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IVX Dead! Enough said. Too much was written about
it when it was alive, so we don’t need to talk more
about a company that just didn’t get it.
Video at The Perfect Vision is about Home Theater, and
to me that means a large screen picture. Sorry, but a 32” TV
just can’t be home theater, can it? I’m not talking just about
picture quality; I’ve spent endless hours looking at the best
picture quality available, on 13” and 19” professional broad-
cast monitors. No, it’s the emotional experience of a large
screen that fills our field of vision with images of a different
reality. That’s the reaction we get at the cinema and what we
need to experience home theater. So unless you can sit close
to a RPTV, home theater means a front projector with at
least a six foot wide, 16.9 or 1.85 screen.
In this issue I review front projectors from Sony and
Runco that will really make your home-theater experience
happen. But you can’t have large screens without HDTV or
upconverters, unless you want to stare at scan lines. And
that doesn’t quite capture the cinema experience, either. So
Bill Cruce looks at the IEV Turboscan line doubler with lots
of features at a budget price. And I take another look at the
DVDO line doubler, with almost no features, but a sensa-
tional price at $700.
Bill also reviews another DVD/LD combi player. I sup-
pose its time to admit that laserdisc is dead, but some of us
have an awful lot of laserdiscs lying around that we may
never see on DVD. How about Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me,
with Max Parrish, Sean Young, and Timothy Leary? Not like-
ly to make it to DVD, but it’s a great LD title.
Finally, there’s something missing from the video cover-
age in this issue. Part 2 of Christy Warren’s review of the
Runco 5800 HD-ready RPTV. It’s hard to evaluate high-defin-
ition picture quality without an HD source. We didn’t solve
that problem until right before our editorial deadline. So
rather than rushing something with little time for evaluation,
we postponed that report until next time.
Speaking of HDTV: As we went to print with the
Unity Motion review in the last issue, they were clos-
ing their doors in St. Louis. Now as this is written,
Unity Motion, under a new management team, is
officially trying to refinance, restructure, and return
to business. As I wrote in the review, they delivered
some excellent hardware but needed programming
for success. The key was HBO, and Unity Motion
just couldn’t seem to get together with them
and make something happen. We’ll stay
tuned, but it won’t be long before DirecTV and the Dish Net-
work will be delivering HDTV via their satellite systems.
Unity Motion will have to find some sort of niche to make
another run at it. How about an all HDTV sports network?
Movie Trivia
So much for my career in trivia games. When last we met, I
dropped the names of a couple of sci-fi film characters into
Video Insights and the Unity Motion review (Issue 25). I for-
got there were really two characters from different movies
in the Unity review. One was trivial, Scotty from pick your
favorite Trek film, but the other was a bit more difficult.
Unfortunately, I asked for just two movie titles instead of
three. The first person to identify Prof. Barnhardt from The
Day the Earth Stood Still and Scotty, was Neil Bulk from
New Jersey. He wins the AVIA Guide to Home Theater DVD.
But Rick Connolly came through a day later and also identi-
fied the “Toys for Ellie” clue as Jody Foster’s character in
Contact. So Rick also got a copy of AVIA courtesy of its
authors at Ovation Software (www.ovationsw.com). Now
remind me not to try this again!
16.9 DVDs Gaining Momentum
Paramount followed up The 10 Commandments and S t a r
Trek Insurrection with 16.9 enhanced transfers of A Simple
Plan, Varsity Blues, a n d B a r b a r e l l a ( r e v i e w, this issue). I
was feeling really good about Paramount until I heard that
“King of World” Cameron’s chick-flick was going to be
released in a 2.35:1 aspect ratio, but without a 16.9
enhanced transfer! Is that any way to treat the biggest
money maker of all time? Well, I was one of the four people
on the planet that found the movie boring, so I doubt that
they’ll miss my $30.
Fox finally joined the party with a spectacular boxed-set
of the four A l i e n films (review this issue), all in the higher- r e s-
olution 16.9 DVD format. And Criterion has announced their
intention to use 16.9 whenever possible on future releas-
es. Their first 16.9 enhanced title is July’s release of
I n s o m n i a. Criterion pioneered widescreen and spe-
cial editions on laserdisc, so it’s great to see them
commit to the highest-quality DVD format.
It must be getting lonely over at the Mouse.
First DIVX dies and now Mickey may be the last
company to switch to 16.9 enhanced DVDs. Oh,
sorry! I wasn’t going to talk about DIVX or
companies that just don’t get it.
We’ve Got What It Takes for Home Theater
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V I D E O
G R E G R O G E R S