39A, Hitachi

VIDEOTEST

664

HITACHI Hi8

simple operation, with no manual con- trol of exposure or shutter speed, but the camcorder packs many unique digital video goodies. These include an elec- tronic image stabilizer (EIS), a 64x digi- tal zoom, and modes for 16:9 recording, black-and-white, sepia tone and sunset compensation. On many camcorders, the addition of digital effects is a mixed blessing — they’re fun and sometimes useful, but they often degrade the pic- ture. Electronic image stabilizers and digital zooms decrease the number of pixels used, effectively “throwing away” much of the resolution of the CCD for the sake of a steadier picture or higher

camcorder has created a Hi8 camcorder that really does fit in a large coat pocket. Hitachi designed the VM-H39A for Hitachi VM-H39A Distance: 1/2 hed i wide-angle, 3 feet MiB Camcorder — | erephoto Autofocus: TTL Minimum Illumination: 5.3 lux for 50 IRE Iris: auto with BLC Auto Fade: to white, trigger-operated Price: $1,799

Weight & Size (h/w/d): 1.3 Ibs.; 4 x 3-1/4 x 9-1/2 inches

Image Sensor: 1/3-inch CCD, 470,000 pixels

Lens: {/1.4, 8x (6-48mm) power zoom with macro

Filter Diameter: 34mm

Minimum Focusing

Shutter Speeds (sec.): (full auto only) 1/60, 1/100, 1/120, 1/250

White Balance: auto with black-and-white, sepia and sunset en- hancement options

Viewfinder: 0.7-inch color LCD, with diopter and onscreen indicators for auto exposure shut- ter speed, manual focus, battery condition,

zoom magnification, zoom mode, no tape, digital filter mode, EIS, Hi8, record, time zone, time and date

Viewfinder Controls: diopter focus, position, brightness, color and tint

VCR Controls: play, fast forward/search, re- wind/search, stop, pause, camera run/stop and eject

Microphone: stereo electret condenser

Jacks: multipin A/V in/ out

Hi8/8mm SP Video Heads: 4

approx. 7x Fast Forward/Rewind

Tape Format & Speed:

Cue & Review Search:

Time: 7 min. 56 sec./8 min. 45 sec. for P6-120

Remote Pause: through A/V edit cable

Remote Control: IR wireless with buttons

4 for rewind/search, fast

forward/search, stop, play/A/V dub safety, AN dub (record), pause/camera start/ camera stop, tele, wide, display, counter reset, title on/off

Audio: hi-fi AFM stereo

Titles/Graphics: 2 pages, each 2 lines of 16 characters

Special Features: still frame, insert edit, 16:9 mode, sepia tone mode, black-and-white mode, sunset enhance- ment, image stabilizer,

L

a

acd Despite being one of the smallest camcorders ever made, Hitachi’s $1,800 VM-H39A boasts some of the most sophisticated digital processing we've seen. Because it uses a high- resolution sensor, its image stabilizer does not degrade the picture, and its digital zoom provides surprisingly clear images. It also offers wide- screen, black-and-white, sepia and sunset modes. Picture quality is good to very good, audio quality is fair, ease of use is excellent and overall performance is good to very good.

patentee Seemed

flying erase head, counter memory, two- mode digital zoom (16x or 64x), color view- finder, video light with powered accessory shoe, case

Absent Features: frame advance, slow motion, speed play, au- dio dub, video dub, indexing, manual shut- ter speed adjustment, mic jack, two-speed zoom, headphone jack, standard S-video/video/ stereo audio output

RESULTS

Horizontal Resolution:

camera—480 lines, Hi8—400 lines, 8mm— 250 lines

S/N Ratios (dB): un- weighted luminance—

40.3, weighted lumi- nance—48.2, unweighted video— 39.8, weighted video— 47.7, chroma AM— 41.7, chroma PM—37.5

Audio Frequency Response: 200 Hz-14 kHz, +0.4/-3 dB; -16.9 dB at 20 Hz; -6.6 dB at 20 kHz

Hi-Fi Dynamic Range: 78.4 dB

Audio Distortion: 0.3% RATINGS

Picture: good/very good

Audio: fair Ease of Use: excellent

Overall: good/very good

22 VIDEO DECEMBER 1992

magnification.

To overcome this limitation, Hitachi uses a 470,000-pixel sensor in the VM- H39A, instead of the 410,000-pixel units used in most Hi8 camcorders. This lets the digital circuitry discard some of the resolution, but still have more than enough for full Hi8 picture quality. Thus, the VM-H39A’s image stabilizer doesn’t degrade the picture, and its digi- tal zoom provides sharp images well into the 30x range. Even 64x images are us- able.

The camcorder also has a color LCD viewfinder for a more natural feel as you shoot. However, the viewfinder’s hori- zontal resolution is only about 200 lines —half that of Hi8 tape — which makes manual focusing less precise.

The VM-H39A is about the size of a VHS cassette but about three times as thick. It weighs 1.3 pounds stripped down and about 2 pounds ready to shoot, with battery and cassette. One of the biggest surprises is its apparent sim- plicity. There are only a few camera con- trols— buttons for zoom mode, EIS, digital filter, fade, backlight compensa- tor and autofocus on/off, and a thumb- wheel for manual focus. The zoom button gives a choice of 2x digital zoom for a maximum of 16x, an 8x digital zoom for a maximum of 64x, and 16:9. The widescreen mode squeezes the pic- ture from the sides when viewed on a conventional 4:3 set, but on widescreen sets (which are due on the market with- in months), the picture looks normal.

The digital filter offers the black- and-white, sepia and sunset options. Sepia mode gives the picture a brownish cast, so it looks like an old photograph. The sunset enhancement mode changes the color balance to improve the look of video shot at dusk.

The zoom rocker and run/stop but- ton occupy their usual places. The bat- tery fits into a cavity in the hand grip and part of the grip’s bottom swings away to allow changing the battery. A compartment above the grip holds brightness, color and tint controls for the viewfinder. Forward of the grip sits a powered accessory shoe for the supplied video light. The light draws power from the camcorder battery, which is conve- nient, but reduces shooting time. A compartment under the shoe houses the single multipin input/output connector.

Buttons for camera/off/VCR mode, playback control, eject, the character titler, date, display and record review (which lets you play the tape without changing into the VCR modc) cover the back panel.

The remote control is only half the size of a credit card and about as thick as a stack of five quarters. Its 11 touch pads

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control all basic playback functions, plus start, stop, zoom, display, counter reset and title on/off.

Using the camcorder is very easy be- cause iris and white balance are fully au- tomated and have no specific controls. The shutter speed and iris operations are controlled by artificial intelligence to choose shutter speeds between 1/60- and 1/250-second with the appropriate iris for a correctly exposed picture. The BLC button opens the iris about 1.5 stops for backlit subjects. The only slightly tedious chore is composing titles,

but having a character titler is a boon in }

a camcorder this small.

Its audio features are spartan — there’s a wind noise switch for outdoor shooting, but no jacks for an external microphone or headphones.

The multipin connector for all in- put/output connections means that you must have the appropriate cord to make connections to external devices. This saves space on the tiny camcorder, but if you lose it, you'll have to go to a Hitachi dealer or service center for a replace- ment. Dual clocks, one of which can be set by time zone, make adjustment easy when you're on the go. Ease of operation is excellent.

Picture quality is good to very good, a little noisier than some competing Hi8 camcorders. You will get a low-contrast

picture in 2 lux of light, Hitachi’s mini- mum illumination rating, but to get a picture with approximately 50 percent contrast ratio (50 IRE) requires 5.3 lux. Audio quality is fair compared to other 8mm/Hi8 camcorders we've measured. We rate the VM-H39A good to very good overall. While it doesn’t offer the manual control options many advanced videographers demand, casual shooters should find it very simple to operate and extremely easy to carry. And its high- resolution CCD and clean, high-quality digital processing are real innovations. m=

AMAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAALA

Dropout prevention

There’s an easy way to prevent or reduce the glitches caused by dropouts on vid- eotape. If at all possible, don’t pause or stop your VCR when playing a tape. Re- wind it only when it has reached the end. This minimizes wear and tear on the tape because tape transport func- tions can slightly flex the tape and cause its coating to loosen. Ted P. Cantrell 2nd Infantry Division, Korea

DECEMBER 1992 VIDEO 23

VIDEOTESTS

VIDEOTEST

663

VC S-VHS-C camcorder fixed-focal-length

The JVC GR-SZ1 is so chock-full of goodies it’s almost impossible to list them all. The most unusual is a lens with a remov- able front element and an extension tube. In various combinations, these parts pro- duce two optical zoom ranges, a super-wide-angle

mode and a microscope mode.

dVE GR-S71 5-VHS-E Camcorder

Price: $1,999

Weight & Size (h/w/d): 2 Ibs. without battery or cassette; 4-7/8 x 5 x 8-1/2 inches

Image Sensor: 1/3-inch CCD, 410,000 gross

Lens: multimode—f/1.8, 8x (6.4-52mm) zoom; {/4, 11x (6.8-71mm) digital zoom; ultra-wide {/1.8 (4mm); micro- scope f/15.4 at fixed distance (92mm, +/-2mm)

Filter Diameter: 46mm, except in super-wide mode

Minimum Focusing Distance: 0.6 inches, except in microscope mode (3.6 in.)

Autofocus: TTL

Minimum Illumination: 6.2 lux

Iris: auto switchable to manual

Auto Fade: trigger-operated Shutter Speeds (sec.): 1/10- to 1/2,000-second White Balance:

full auto only

DISPLAY.

FADER:

Instead of full manual control of camera functions, it offers a knob that | accesses programmed exposure modes that include portrait, sports, front-lit, back-lit, strobe, classic film, slow shutter and twilight settings. Digital processing provides an electronic image stabilizer to take the shake out of handheld shots, a 2x zoom extender usable in all the opti- cal modes, a snapshot effect with bor- ders and a shutter-click sound effect, a cinema (letterbox) mode with black bor- ders on the top and bottom, and a 16:9 squeeze mode for use with future wide- screen TV sets. There’s also a color LCD

viewfinder and a power focus ring.

Viewfinder: 0.7-inch LCD with diopter and onscreen indicators for zoom level, iris level, digital zoom, image sta- bilizer, voice position, manual focus, low con- trast for AF, S-VHS, record speed, operating mode, scene mode, memory, counter, time remaining, fader, squeeze, autofocus square, dew, head clog, low battery, insert edit- ing, clock battery, date, time, birthday/age Viewfinder Controls: angle, diopter focus, brightness, color, tint

VCR Controls: fast for- ward/search, play, rewind/search, stop, pause, random-assem- ble edit start/stop

Microphone: stereo electret condenser

Jacks: mic, mic power, AV out, S-video out, remote out

Tape Formats & Speeds: S-VHS- C/VHS-C, SP/EP

Video Heads: 4

Cue & Review Search:

3x SP, (x EP

Fast Forward/Rewind Time: 3 min. for TC-30

Remote Pause: ran- dom-assemble edit out

Remote Control: IR wireless with wired re- mote pause jack and buttons for record run/ stop, tele and wide-an- gle on one side; other side—rewind/search, fast forward/search, stop, play, VCR control, pause, multibrand re- mote preset and tandom-assemble edit controls

Super VHS

Video Microscope:

A tubular attachment that fits between the main optics and the re- movable wide-angle lens lets JVC's GR-SZ1 fill a TV screen with mi- croscopic images. The

remote control (below) has zoom and start/ stop controls on the front and VCR controls on the back.

We don’t rate camcorders on features, but if we did, we’d certainly rate JVC’s $1,999 S-VHS-C GR-SZ1 excellent. Its versatile lens uses a de- tachable front element and an exten-

sion tube to prod

angle and microscope modes. A pro- grammed auto expo- sure system offers many scene options, and it also has an im- age stabilizer. Picture

quality is very good

S-VHS, hi-fi audio is very good and overall performance is good to

very good.

uce super-wide-

for

Audio: linear mono, hi-fi AFM stereo Special Features: color viewfinder, flying erase head, still frame, ran- dom-assemble edit, image stabilizer

RESULTS

Horizontal Resolution: §-VHS—380 lines, VHS—250 lines

S/N Ratios (dB): un- weighted luminance— 40.6 SP, 40.2 EP; weighted luminance— 48.4 SP, 48 EP; un- weighted video—37.3 SP, 36.5 EP; weighted video—43.8 SP, 43.2 EP; chroma AM—40 SP, 36.8 EP; chroma PM—85 SP, 32.4 EP

Audio Frequency Response: hi-fi—20 Hz-20 kHz, +1.5/-0.6; linear (-3 dB)—75 Hz-7.5 kHz SP, 75 Hz-4 kHz EP

Hi-Fi Dynamic Range: 76.8 dB

Linear Audio S/N: 41.3 dB

Audio Distortion: hi- fi—0.4%, linear—0.9%

RATINGS Picture:

S-VHS—very good, VHS—average/good Audio: hi-fi—very good, linear—average

Ease of Use: good

Overall: good/very good

24 VIDEO DECEMBER 1992

With all these great features, it’s easy to overlook the innovative infrared re- mote control. It’s the first camcorder re- mote we’ve seen that also controls popular brands of VCR. You can use this capability in conjunction with an eight- scene editing controller built into the camcorder to automate your editing. You enter the beginning and end points of each scene with a button on the re- mote, and an onscreen display shows the start and stop times of each scene. Push- ing the RAE start button on the cam- corder automatically records these scenes on the tape in the VCR.

JVC calls this feature random-as- semble edit, or R.A. edit. It gives you ap- proximately the same capabilities you'd get using a LANC-equipped 8mm or Hi8 camcorder with an editing control- ler, except that the controller would cost about $250. JVC threw this one in with the camcorder! The optional RM- V20U remote lets you perform audio dubs, video dubs and insert edits.

The GR-SZI lacks a few of the fea-

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phone jack, manual control of shutter speed, a titler and a full manual iris.

The GR-SZ1 looks like other JVC subcompacts, except for the controls. They’re spread out in small groups in many locations, and some buttons and switches have been replaced by rotary controls. One of these is an unusual manual iris control near the lens with an on/off button at its center. The knob doesn’t take the iris from fully open to fully closed—you have to use the auto iris to get it in the ballpark, then fine- tune with the manual control. This is much better than a backlight compensa- tor button, but more restrictive than a full-range manual iris.

The left side has an auto/manual fo- cus button on the lens cowl and two buttons further back for the image stabi- lizer and digital zoom. Below are the cin- ema mode button and a window that shows the mode of the scene selector, which is controlled by a rotary knob with an on/off button at its center. Fur- ther down sit buttons for display, fader and snapshot.

Most scene selector modes are self- explanatory. Exceptions are the classic film mode, which uses a high-speed strobe to simulate old-time movie flick- er; the slow shutter, which lowers the shutter speed below 1/60-second and al- lows shooting in very low light (JVC rates it at 1 lux); and twilight, which dis- engages the auto gain control and sets focus to infinity. These all work well, but there are restrictions on what digital fea- tures may be combined — for example,

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DECEMBER 1992 VIDEO 25

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26 VIDEO DECEMBER 1992

you can’t use the image stabilizer with the strobe.

Tilting the viewfinder up exposes a menu button, rocker controls, and but- tons for date/time select, set and display mode. The menu controls seven func- tions, including 16:9, voice enhance- ment and a macro mode for use with weatherproof housings.

The power switch on the top panel has positions for play, off, camera lock and camera release. The lock mode pro- vides fully automatic operation, and the release mode allows the use of manual overrides. A panel on the rear has for- ward and reverse buttons for retake (edit search). The panel lifts to reveal transport controls for playback.

The remote control has buttons on both sides. On one side are camcorder controls for tele, wide and run/stop. On the other are controls for playback, and the R.A. edit controls for in/out point marking, on/off, cancel and VCR record standby. Holding down the VCR control button on this side lets you use the play- back buttons to control a VCR. The front has a mini-jack for use in an R.A. edit setup.

The lens system offers an 8x zoom mode, an 11x zoom mode (accessed by twisting the front lens until it pops out slightly), a wide-angle mode activated by removing the front lens element, and a microscope mode that requires insert- ing a special tube between the detach- able element and built-in lenses.

The microscope mode delivers 344x magnification on a 35-inch TV set if you use 2x zoom. The smaller the set, the lower the magnification.

The GR-SZI’s features are sure to appeal to creative shooters, but the au- tomated systems never give the operator full control, which might frustrate ex- pert shooters. The control layout is un- usual, and experienced videographers may need a little extra time to grow ac- customed to it. Ease of use is good and improves with practice.

Picture quality of S-VHS recordings is very good; for VHS recordings it is av- erage to good. We made our measure- ments from tapes recorded on other machines, which slightly reduces meas- ured performance, because the GR-SZ1 can’t record line-level signals from test generators. The rated minimum illu- mination of 1 lux is achieved only in the slow-shutter mode. At normal shutter speed, a minimum of 6.2 lux is required for a picture with 50 IRE units. The im- age stabilizer compromises resolution slightly, but because it uses a sensor with higher resolution than most S-VHS-C camcorders, the degradation is not as great as might be expected.

Audio quality of the hi-fi tracks is

very good, and average for the linear track. But unless you use the audio dub function available through the optional RM-V20U remote, or record tapes in VHS-C and play them on a mono VHS VCR, you'll probably never use the lin- ear track audio.

We rate the GR-SZ1 good to very good overall. The feature package is just unbelievable, and most of the bells and whistles are surprisingly useful. It does- n’t offer the traditional manual options of camcorders like JVC’s larger GR- $505, but most videographers will be so enthralled with the many special effects, auto exposure modes and focal ranges that they won’t notice. P]

VHS VER

continued from page 15

need for editing, like audio dub, video dub, insert edit, a remote pause jack, re- cord speed control on the VCR and a more detailed front panel display.

The front panel is simple. The cas- sette hatch is above the display area, and both are centered. The power and eject buttons are set into the display face. Other controls hide in a compart- ment at right. The hidden controls in- clude all major transport functions, like play and stop, and buttons for other im- portant functions, like channel select and manual tracking. Also in the com- partment are switches for noise reduc- tion on/off (edit) and fine (19-micron) head on/off.

There are two sets of video/stereo audio input jacks, one front and one back, and one set of video/stereo audio output jacks in back. The rear panel also holds the usual RF (antenna/cable) in- put and output connectors.

The remote is the primary operating control. Not only does.it access many of the more advanced features, it also oper- ates the power, input selector, channel and volume for recent Sharp TV sets. The only really unusual control is the tamper proof button. Pushing it for two seconds locks all controls on the deck and the remote. Pushing it again for two seconds releases the lock.

Basic operation is very easy from ei- ther the VCR or the remote, but some options, like record speed selection, frame advance, double-speed playback, slow play, index search and zero return, can only be accessed from the remote. These days, though, that’s not unusual. Of those, you’re most likely to miss the record speed selector, frame advance and slow-motion buttons on the VCR.

The deck’s digital program search system (DPSS) seeks up to nine index marks in either direction. The blue

screen that mutes the noisy picture you get between channels may be shut off. The display automatically dims when the VCR is off. In addition to the stand- ard onscreen timer, there is a simple timer with up to 24-hour delay that takes precedence over the program tim- er. Among the features you may miss are a remote pause jack for dubbing and editing, audio dub, insert edit and a fly- ing erase head. Ease of use is very good.

When we hooked the VC-H96U up to the test equipment, we were im- pressed by the results of Sharp’s engi- neering efforts. Our measurements were among the best we’ve seen in this class of VCR. We made them with the 19-mi- cron heads turned on. You might wish to turn them off for clearer SP special ef- fects. When they are turned off, video signal-to-noise measurements are 0.3 decibels lower, and chroma measure- ments are 1.4 to 2 dB lower. One sur- prise is that switching on the 19-micron head, which should affect only EP re- cording, has a slight positive effect on SP recordings, too. Picture quality is excel- lent.

Sound quality is very good, although the deck lacks advanced audio features like recording level control and a mic jack. Our overall rating is very good to excellent. It’s an ideal deck for home theater buffs and video archivists — you'll have a hard time finding better

VHS picture quality. a |

PROJECTION TV

continued from page 16

channels at once, you'll need to use both the set’s tuner and the tuner in a VCR. Ease of use is very good to excellent.

Picture quality and accuracy of col- ors are excellent. Sony rates screen brightness at 2,000 candellas per square meter (583.8 footlamberts) and we measured it at 174 footlamberts. There is no standard for measuring the screen brightness of a projection television.

Audio quality is very good to excel- lent. The speakers produce surprisingly low frequencies, with usable response down to 20 Hertz. Although you can use the speakers as a center channel in a Pro-Logic system, their timbre probably won’t match your main speakers.

The Sound Retrieval System uses phase and amplitude modification to recreate a three-dimensional sound field for room-filling sound for stereo mate- tial. It also simulates stereo from mono material.

Overall, we find the KPR-41EXR95 an excellent to very good TV set. Its pic- ture and sound pleased us greatly, but its small size is really its best feature. 2

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Circle 9 on Reader Service Card. DECEMBER 1992 VIDEO 27

rT

BY BRIAN CLARK

Sharp liberates the eye with ViewCam design

BEST OF BOTH WORLDS Hitachi's three new hi-fi VCRs include the versatile VT-F462 ($600). It blends VCR Plus programming with such editing features as VHS index search, [i synchro edit, program edit, a shuttle ring, a flying f& erase head, audio/video dubbing and front inputs. Other features include a programmed remote, high- speed rewind and an onscreen owner's manual. (For additional information, circle 156 on the Read- er Service Card.)

FX GOES Hi8 Sony’s FX-series Handycams go Hi8 with the intro- duction of the CCD-FX710. The FX710 ($1,400) has all the features of the earlier 8mm CCD-FX510, including hi-fi stereo sound, a digital superimposer, 1-lux low-light capability, program auto exposure, and a “home base” adapter/charger unit. Greater manual exposure control has been added to the FX710. (For additional information, circle 159 on the Reader Service Card.)

FUNCTION PLUS STYLE Samsung's 27-inch TC2770S monitor/receiver ($670) features an MTS decoder with dbx noise re- duction. Along with standard A/V connections, S-video jacks are on both the rear and the front panels. Other features include programmable chan- nel scan, a 33-key remote control and onscreen display. The crisp design reflects Samsung’s new emphasis on style. (For additional information, cir- cle 157 on the Reader Service Card.)

PRISM POWER Canon's newest lens for its Hi8 L1 camcorder sys- tem is the first of its kind to include an image EASY DOES IT stabilizer. The Vari-Angle Prism, sited at the front The “Big Easy” One for end of the 10x, f/1.8 lens, responds to user move- _Alll universal remote

0

ments by optically correcting the light from an (model URC-2085) is image before it passes through the lens’ elements. guaranteed to operate As a result, there is no loss in image resolution. your infrared-controlled

The $2,999 CL 10-100mm lens is Canon's fifth VL- TV, VCR and cable box mount entry. (For additional information, circle 162 or you get double your on the Reader Service Card.) money back. Prepro- grammed codes make

setup simple, and the re- mote’s large buttons are easy to recognize. The remote is made by Uni- versal Electronics of Peninsula, Ohio, and priced at $29.95. (For additional information, cir- cle 160 on the Reader Service Card.)

~j d= 2 O WA eae NnG@O3 dD xo

£ ay

=) b y J 5 8 0 4 Ss

RADICAL SHARP CAMCORDER Sharp continues to blaze new trails in camcorder design with its VL-HL100U Hi8 ViewCam, available next February. The traditional viewfinder is replaced ) by a four-inch, anti-glare LCD panel, which doubles

/ as a playback monitor. The lens rotates vertically

through 180 degrees for angled shooting. Other »” — features include hi-fi stereo sound and digital elec-

tronic image stabilization. The camcorder weighs 2.8 pounds with tape and battery. Pricing has yet to be determined. (For additional information, circle 158 on the Reader Service Card.)

| | |

|

VIDEO DECEMBER 1992

Hitachi's new VMH39A camcorder is a small miracle in size only. Tipping the scales at a mere 1.3 lbs., it'll take a big weight off your shoulders. And its super-compact size and shape literally fits in your coat pocket or purse.

This rugged, full-featured cam- corder is a very big miracle, though, when it comes to performance which is State-of-the-art in every way.

Acolor viewfinder allows you to

SMALL MIRACLE.

check color, contrast and light so that what you see is actually what you get. A computer-controlled electronic image stabilizer automatically com- pensates for hand vibration that occurs during recording.

Shooting, including focus, is completely automatic with shutter speed and iris synchronized for optimum exposure. Sound is captured rich and true-to-life in hi-fidelity

stereo.

Picture quality is absolutely unbeatable thanks to Artificial Intelli- gence, DSP 16X zoom and a Hi-Band 8mm format that delivers the highest resolution available today.

To see the VMH39A in per- son, call 1-800-HITACHI for your nearest dealer. He’ll show you that the miracle isn’t how small it is, but

how much it does.

“PRD Bd|AJaS JEpeay UO 4} 219119

i8 and S-VHS camcorders have el-

evated home videography to al-

most professional levels. Today’s

best home videos look like TV pro- grams —that is, until the titles appear. They’re usually blocky, crude and plain, the product of an inexpensive chip in- side a camcorder or a VCR. Even view- ers who don’t know a lens from a viewfinder immediately identify videos as home-grown when they see these am- ateurish titles.

The problem is, most character gen- erators capable of producing good-look- ing titles cost thousands of dollars. But Videonics has now brought professional- quality titles within easy reach of enthu- siasts with its $500 TitleMaker.

Titles from the TitleMaker actually look better than those you see on many cable channels. No matter which of the fonts you choose, the edges are smooth. The text isn’t quite as smooth as that from a Video Toaster, but for the price, it’s unbelievably good.

The TitleMaker doesn’t just type out text —it offers more creative options than you could probably ever use. These include 12 type fonts (four small, five midsize and three large), outlines, shad- ows, three degrees of letter spacing and three character thicknesses for bold type effects. Borders can be placed above, be- low, beside or around blocks of text.

You can use pictures from a cam- corder or a VCR as the background, or generate a colored background. The characters, outlines, borders and back- ground can be any colors you wish—an onscreen color mixer lets you choose from more than a million.

Titles can be scrolled in from the side or the bottom, dissolved in and out, and wiped in from the center or any of the edges. You can adjust the duration of all these effects. The TitleMaker can memorize more than 8,000 characters, and produce multiple pages of text that can be called up automatically. You can even program a series of pages so that the TitleMaker will bring them up and remove them automatically.

The TitleMaker also lets you substi- tute patterns for solid colors. The ones we liked best were the 16 pixel patterns, which can be produced in any color. Some look like a nighttime sky, some

_ Vg VIDEONICS VIDEO TITLEMAKER

er )ci1Vmn712) <0)

Video Versatility: Videonics’ TitleMaker overlays professional- looking titles on live video or on any of 32 background styles. Vid- eo can also show through the letters themselves, as shown in the top left corner of this screen shot.

VC CC AMA

like candy sprinkles, some offer grid pat- terns, and two even give you a Star Wars-type “traveling through space” ef- fect by scrolling the stars upward. It also offers 16 rainbow patterns. Any of the backgrounds can be mixed with live vid- eo at any level you choose.

It has S-video and video inputs and outputs, and a QWERTY keyboard big enough for touch typing. Basic operation is simple and intuitive — onscreen menus guide the user through selection of fonts, colors and patterns.

The only problem we encountered is that a few of the options don’t work well

when combined with other options. For example, tightening letter spacing can chop pieces off a character’s outline, causing the background to become the same color as the character. Also, the boldest type thickness doesn’t work well in some fonts. But once you use the TitleMaker for a few hours, you'll learn what works and what doesn’t.

We're thrilled that someone has fi- nally come up with a good video titler that doesn’t cost thousands of dollars and take a lot of effort to use. For home videographers, the TitleMaker is a dream come true. 5

30 VIDEO DECEMBER 1992

SCREEN SHOT: MITSUBISHI CP10U VIDEO PRINTER

If you think viewing a movie at home is a mere spectator sport, you've never strapped yourself into the Pioneer” Home Theater.

With our leadership in both audio and video technology, the linking of the two produces unprece-

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ProVision” line of projection TVs fea- tures a sophisticated new short-focus lens system for a 25% brighter picture.The

The Pioneer CLD-D701 Combination CD/LaserDise Player and VSX-D90IS A/V Receiver with Dolby Pro Logie. increases the contrast ratio by 20%. And an advanced three-line digital comb filter significantly enhances color accuracy and improves picture quality.

The picture source is a Pioneer Laser Disc Player, a

new high-contrast black screen

The new Pioneer S-V40LK Home Theater Experience Speaker collection ts customized for our Home Theater Surround Sound dydlem.

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The Art of Entertainment

Pioneer Home Theater. You dont just watch it.

technology in which we have led worldwide. The ultimate in sight and sound, it comes 60% closer to reality than ordinary video- tape. And features the superiority of digital sound.

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All Pioneer LaserDise Players let you enjoy both laserdiscs and CDs. Ask your Pioneer retailer about special CD

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care of the industry-leading Audio/Video Receivers by Pioneer. To maximize the quality of Surround Sound, we've assembled a superb new pack- age of perfectly matched modular speakers specially designed to deliver a theater-like experience. Of course, there’s a lot more to tell, so call us at 1-800-PIONEER for more information. Or, drop by a Pioneer Home Theater dealer. You'll find just what you'd expect from the leaders in audio and video: Home theater so advanced, you don't just watch it”

Our new ProViston SD-P5065K Projection TV incorporates a hoot of technological innovations. Pictured here ts an actual on-screen image.

© 1992 Pioneer Electronics (USA) Inc., Long Beach, CA. Dolby and Pro Logie are regis- tered trademarks of Dolby Laboratories voration. © 199] Caroleo Pictures Inc. All rights reserved. The depiction of ENDOSKELETON is a trademark of Caroleo.

BY RON GOLDBERG

FROM THANKSGIVING TO NEW. Year’s Day, the spirit of good will seems to walk hand in hand with the desire to buy a few gifts. But it’s an urge easily undermined by the | chore of choosing from among so many products. This year’s Gift _ Guide is designed to add spirit to _ your holiday giving, and perhaps in- spire a gift for yourself. In the fol- lowing pages, contributing editors Ron Goldberg and Martin Broch- stein recommend an array of video and audio components, videogames and multimedia players, while assis- tant editor April P. Bernard com- piles a stocking stuffer’s film festival of non-traditional holiday movies. Finally, for the enthusiast who has absolutely everything, senior editor Brent Butterworth raises the curtain on the ultimate gift, a home theater system so real, you'll forget you're watching a movie.

h, the holidays. That magnificent time of year when anxious video- philes everywhere hold their 'breath—and wait. Those who have to play Santa for these affected souls ac- tually have it pretty easy. After all, you always know what an A/V enthusiast re-

In-Screen Menu:

The Fox 800 universal remote uses an LCD display.

Switch Hitter: JVC's JX-300 switcher is an elegant, inexpensive way to boost system flexibility.

ally wants. And for the videophile who has everything? Don’t worry, because there’s no such thing. Just in case the tapehead nearest and dearest to you hasn’t dropped enough hints, here are some of the newest toys we’d like to re- ceive as seasonal greetings. And we’ve been good too, Santa— honest!

SONY MDP-455 LASERDISC PLAYER

A home theater without laserdisc is like a meal without dessert. It’s just not complete. Now that the connoisseut’s

Platter Up: The MDP-455 offers top features at a good price.

format is at the peak of its popularity, several manufacturers have introduced second- and third-generation units that

outperform some top-of-the-line players of just a few years hence. The new MDP-455 from Sony is a good example, incorporating high-end enhancements at an entry-level $599 price. You get a digital timebase corrector, which re- duces any picture jitter; a comb filter for cleaner color edges; and a dropout com- pensator, which minimizes imperfections on dirty or scratched discs. But a good combi player should offer more than just great pictures, so the MDP-455 com- pletes the package with the same digital audio circuitry used in Sony’s top-end CD players.

JVC JX-300 A/V SELECTOR Okay, you have a couple of VCRs, a laserdisc player and a camcorder. You’d like to make VHS copies of your 8mm camcorder tapes, but you’ve already seen them a hundred times, so you'd like to watch something else while you dub. To complicate matters, your expensive new TV set has exactly one set of A/V inputs. Outside of buying an expensive

32 VIDEO DECEMBER 1992

Plug and Play:

RCA’s VR800HF 8mm VCR and Straight Wire's gold-plated cable.

A/V receiver to do all this fancy routing, how do you get your components talking to each other? JVC has the solution in the JX-300, a very inexpensive periph- eral that gives you flexibility and control over four A/V sources. Featuring both S-video and composite jacks across all four inputs (nice), the JX-300 lets you route signals of either type back and forth to each other. A wireless remote puts icing on the cake.

SHARP 4M-T30U LCD TV

Until recently, the phrase “portable TV” was a bit of a misnomer, especially if you wanted a color set. LCD technolo- gy is changing all that, and Sharp’s new- est model is the proof. Here’s a high-

resolution four-inch monitor with a built-in VHF/UHF tuner, channel mem- ory and auto presets, for TV wherever you want it. The whole package is small and light enough to fit in a briefcase or a pocketbook, which makes it an excel- lent travel companion for camcorder or desktop video enthusiasts. This $599 TV set offers direct audio and video in- puts. You can now keep an extra moni-

Tape Helpers:

The Videonics Video Equalizer (left) and Vid- iPax’s tape conversion mailer.

tor in your camera bag, or edit your tapes in places where a full-sized TV is impractical. Images are exceptionally bright, and rendered with a wide con- trast ratio of more than 60:1.

Slim Shooter: Canon’s UCS2 is thin, light and packed with shooting options.

CANON UCS2 Hi8 CAMCORDER

Canon can still take credit for hav- ing the smallest Hi8 camcorder around. The $1,699 UCS2 is its newest, and like its predecessor the UCSI, there’s a lot of power packed into this tiny handful. Like what? How about three pro- grammed exposure modes, AFM hi-fi stereo sound, an 8x zoom, a seven-mode high-speed shutter and a simplified menu system that gets you to desired functions quickly and intuitively?

That all this fits into a package weighing less than a pound and a quar- ter (sans battery) is remarkable enough.

But Canon has added some improve- ments in this new design, most notably a revamped chassis which puts the trigger and. other important controls closer to your fingers. Throw in a flying erase head, wireless remote control and a Y/C jack for input/output, and you’ve got a potent, versatile machine that can fit in a fanny pack.

PACKARD BELL PBTV3 VIDEO CARD

You’ve been sitting at the computer for hours. Never mind Lotus, you’re sud- denly becoming interested in hemlock. Wouldn’t it be great if you could use the monitor for something really useful, like Monday Night Football or Arsenio? Pack- ard Bell has taken pity on you. The PBTV3 priced under $300, is a Win- dows-based card that lets your PC be- come a TV. Simply install the card on any AT-class computer with a VGA monitor, and voila!

Desktop TV: Packard Bell's PBTV lets users receive and capture TV images on personal computers.

DECEMBER 1992 VIDEO 33

A tuner module is incorporated for VHE, UHF and cable channels, and the card can also accept signals from a cam- corder, VCR or laserdisc player. There's also a built-in audio amplifier that can power a set of headphones or a pair of optional external speakers. Video images can be frozen, captured, retrieved and printed, making the PBT V3 useful for

multimedia productions.

RCA VR800HF 8mm VCR

Here’s an unusually useful gift for the camcorder buff in your life: an 8mm VCR. Forget about hooking the cam- corder up to the back of the TV set or your VHS deck. Forget about losing the connection cable. Simply pop your freshly shot footage into this baby and enjoy. Videomakers will appreciate fea- tures like a flying erase head, AFM hi-fi stereo capability and a special edit mode for optimized picture quality. But lest you think the VR800HF, priced at $649, is just for camcorder tapes, it’s also an adept home VCR, with onscreen pro- gramming, a universal remote control, two-speed recording, a 181-channel tun- er with MTS stereo and VCR Plus cir- cuitry. Special effects like slow motion

| and double-speed play round out the of-

ferings, which are plentiful in this com- pact package.

VIDEONICS VIDEO EQUALIZER

Here’s the Swiss Army knife of home videography. For $349, the Video Equal- izer offers a variety of digital processing functions that can correct, colorize or otherwise enhance your footage. Does that important tape look too blue be- cause you shot it under fluorescent lights? No problem for the Equalizer — just slide the tint controls until the col- ots are right. Want to “paint” a portion of the picture for special effects? Posi- tion a crosshair over the object you want to colorize and knock yourself out. A split screen function lets you compare altered footage to the original, and a dig- ital noise-reduction circuit makes sure signal loss is kept to a minimum. In addi- tion to its video capabilities, the Equal- izer has a three-channel audio mixer and a microphone input.

STRAIGHT WIRE ANV INTERCONNECTS

A chain is only as strong as its weak- est link, and in all too many home thea- ters a dinky cable is the difference between a good picture and a superb one. Straight Wire specializes in preci-

sion interconnects (A/V cables, for the uninitiated) that are engineered for maximum rejection of interference and minimum signal loss. All the company’s interconnects feature gold connection points (in standard RCA or other plug ends) and a low inductance signal path, which translates into less distortion. Both silver and oxygen-free copper are used, and custom lengths are available. Good cables won’t make your system better, but they ensure that you get all the performance you paid for. If you’re thinking about upgrading one of your components, maybe you should look here first.

FOX 800 UNIVERSAL REMOTE CONTROL

For most videophiles, a shelf filled with remotes is a bit of a status symbol. Still, it’s no fun to hassle with finding the right remote when you need it, or trying to skip to the next chapter on your laserdisc only to find you’re press- ing the VCR's remote. A good universal unit is the answer, and the Fox 800 gets special points for design, intelligent lay- out and a reasonable $99 price.

You can control up to eight audio video components, as a large backlit

MAKING A GREAT VIDEO

After using your camcorder the first time, you realize that the built-in microphone

picks up sounds

INCLUDES QUALITY SOUND TOO! 2%.

don’t want. And, when shooting from a distance, you can’t hear your subject's voice clearly. Azden, the leader in quality audio for video, offers a full line of microphones to make your sound as good as your pictures.

This powerful professional miniature VHF wireless system has a range of over 300 feet. It allows you to shoot from a distance and pick up your subject's voice b clearly. It has 2 switchable frequencies, and it comes with 2 mics (handheld and clip-on). The

Mini directional mic for palm-sized camcorders. Sli

_ Full-size directional mic.

_ Headset with boom mic ___ Allows you to zoom in

for adding narration as _you shoot. Your voice beco e dominant _ OF, use.

34 VIDEO DECEMBER 1992

LCD screen changes the “button” dis- play to match the component you want to control. This keeps the front panel simple and easy to see in the dark. In ad- dition to supplying a library of program codes for numerous devices, the Fox 800 can also learn codes from your own orig- inal remotes. And if you still can’t get the unit to work your equipment, you can send the 800 in to Fox, and Fox will download the appropriate codes for you.

AUDIOSOURCE HC-1 SURROUND-SOUND SYSTEM

One of the biggest complaints about surround-sound systems is that they’re difficult to assemble. While we don’t necessarily agree, we do feel that Audio- Source has come up with one of the most complete solutions yet in the HC-1 system, priced at $1,299. Here’s an in- stant surround-sound setup — simply connect it to your existing stereo and the HC-1 does the rest.

The system includes the company’s SS Three/II Pro-Logic decoder, which features 30 watts per channel (that can be configured for the center and rear); the Amp One power amplifier, which powers the SW Three subwoofer; two LS Ten rear-channel speakers and the shielded VS-One center-channel speak- er. The company even throws in 200 feet of speaker cable to make life simple.

VIDIPAX CONVERSION SERVICE

Our last suggestion is really a serv- ice. Few gifts are more personal than a homemade tape, but there’s no point in sending one to friends or relations who live in countries where NTSC isn’t the local video language. The VidiPax mail- er, available at photo and accessory dealers for $39.95, entitles you to an hour of converted video—from any TV transmission standard (NTSC, PAL, SECAM, etc.) to any other standard, in the tape format (VHS, 8mm, etc.) of your choice. Professional video conver- sion services are costly and hard to find. This one’s affordable and easy to find (call 914-557-3600 for a nearby dealer). m

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To maximize camcorder battery life, technical editor Lancelot Braithwaite recommends disconnecting the battery from your camcorder when you’re not using it. Most camcorders use a slight amount of battery power even when turned off. This can drain your battery completely, which damages its nickel- cadmium chemistry and prevents it from accepting a full charge.

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Circle 61 on Reader Service Card. DECEMBER 1992 VIDEO 35

BY APRIL P. BERNARD

Holiday viewin that still surprises.

t’s beginning to look a lot like Christ-

mas — in other words, 12 airings of It’s

a Wonderful Life, 11 A Christmas Car-

ols, 10 Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Rein- deers... They’re the same tidings of comfort and joy you've seen year after year, and maybe through repetition they’ve lost a little of the wonder and magic of the season. So what are the al- ternatives for a December evening’s en- tertainment? How about a movie you never thought of as a Christmas movie — one whose novelty brings fresh holiday inspiration? Here’s a seasonal guide to classic and recent films that don’t need two full hours of snow and Santa to sub- due any Scrooge-like feelings.

One of the best is Billy Wilder’s The Apartment (MGM/UA tape and letter- boxed disc), a 1960 journey up the cor- porate ladder that’s propelled by the one-bedroom home of C.C. Baxter (Jack Lemmon). One of 31,529 employees at an insurance company, Baxter lands promotions by lending his apartment to executives for their dalliances— until one of the “lady friends,” an elevator op- erator (Shirley MacLaine) Baxter’s sweet on, takes an overdose of pills there on Christmas Eve.

The director, still on the same cre- ative high that produced Some Like It Hot, infuses what should be a tragedy with a wonderful sense of hope. As Bax- ter and the recovering Fran share a

Great Performances:

Along with “Have Your-

self a Merry Little Christmas,” Judy Gar-

land sings “The Trolley

Song” in Meet Me in St. Louis.

=

Duck and Cover: Bonnie Bedelia and Bruce Willis share a non-peaceful Christmas Eve in Die Hard.

Christmas dinner — spaghetti, bachelor- strained through a tennis racket — the underlying sense of a fresh start for both is uplifting. And even though a wrench is suddenly thrown into the works, by New Year’s Eve, all’s well with the world. A master director of today, Tim Bur- ton (Batman Returns), lends his skewed vision to a suburban holiday in Edward Scissorhands (FoxVideo tape and disc). Johnny Depp is the title character, whose inventor died before he could give his creation a Christmas present — hands to replace the blades at the ends of his wrists. Brought into “civilization” y a well-meaning Avon lady, Edward is at first courted; his imaginative clipped hedges and cockeyed coiffures are all the

rage around the neighborhood.

On Christmas Eve, only minutes af- ter an ecstatic moment—the Avon lady’s daughter Kim (Winona Ryder) re- vels in the shavings falling from the ice sculpture Edward is fashioning — their world falls apart. A misunderstanding turns the narrow-minded neighbors against him, and he returns to his exile. At first glance a bitter conclusion, there is a glimmer of optimism: Edward has brought snow —something never seen before —to this cold-hearted town. As for Kim, as an elderly woman, she poig- nantly confides, “Sometimes you can still catch me dancing in it.”

If you want more dancing, try the charming 1944 musical Meet Me in St. Louis (MGM/UA tape and disc). A nos- talgic look at an all-American family in turn-of-the-century St. Louis, the Vin- cente Minnelli film celebrates Christmas Eve with a ball full of lavish gowns, dance cards and courtly gentlemen. “The Boy Next Door” proposes marriage to young Esther Smith: (Judy Garland at her most luminous), and before the eve- ning is out sister Rose is engaged too. Yet the highlight is Esther's “lullaby” — “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christ- mas” —to little sister Tootie (Margaret O’Brien), fretful because the family will soon uproot itself to New York City. Christmas magic, however, is at work: Even though Esther promises Tootie,

36 VIDEO DECEMBER 1992

“We can be happy anywhere as long as we're together,” Father reconsiders and cancels the move. It’s a shining example of pre-politicized “family values.”

For those with a less sentimental streak, there’s holiday merriment to be found in the action-adventure Die Hard (FoxVideo tape and letterboxed disc). After all, it’s Christmas Eve with the Nakatomi Corporation’s office party in full swing when thieves masquerading as terrorists take over the building. New York cop John McClane (Bruce Willis) eludes the hostage-takers and manages to off a few of the bad guys, prompting him to send this greeting: “Now I have a machine gun. Ho-ho-ho.” Our hero even has a roll of gift-packaging tape to thank for his ultimate victory! Not sur- ptisingly, Die Hard’s soft side emerges at the end: The ordeal reunites McClane with his estranged wife (Bonnie Be- delia), and as they cement their new- found relationship, Vaughn Monroe’s

Winter Wonders: Choices for a cold eve- ning in front of the TV set include (top to bot- tom) Frank Capra’s Meet John Doe, Tim Burton's Edward Scis- sorhands, the White Christmas predecessor Holiday Inn, and Jack Lemmon and Fred MacMurray in The Apartment.

voice breaks in with a jubilant version of “Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow.” Charlie Chaplin’s masterpiece The Gold Rush (CBS/Fox tape, Voyager/ Killiam disc) promises a quieter eve- ning’s viewing. In this 1925 silent, The. Little Tramp braves the freezing tem- peratures and hard life of the Yukon as a prospector. The object of his affections, a brash dance hall hostess (Georgia Hale), agrees to bring her friends to a New Year’s Eve dinner. Unaware she is only feigning admiration as a joke, Chaplin feverishly prepares for the big event —shoveling snow to earn money for holiday presents for his guests, fuss- ing over a lavish dinner, decorating the cabin right down to a pathetic little continued on page 43

BY MARTIN BROCHSTEIN

ideogamers may feel like they’re in-

side a game themselves when they

go hunting for a system this season.

Never have so many products, me- dia and configurations fought for their hearts and minds. Be it eight-bit or 16- bit, Sega or Nintendo, cartridges or discs, one gamer’s conundrum is likely to be another’s heaven. The holiday season this year offers any number of ways to play, most of which deliver entertain- ment experiences only the most power- ful mainframes could have created a few short years ago.

The main gaming action is to be found in the 16-bit arena, bearing in mind that eight-bit systems by Ninten- do, Sega and others are still available and less costly, and that more advanced 32-bit systems are still at least a year away. However, state-of-the-arters will also get a chance this season to sample CD-based gaming.

GAME

Stalking 92’s top titles & action CDs.

Daring Duo: The new TurboDuo CD drive for the TurboGrafx-16, the first game system to use CDs.

The two hottest games machines right now are the Super Nintendo En- tertainment System (SNES) and the Sega Genesis. A third contender, the TurboGrafx-16 system, is trying to keep pace with the help of its new TurboDuo that integrates a CD drive into the main console. Both SNES and Sega feverishly quote surveys and articles that “prove” it has the winner. They’re also priced about the same. In most areas, each can be bought for $99 with a single control-

Winter Winners: Olympic Gold (left) and Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (top) for Genesis, and Team USA Basketball (above) for SNES.

HUNI

ler and no game cartridges.

Why buy one instead of the other? The answer generally comes down to a single factor: Who has the great games? Sega expects to have more than 350 Genesis titles by Christmas, from itself and nearly 40 other publishers. Ninten- do says more than 125 SNES cartridges will soon be on store shelves.

But it’s not just a matter of numbers, or titles, since an increasing number of game publishers are making cartridges for both major systems. Each system will have its own honor roll of hits. Here are the key new titles to look for:

Two new SNES titles take the Mario Brothers out of their normal environs. In Super Mario Paint, Nintendo ventures from pure game play into computer-style play with an enjoyable drawing and mu- sic program that’s controlled by an in- cluded mouse. Mario Bros. characters appear as icons to help children fill in drawings or create their own, animate sequences and compose music. The pro- gram includes a fast fly-swatting game designed to familiarize first-time mouse users with rodent maneuvering.

Similarly, Super Mario Kart plops the Mario characters into go-carts in a game that can show split-screen racing from two players and 360-degree perspectives from the drivers. Look also for the SNES version of an NCAA Basketball Game that has the unique ability to constantly shift the viewer's perspective so it’s al- ways behind the player with the ball.

Acclaim Entertainment’s accent is on licensed properties. Bart’s Nightmare leverages the popularity of The Simpsons TV show, while, under its LJN label, it has Spiderman/X-Men: Arcade’s Revenge with a host of Marvel Comics charac- ters. Konami is also mining characters

38 VIDEO DECEMBER 1992

Nintendo’s Newest: Super Mario Paint for SNES enlists Mario icons to help users draw and animate.

from other media with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 4— Turtles in Time (and is also publishing its first Turtles title for Genesis). In a non-licensed mode, check out Konami’s Axelay, an intergalactic shoot-’em-up. Electronic Arts continues to build its sports franchise by adding Team USA Basketball to its Electronic Arts Sports Network series.

For Genesis, Sega is putting most of its oomph behind Sonic the Hedgehog 2 — a much-anticipated sequel to last year’s megahit. The new version is on an eight- megabyte cart that delivers more speed, twice as many boards and a cohort fox with two tails. Sega is also publishing

actor.

TWO WAYS TO TARE THE MULTIMEDIA PLUNGE

A few years ago, the electronics buzzword of the day was digital. Now it’s multimedia —as in the two leading mul- timedia systems vying for a place in your expanding home entertainment center. Each of the two systems — Compact Disc-Interactive and Video Information Sys- tem—will cost you about $600 and can be found in many electronics and department stores. Each uses CD- like discs to let you play games, learn how to do things and access vast amounts of information.

Philips, CD-I’s originator and champion, has been steadily expanding the format’s software library since it came on the market a little more than a year ago, and expanding its capabilities. In Escape From CyberCity, for example, the player assumes the perspective of the hero in an animated adventure, destroying demons as the sto- ty moves forward. Another new disc, Mystic Midway: Rest in Pieces, is a shooting gallery game that includes syn- chronized introductions and commentary from a video

CD-I will add a new twist early next year with a plug-in cartridge that lets it display full-screen, full-mo- tion video. Future CD-I players will have the capability built in. The cartridge is expected to come with some

it

Streets of Rage II, a follow-up to last year’s popular action title, and expand- ing its strength in sports titles with such games as NFL Sportstalk Football 93 and Evander Holyfield Real Deal Boxing.

On the third-party shelf for Genesis, don’t overlook Tengen’s RBI-4 baseball game, U.S. Gold’s Olympic Gold —Bar- celona 92, Flying Edge’s Krusty’s Fun House with Simpsons characters, and Arena Entertainment’s Alien 3 and Ter- minator 2.

The biggest buzz comes from CD- based games, though the real CD gam- ing revolution probably won’t kick in for at least another year. Sega recently

Games on Disc: Sega's new CD game drive (left) with screens from two CD games, Joe Montana’s NFL ‘Football (above) and Night Trap, which includes video segments.

19:10 HALLI Captured sa Possible 7s

ACCESS Jehomstetemen ee,

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launched the $299 Sega CD in a few USS. cities, although a version has been on the market in Japan for several months. At presstime, Sega expected to have a few CD games on the market in time for Christmas.

Nintendo, which earlier this year

continued on page 104

on CD-I.

software, including at least one music video, and cost about $200. Though plans for using the video capability haven’t been made public, many industry watchers as- sume the company will eventually try to put feature films

VIS, which was developed by Tandy Corp. and Mi- crosoft, can be purchased under either the Memorex or Zenith brands. Like the CD-I player, a VIS console re- sembles an upscale CD player with a slide-out tray. Many of the first 100-plus VIS programs are similar to ones al- ready developed for personal computers, and that’s no accident. The VIS operating system is an offshoot of Mi- crosoft’s popular Windows system, so software developers

find it relatively easy to create versions of pro- grams for both. The VIS comes with an infrared remote that resembles a videogame controller more than a TV remote, plus a special version of Compton's Multimedia En- cyclopedia. —MB

DECEMBER 1992 VIDEO 39

BY BRENT BUTTERWORTH

HOME THEATER

The $200,000 Cello Music and Film System may be the world’s best home theater.

o Christmas list would be complete

without an impossible dream, a gift

you wish for but never dare expect.

For car buffs, it might be an original Shelby Cobra. For baseball card collec- tors, maybe a Honus Wagner. For hard- core audio/video nuts like me, it’s the Cello Music and Film System.

I could start by describing all the re- ally cool hardware that makes up the Cello system, or by breaking down its breathtaking $200,000 price tag. But af- ter an afternoon at a Cello showroom, you no longer care what the Cello sys- tem is. You fall in love with what it does.

We're watching the opening of the Terminator 2 laserdisc. Every detail in the skull-littered, apocalyptic landscape stands out, without the flicker, scan lines or rainbowed “chroma crawl” ef- fects that mar NTSC pictures. Linda Hamilton’s calm but troubled voice sounds perfectly clear and fully imaged, as if she were standing in front of us. Cello vice president Franco Fellah

warns me, “Strap yourself in!” and I smile politely, feeling jaded after seeing this scene on several THX systems.

Suddenly, SLAM! The robot’s foot crunches down, smashing a skull to bits, and I yell and jump out of my chair. I know exactly when the crash will occur, but I’m not prepared for the effects of the Cello system’s 127-decibel dynamic range. It sounds like an 18-wheeler dropped through the ceiling.

We skip to the first encounter be- tween the two Terminators, amazed that when Arnold gets thrown through a glass wall, it doesn’t sound close to real, it sounds absolutely real. I had no idea la- serdisc digital audio was capable of such high performance. Home THX systems sound almost like movie theater sys- tems. But the Cello system doesn’t — it sounds better than a movie theater!

We switch to Andres Segovia: The Song of the Guitar, a laserdisc documen- tary on the life and music of the father of classical guitar. Every nuance of Sego-

ee ah ke

Cet eT SEALY

As Good as It Gets: (Top) Cello founder Mark Levinson demon- strates the Audio Palette equalizer. (Cen- ter) A Cello system rack packed with state- of-the-art Cello, Faroud-

ee. mae prea 8

ja, Theta and Pioneer equipment. (Bottom) Detail showing the costly discrete circuitry that makes the Audio Palette so effective.

40 VIDEO DECEMBER 1992

PHOTOS: MAHDAVIAN

‘| The Big Picture: The Cello Music and Film System includes a Stewart Filmscreen, towering Stradivarius Grand speakers and an Ampro Esprit 4000 projector.

via’s delicate playing comes through. The sound is better than with any tweaked-up audiophile system I can re- member. You can hear Segovia’s left hand move across the guitar neck, and the notes emanating from the sound hole slightly to the left. The speakers seem to vanish — it’s just you, Segovia and the scenic countryside of his An- dalusian home.

That’s the magic of the Cello Music and Film System. Put on any program material — CDs from Nirvana to Bartok,

laserdiscs from Robocop to Casablanca — and you get the full emotional impact. The end is all-important; the means dis- appear.

It may seem strange to spend hun- dreds of thousands of dollars on equip- ment designed to be ignored, but as Cello founder Mark Levinson puts it, “People who buy Cello are interested in soul, not technology. With Cello, you forget about video, you forget about au- dio, and you start experiencing music and film. You get this incredible emo-

tional rush.”

Levinson began Cello after years of running Mark Levinson Ltd., a high-end audio company that built its reputation by building some of the world’s best amps and preamps. Instead of simply manufacturing a new hardware line, though, Levinson decided to create no- compromise systems that would allow audio/videophiles to concentrate on program content instead of equipment. This focus on musical and visual con- tent stems both from Levinson’s years as

DECEMBER 1992 VIDEO 41

a jazz bassist and trumpeter, playing with such greats as Sonny Rollins and Paul Bley, and his longtime involvement in music and film production.

Cello customers get a personal audi- tion in Cello’s Manhattan or Los An- geles showroom; system specifications drawn to their needs by Levinson or his Los Angeles counterpart, Joe Cali; and professional installation tailored to their homes. The state-of-the-art perfor- mance of Cello gear largely eliminates

the need for future upgrades.

Several Cello systems are available, from $24,000 audio-only systems to the complete Music and Film System, devel- oped in conjunction with Audio/Video Interiors, a Millburn, New Jersey, cus- tom installation firm. The system we au- ditioned includes a Pioneer CLD-95 combi player, which feeds a $15,000 Fa- roudja line doubler that doubles the ap- parent vertical resolution of the picture.

The RGB signal from the line doubler

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travels to an Ampro Esprit 4000 graph- ics-grade projector, capable of an 81-ki- lohertz scan rate (compared to 15.75 kHz for NTSC). After seeing the Fa- roudja work in several systems, I thought it was perfect, but the Ampro projector is so good, it reveals even the Faroudja’s few flaws.

Senior editor Ken Korman and I agree — the combination of the Faroudja and the Ampro Esprit 4000 produces the best big-screen picture we've seen from an NTSC laserdisc. The filmlike detail and stability of the picture are just amazing, even on the screen Levinson uses, which is almost as large as those in small multiplex movie theaters.

The sound system uses two 500- pound Stradivarius Grand speakers (each with 18 separate drivers), two Per- formance amplifiers (each rated at 6,000 watts of power), an Audio Palette, an Audio Suite preamp and two Strad Pre- miere speakers in the rear, each powered by a 50-watt mono amp. The Toslink digital output of the Pioneer CLD-95 feeds a modified Theta DS Pro Genera- tion III digital-to-analog converter. A Lexicon CP-3 surround-sound decoder separates the rear-channel sound using a surround program designed for Cello by Lexicon.

The real stroke of genius is the Au- dio Palette equalizer. Levinson created the $16,000 Audio Palette (and its brother, the $6,500 Palette Preamp) to correct for the imbalances found in many recordings due to the lack of standardization among professional au- dio monitoring systems. In other words, a recording mixed on a bright-sounding system may sound dull on most other systems. With six bands of super-clean equalization, the Audio Palette lets a user adjust for these tonal imbalances without degrading the sound as most equalizers do. For easy access, it sits on a stand in front of the listener.

Levinson demonstrated the Audio Palette’s capabilities on everything from action movies to Ella Fitzgerald, switch- ing in and out to let us hear the differ- ence. In every case, we felt the Audio Palette made the unequalized sound al- most unlistenable in comparison.

The results of Levinson’s efforts are so far beyond what we’ve come to ex- pect from home entertainment, it sad- dens us that more people can’t exper- ience them. Levinson is enthusiastic about the idea of working with consum- er electronics companies to make afford- able, high-quality systems, but has no firm plans to do so. However, you'll soon be able to experience a taste of the Cello magic for the price of a laserdisc — Image Entertainment recently purchased a Cello system for use in disc mastering. =

NP SE ee SRT es ee pS et TS | ee ees eR eS ONE, Se es le ee, ey A ey ee

TRADITION

continued from page 37

Christmas tree. The women never show. But the pathos in Chaplin’s work rarely lasts: Soon the tramp and his partner strike gold, and as they journey to America, he receives his gift— one stow- away, a lovestruck dance hall hostess named Georgia.

Another case of sorrow transformed into joy occurs in Auntie Mame (Warner tape and letterboxed disc), the sparkling 1958 comedy chronicling the relation- ship between young Patrick and his flamboyant aunt, Mame Dennis (Oscar- nominated Rosalind Russell). As Time heralded, it’s got “Roz-zamatazz!” An eccentric socialite whose motto is “live, live, live,” Mame becomes a victim of the stock market crash—and is poor, poor, poor. She takes a job selling roller skates at Macy’s, but, ill-equipped to handle the holiday hustle and bustle (or any sale that isn’t C.O.D.), gets sacked. Once home, she decides an early Christ- mas celebration will raise spirits and, in an especially touching moment, finds that her loyal servants have paid some long-overdue bills. Then, to cap off this day of unexpected happiness, Beau- regarde Jackson Pickett Burnside (For- test Tucker), a Macy’s customer with a twinkle in his eye and a plantation in Georgia, arrives to sweep Mame off her feet.

And sweep It’s a Wonderful Life aside for Frank Capra’s other Christmas sui- cide picture, 1941's Meet John Doe (pub- lic-domain tape, LVA Film Classics disc). When an enterprising reporter (Barbara Stanwyck) finds her job in peril, she concocts a letter from “John Doe,” who threatens to jump from the roof of city hall at midnight on Christ- mas Eve to protest the state of civiliza- tion. The public latches onto the story, so she hires a down-on-his-luck baseball player (Gary Cooper) to play the part — and he is John Doe, idealistic and hon- est, spurring just-plain-folks to form John Doe Clubs and help their neigh- bors. But big business and politics sour the John Doe movement, and Christmas Eve finds a tiny assortment of people waiting for John on the roof of city hall. The final scene—one of at least seven Capra toyed with—is emotional, heart- felt and inspiring.

A gayer touch comes from Holiday Inn (MCA/Universal tape and disc), the 1942 musical that won an Oscar for Irv- ing Berlin’s holiday staple ‘““White Christmas.” On Christmas Eve, the

song-and-dance team of Hanover & Hardy go their separate ways — Hardy (Bing Crosby) to Connecticut to launch an inn open only on holidays, Hanover (Fred Astaire) to a new show, with his ex-partner’s fiancee in tow. Hardy gets a new partner and fiancee (Marjorie Rey- nolds), then Hanover comes sniffing around... It’s a lightweight story, but the Berlin tunes are a delight — and the final clinch comes, of course, as Christmas rolls around again. s

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Enlargement of an LCD panel with thin- film transistors.

BY GEORGE MANNES

Monochrome Giant: Flat plasma screen by Photonics Systems

measures 60 inches di-

agonally, making it the world’s largest high- resolution, dot-matrix display.

oe

The $1 billion race to invent see most elusive product— g, thin, hang-on-the-wall TV.

sions, futurists 5 dreamed of a

large TV set flat enough to hang on a wall, just like the one Arnold Schwar- zenegger enjoyed in Total Recall. But in the real world, the large, flat TV has al- ways remained an enticing prize just out of reach, the vid- eo industry's version of a holy grail. In 1970, for example, Show Magazine pre- dicted flat, wall-sized TV sets would ar- tive by 1978 “at the latest.” But that’s recent history. In 1950, when Video Mag- azine contributing editor David Lach- enbruch joined the industry newsletter Television Digest, one of his first assign- ments was to look into the possibility of flat television. “I concluded it was 10 years off,” he recalls. “That has stood up very well with time, because it’s always been 10 years off.”

It probably still is a decade away. But the race has never been more furious, nor the promise more compelling. The market for flat screens has never looked larger — $16 billion by 1997, according to one estimate — and more companies than ever are pursuing ingenious new approaches. The boom in computers, the growing needs of the U.S. military and the advent of HDTV have all

ven before peo- ple had televi-

helped to fuel a surge in advanced re- | with the bigger companies, in particular

search. In recent years, companies here and in Japan have poured more than $1 billion into the effort to perfect flat- screen technologies, and the spigot is still open.

The money has not been wasted. Al- though large color displays remain tan- talizingly elusive, companies are drama- tically improving the quality of small color screens and large monochromatic screens. And significant developments continue to be announced. For example, Casio recently said it has developed a new kind of LCD using a plastic film only half a millimeter thick, setting a new standard for thinness and lightness. It predicts the new LCD, now mono- chromatic, will be able to handle color in a few years and may make it possible to create TV sets with folding screens.

Giants like Casio, Sharp and Canon are being challenged by smaller, feisty competitors. Firms like Photonics Sys- tems and Coloray Display, both based in, the U.S., are pushing unconventional technologies to the limit in the search for better, bigger, less costly displays. Government-supported entities are also deeply involved. In Japan, NHK, the country’s public broadcasting organiza- tion, conducts its own research, while here in the U.S., the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has spent $150 million just in the past four years to support flat-screen re- search.

Where do we stand? The story starts

44 VIDEO DECEMBER 1992

Magnified color TV LCD panel shows red, green and blue pixels.

Pixelated:

In a thin-film transistor LCD display (below), voltages applied to tiny transistors turn liquid crystals on or off, illu- minating red, green and blue pixels, which form video images.

Sharp, which has tied its fortunes to what is regarded as the leading technol- ogy in the race toward a hang-on-the- wall TV set. The technology is based on the thin-film transistor, active-matrix liquid-crystal diode, and Sharp is its leading proponent. The company has spent a bundle, earmarking more than $700 million in a program begun in 1990 to perfect large, color displays.

Like all color TV displays, thin-film LCDs do not transmit seamless pictures. They display arrays of red, green and blue dots that merge into continuous colors and shapes when viewed from a distance. To visualize how such a picture works, imagine a single dot on an insu- lating window, the kind with two panes of glass separated by a space. The panes of glass are polarized at right angles to each other but, instead of air between the panes, the space is filled by a twisted liquid crystal.

A basic, white light radiates behind the glass, which the liquid crystal trans- mits to the viewer in a color that corre- sponds to that of the dot. If voltage is applied, the crystal straightens and the

Glass Color Filter Common Electrode Liquid Crystal

Thin-Film Transistor

Glass

Inching Upward: Prototype 16.5-inch flat color display by Sharp, nearly twice as large as the biggest model the

company sells.

cell darkens. Install thousands of such pixels on a video screen, manipulate them in thirtieth-of-a-second incre- ments and you can create a TV picture.

Today, the biggest flat-panel TV Sharp sells in the U.S. using this tech- nology is a wall-hanging 8.6-inch model, complete with designer frame, at a price of $4,795. However, Sharp recently dis- played a color screen for computers with a flat 16.5-inch display, and it has devel- oped an innovative line of LCD video projectors.

But if these results seem disappoint- ing given the size of Sharp's investment, it's important to understand the extraor- dinary difficulties thin-film LCDs pre- sent. “A high-resolution LCD can have up to six million transistors and miles of circuitry,” explains DARPA program manager Marko M.G. Slusarczuk. If there’s even.a slight defect, “it’s going to wreak havoc with picture quality,” he explains. “You have to have a manufac- turing process that’s nominally perfect.”

CAUTION: LOW YIELDS

The problem described by Slu- sarczuk is known in the industry as yield. The extreme difficulty of producing a pixel-perfect screen is one of the most formidable stumbling blocks to large, affordable, thin-film LCD TVs. Al- though exact numbers are closely guard- ed trade secrets, it’s believed that two- thirds of the larger thin-film LCD screens now produced don’t meet their makers’ tough quality standards. Yields as low as 33 percent effectively mean that most units have to be discarded.

To get around the yield problem, Commercial Research Laboratories, a subsidiary of Thorn EMI, the British electronics and entertainment conglom- erate, has spent nearly a decade devel- oping a ferroelectric LCD, a type of LCD that doesn’t need an onscreen transistor. The “horrific” yield losses other companies expetience reflect the difficulty of manufacturing the millions of perfect transistors large screens re- quire, explains Dr. Ashok Vaidya, CRL’s commercial manager.

CRL’s approach simply bypasses a key stumbling block. To operate a com- plex LCD display, it’s important for each pixel to have a memory. In thin-film LCD displays, transistors serve as the memory. But CRL has developed a liq- uid crystal that has its own memory, meaning it doesn’t need a transistor to remain stable when it is either transmit- ting light or blocking light, the two states transistors usually exhibit.

The ferroelectric LCD’s structure

DECEMBER 1992 VIDEO 45

LCD panel, magnified, of the type in Sharp LCD projectors.

4 VIDEO DECEMBER 1992

Supporting Pillar

Transparent Conductor

Microtip

Emitter

Emission Control: Cross-section of a field- emission display shows dozens of tiny electron emitters positioned be- hind each phosphor dot. If even a few emit- ters fail, plenty more are available to keep each phosphor glowing, creating, say its propo- nents, a more reliable flat display.

_

Phosphor Dots

Glass

Faceplate Black Matrix

Base Plate

also makes it much easier to manufac- ture than thin-film LCDs, says Vaidya. The problem is that ferroelectric LCDs cannot transmit the fine shades of gray between black and white that are essen- tial for lifelike colors. In the meantime, the lab has demonstrated a 10.4-inch color computer display using ferro- electric LCDs, and licensed the technol- ogy to an unnamed Japanese manufac- turer.

In addition, Canon, which is also in- vestigating ferroelectric LCDs, has built a 15-inch, high-resolution color proto- type and is reportedly planning models 40 inches and larger that are designed for digital TV systems. Next year, Canon plans to begin producing 24-inch color screens suitable for computers.

Canon's breakthroughs, according to a report in Television Digest, include a technique that eliminates the need for a thin-film transistor for every pixel, and a system that introduces color and gray scales to ferroelectric LCDs, which are typically either on or off. The system uses four filters—red, green, blue and white — for each pixel.

LIT FROM WITHIN

Both thin-film and ferroelectric LCDs are transmissive technologies. They don’t create the light in the TV display —they modulate the amount of

Plasma Power: Screen shots from a 19-inch flat plasma dis- play by Photonics Systems show rich col- ors and fine detail. The company expects to have a 40-inch flat HDTV display within two years.

light that travels through. But other promising flat-panel technologies use an emissive principle. Like conventional TV tubes, they generate the light that makes the picture.

A leading technology using this ap- proach is the field-emission display, which is an interesting variation on the cathode-ray tube that lies at the heart of conventional TV sets. Like a CRT, a field-emission display creates a picture by shooting electrons at a phosphor-cov- ered faceplate. When each red, green or blue phosphor is hit, it glows. A CRT generates the electrons it needs from a heated element inside a single long- necked electron gun at the rear of the tube. But in a field-emission display, the electrons are generated at room tem- perature from millions of minute emit- ters lining the rear of the flat-screen TV.

The emitters act like CRTs and look like Hershey’s Kisses, says Bob Young, director of operations for Coloray Dis- play Corp., a leading developer of field- emission displays. Only 1 micron high and 1 micron wide at their bases, the emitters are so tiny that 10,000 can be packed into a square millimeter of space. This makes it possible to aim about 100 emitters, which end in microtips, at each pixel on the screen’s surface. “Typ- ically, if you have one short circuit, it kills the whole pixel,” explains Young. “But we can lose 10 to 20 percent of those tips and never know the differ- ence. The redundancy is very high.”

The largest field-emission display yet demonstrated is only a six-inch color unit constructed by Leti, a French com- pany. The obstacle to bigger displays, ac- cording to Young, is that today’s semiconductor equipment is not large enough to build large panels full of mi- crotips. As a result, Coloray is exploring other ways to lay down microtips.

Faced with the same hurdle, a re- search cooperative called the Micro- electronics and Computer Technology Corp. is investigating other ways to gen- erate field emissions. Its idea is to make the emitter out of thin film, not micro- tips, explains project director Elliott Schlam. Using these films, “we can

Liquid crystals for LCD screens, as seen by a microscope.

LIGHT VALVES & MIRRORS

While large flat panels could cut the TV set down to a fraction of its present bulk, advances in the small flat panels used in video projectors could prove equally revo- lutionary. Most video buffs are already familiar with LCD projectors, thanks largely to the innovative sets devel- oped by Sharp. But industry watchers are keeping an eye on two approaches using light valves and mirrors.

The former is critical to a new joint effort by JVC and Hughes Aircraft to develop a liquid-crystal light valve (LCLV) projector for consumers. The goal is a set that will project high-quality, ultrabright images up to 30 feet wide, even under normal room light. Like conven- tional video projectors, the LCLV version would start with light generated by three cathode-ray tubes, one for each primary color. But instead of projecting the light, it would display the tubes’ images on the photosensitive side of a liquid-crystal film sandwiched between two lay- ers of glass. Light from a powerful xenon arc lamp would pass through the liquid crystal, bounce off the mirrored side of the sandwich and reflect back out for viewing.

A more advanced version plans to use a single slice of pure silicon crystal for the sandwich. It would help the light valve work so fast that only one CRT would be needed. The projector is expected to have 10 times the brightness of conventional LCD models, according to Dr. Bill Bleha, vice president of engineering at the joint ven- ture. Bleha says it will produce a sharper picture because the liquid-crystal film is continuous, not divided into res- olution-limiting pixels.

Hughes originally developed LCLV projectors in the 70s for the military, and present models cost from $50,000 to $500,000. JVC hopes to introduce the con- sumer version in 1994, for between $2,000 and $7,000.

Meanwhile, Aura Systems, a California company based in El Segundo, is trying to do it with mirrors. Aura is developing front- and rear-projection TV sets using a technology it calls actuated mirror array. Separate sets of mirrors transmit red, green and blue light to the pixels. Each pixel of the display corresponds to one. specific mi- cromirror. The angle at which each mirror reflects its light source determines the brightness of the pixel.

TV sets made this way should be brighter and have wider viewing angles than today’s rear-projection sets, ac- cording to Larry Shultz, president of Aura Distribution Systems, an Aura subsidiary. Shultz adds that Aura is working with Korea’s Daewoo Electronics to develop an NTSC prototype in about 18 months. The companies hope to start selling TV sets in three years.

Dielectric Layers

Aluminum Row Electrode

Transparent Column Electrode

DECEMBER 1992 VIDEO 47

—GM |

manufacture with fairly inexpensive equipment,” says Schlam and, in princi- ple, “scale it up to very large areas.” Schlam expects the company to com- plete its first working display within the next two or three years.

PLASMA POWER

There are some large, flat prototypes around. Among the flashiest is a 40-inch screen, only three inches thick, dis- played earlier this year by NHK. It works by using another type of flat-panel tech- nology known as plasma or gas-dis- charge display. NHK believes plasma displays can be turned into commercial products by 1997, and offer the only real way to create large (40 to 60 inches) flat screens suitable for HDTV.

NHK developed the screen, which uses a direct-current system, with Mat- sushita, NEC, Dai Nippon Printing and Oki Electric Industry. Another Japanese company, Fujitsu, is working on a gas plasma screen using alternating current. Fujitsu says it has already developed a display that can run for 10,000 hours, about the life of a conventional TV tube.

Plasma displays are also being devel- oped in the U.S., chiefly by Photonics Systems of Northwood, Ohio. Photonics has sold 60-inch monochromatic plasma displays for about $150,000 and demon- strated a 19-inch, full-color VGA ver- sion. Its goal is to market an HDTV display at least 40 inches large, diag- onally. “Within two years, we’ll have it,” promises Don Wedding, a Photonics consultant.

To create a plasma display, a layer of neon or a related gas is sandwiched be- tween the clear screen of the monitor and a back panel. An electric current sent to each pixel causes the gas at the pixel to discharge and glow. To make a color plasma display, the inside of the screen is coated with red, green and blue phosphors, according to Wedding. Using the same principle as a fluorescent light bulb, the gas emits ultraviolet light that causes the phosphors to glow.

In Beaverton, Oregon, a company

Light Show: Cross-section of Plan- ar's electroluminescent display (left) and its use on a 19-inch com- * puter monitor.

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called Planar Systems is pursuing anoth- er type of emissive display — electro- luminescence. The company sells a 19- inch monochrome computer monitor and says it is two-thirds of the way to- ward full color. It’s perfected the neces- sary red and green pixels, but still needs to double the brightness level of the blue pixels, according to Jonathan Gilbert, Planar marketing manager.

Which of these ideas is likely to make its way to your living room in a decade or so? The answer’s not easy. Each technology has advantages and in- herent problems. “There’s not a uniform magic-bullet solution that does all things,” says Bob Pressley, president of Silicon Video, a California company re- searching flat displays for DARPA. “Any of these technologies can still emerge as the leader,” adds Slusarczuk.

Moreover, the best ideas will need plenty of money to bring them to mar- ket. Don Wedding of Photonics says the cost of establishing a large-scale electro- luminescence production facility would probably be about $500 million, and Canon is reportedly investing more than $700 million to build factories to mass- produce giant ferroelectric screens. By one conservative account, it took $3 bil- lion to bring thin-film displays to their present dominant position. ‘‘The amount of money involved in this effort is just phenomenal,” says Slusarczuk.

But the expense is fitting given the stakes, and the payoff will be immense. “Anyone who comes up with a cost-ef- fective product that can be sold in even a small part of the market is going to have a huge hit,” promises Pressley. A promise we can expect to be fulfilled in about — say — 10 years. .

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Music magic

To shoot roving-camera music videos without sacrificing audio quality or hav- ing to later synchronize the video with a separate audio recording, try connecting a pair of good tape recorder mics to the camcorder’s mic input with a stereo-to- dual-mono adapter. Tape the mics to- gether in a crossed pattern, and secure them to a tripod or a chair, facing the stage. You can also use a stereo mic, and if the camcorder isn’t stereo, use a single mic. Tape all the mic cable connections together, then tape the mic cable to the camcorder’s hand grip. This way, the mic cable can’t pull out, and the sound quality will be consistent as you move

around. Using extensions between the mics and the camcorder will give you more room to roam.

Mic management

When shooting two people side-by-side with only one lavalier microphone, don’t just attach it to one person. Instead, clip it to one of the subject’s sleeves, on the arm that is between the two subjects. The range of the mic should be more than adequate to pick up both subjects’ voices. Make sure you clip the mic so it can’t be seen in the picture.

Eddie Goldberger

Tucson, Arizona

Homemade widescreen TV

Movie screens are flanked by black cur- tains that can be adjusted to match the aspect ratio of the movie being shown. You can achieve the same effect at home with two black pieces of cardboard and some Velcro fasteners. This way you're not distracted by gray bars on the TV set, and you get a picture that faithfully reproduces your letterboxed laserdiscs as they were meant to be viewed. Jean-Francois Boucher Montreal, Quebec

48 VIDEO DECEMBER 1992

] t’s time to stop wishing you were Eric Burdon. The Pioneer LaserKaraoke” CLD-V820 Combi- nation CD/LaserDisc” Player lets you sing lead on classics like We Gotta Get Out Of This Place. And then backs you up with the instru- mentals, a music video, and on- screen lyrics.

The CLD-V820 comes with Digi- tal Signal Processing to make your living room sound like a Hall, a Stage, or an Arena. And it plays a constantly-growing library of over 1,000 hits, including your favorites

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After you've sung your heart out, relax with your favorite CDs or LaserDisc movies. With digital sound and a 60% sharper picture than standard VHS, the CLD-V820 is an ideal home theater component. It even plays both sides of LaserDisc movies automatically.

For more information or for the dealer nearest you, call (800) 421-1404 and ask for LaserKaraoke. And get ready to launch the next British invasion from the comfort of your own living room.

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hat Is Home Theater? asked the big sign over the entrance to the demon- “stration room on the sec- ond floor of the Tweeter, etc. store in Framingham, Massachusetts. A good question, I thought, since I had embarked on an expedition to purchase a big-screen projection television, considered by many to be the centerpiece of the home theater experience.

Projection has been a growth area for the consumer electronics industry ever since sales of smaller TV sets and VCRs leveled off in the 1980s. Advances in projection technology, combined with design innovations and a heightened in- terest in all things “home thea- ter,” have spurred both retail promotions and sales. It also had me wondering what a typical consumer would find walking in cold to a store, looking to make an informed big-screen choice.

My experience proved anew that re- gardless of technology’s advances, caveat emptor, or buyer be cautious, is still the best advice before heading out. Over the course of several weeks of shopping at a variety of stores in the Northeast — from electronic specialty shops to warehouse- size volume outlets — we heard sales ad- vice that ranged from reasoned and ex- pert to disinformation worthy of the KGB.

Wacky definitions of home theater tripped easily from the tongues of engag- ing salespeople, particularly at high-vol-

BY JAMES M. BARRY

TRADE

One shopper's odyssey, through a jungle of sets & thickets of salespeak, to discover his ideal TV.

ume dealers. “Home theater is for RCA like Trinitron is for Sony,” explained one salesman at Tops Mega Warehouse and Showroom in Secaucus, New Jersey. I had asked about the “Home Theater” designation on the face of a 35-inch RCA direct-view set he was earnestly trying to sell me in lieu of the projection sets I came to ask about.

I hadn’t been in the cavernous Tops showroom a minute when one of the store’s legion of salesmen approached to ask what had brought me there that day. I mentioned the ad I had seen for pro- jection sets in the morning’s newspaper. “Over 85 big-screens displayed,” includ- ing a “Panasonic 40” for $1,096, trum- peted the copy.

I had no reason to doubt Tops’ claim

ADVENTURES IN THE

that the store had “N.J.’s largest selection of color TVs” — along with hundreds of VCRs, camcord- ers, stereos, boom boxes, refrigera- tors, freezers, microwave ovens and kitchen ranges. It was indeed a mega showroom, one of four the company operates in New Jersey. In television alone, Tops displayed all the major brands, including some — like RCA’s ProScan — that are theoretically to be found solely in high-end specialty shops. (And with good reason, since the Tops salesman could tell me nothing about the differences between RCA and ProScan, aside from not- ing some design elements.)

Tops’ high-impact, low-price approach is designed to get cus- tomers into the store in this reces- sionary era. The fine print accom- panying its ads often points out that ad- vertised sets are one-of-a-kind display models. But Tops also offers a $100 re- ward if a customer can get a better price, which is its version of the now routine “lowest-price” policy prevalent in clec- tronics retailing.

Tops is one of the most visible exam- ples of an electronics retail community in the process of a dramatic restructur- ing. Traditional mass merchandisers, catalog showrooms, mail-order firms — even warehouse clubs that display prod- ucts stacked in boxes—are vying with “power retailers” that were once high- volume dealers but that are now trying to become customer-service-oriented with the help of more knowledgeable

50 VIDEO DECEMBER 1992

ROB WESTERBERG

sales staffs. This is a hard transition to make as attested to by the number of bankruptcies and retrenchments that have characterized the retail landscape over the past 18 months.

According to HFD, a newspaper for the retailing industry, electronics and appliance retailers’ share of the market has dipped since 1988 from 47 percent to less than 43 percent. At the same time, the share claimed by warehouse clubs has risen to 7 percent.

It was into this cutthroat retail jun- gle we set out in search of big-screen knowledge.

NAILED TO THE FLOOR

The set advertised for $1,096 was tucked into a corner anchoring a row of two dozen projection sets on a balcony overlooking Tops’ huge display floor. The set was a 90s example of the classic “naildown,” retail parlance for a product advertised at a dramatically low price, but figuratively nailed to the floor so that no customer can buy it.

I could have purchased the set if I had insisted, but since it was difficult even to get a clear viewing angle at an appropriate distance in front of the set, I wouldn’t have wanted to. Nor would any other customer be likely to prefer this set-to the 46-inch RCA and Sony sets lined up right next to it. These sets, with brighter, better adjusted pictures, cost $1,999 and $2,249 respectively.

Furthermore, the salesman contin- ued to tout Tops’ 35-inch direct-view sets over projection unless I was going to go 46 inches or larger, not because of any concern for the size of the screen in relation to the room I would be putting

it in, but because tubes just “have a bet- ter picture.”

In New England, I had seen the’ same Panasonic model advertised a week previously for $1,299 in a Lech- mere newspaper supplement. Until then, this was the lowest advertised price I'd seen for a projection set. Lech- mere has been the power retailer for ap- pliances and electronics in New England for three generations, shifting with the market, accommodating new products and —as new competitors entered its territory — systematically drubbing all comers.

There were 10 projection sets on dis- play in the electronics department at the Lechmere store in Framingham, Massa- chusetts, one of 23 the company oper- ates in the Northeast. I trekked out there a week earlier after spotting a 41- inch Magnavox set advertised for $1,499. This too was a TV the salesman wasn’t very enthusiastic about selling, pointing out it was there simply because “our buyer wanted to hit this price point.” During a second visit, a different salesman said the low price was because Magnavox manufactures the sets here in the U.S., thus keeping freight costs low. True, but perhaps the first answer told more of the story.

Both salesmen were much mote in- terested in selling me one of the Mit- subishi sets that were arrayed in a row next to the advertised special, leading me to suspect these sets carried a sales- man’s “spiff ”—the term for a cash bo- nus intended to encourage the folks on the sales floor to move certain products.

Lechmere also had a separate room set up as a home theater with a Mit-

subishi big-screen TV and a selection of laserdisc players, audio/video receivers and speakers. The salesman there told me that if I wanted a home theater I should have a big-screen TV, an A/V re- ceiver with Dolby Pro-Logic and a laser- disc player.

BRAND PATROL

In Natick, Massachusetts, I visited Sears Brand Central where I was able to compare pictures on eight of the nine projection sets aligned at one side of the department. A few years back Sears be- gan selling branded merchandise, so now I found big screens from Magnavox, RCA, Hitachi and Sony in addition to Sears’ own LXI.

When a salesman finally ap- proached, he responded to an open-end- ed question— “Tell me about these projection sets” — with a pitch for the LXI, that was “the same as the RCA (they make it for us), but a few hundred dollars less.”

As I expected, I had a very different experience at the electronics specialty stores I shopped. Typically, these shops maintain that they have knowledgeable staffers who will sell a customer the right equipment for his or her needs, empha- sizing value rather than merely price. My experience bore out these claims.

At Harvey’s Electronics in Paramus, New Jersey, one of seven stores the com- pany operates in the New York metro- politan area, I was greeted upon entering by a pleasant young man who asked if there was any specific area I was interested in.

When I told him big-screen TV, es- pecially projection, he immediately

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