Amazon.com and Microsoft on Monday announced an effort to make it easier for independent filmmakers to produce and distribute movies on high-definition DVDs through a new manufacturing process pioneered by an Amazon subsidiary.

The 1,000 HD DVD Indies Project will be spearheaded by Amazon's CustomFlix unit, which plans to bring as many as 1,000 feature-length indie films to Amazon customers using its CustomFlix DVD On Demand technology.

Filmmakers interested in submitting their HD DVD work for consideration as part of the 1,000 HD DVD Indies Project can go to Amazon's CustomFlix site for more information.

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The SR7001 is the first of a classy new line-up of AV receivers. In the past, Marantz's receivers have tended to concentrate on sound quality at the expense of the latest widgets and gadgetry – but not so the SR7001.

Under the hood are all the hallmarks of Marantz audiophile design, including Crystal 192kHz/24-bit DACs for all channels, and a transformer that looks like it could run a small housing estate. But, uncharacteristically, the features count has caught up with the competition. Four-in one-out HDMI switching with the latest 1.2 spec connectors, 1080p compatibility, video Interlaced to Progressive conversion from all inputs to HDMI, and full auto-setup with Audyssey's MultEQ calibration system head up the goodies list.

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Now this would be a turn up for the books…

In an announcement which makes great headlines but – in truth – probably little change to the consumer Virgin Media has confirmed it is in talks about selling up to a private equity group.

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I’m a bit of a fan when it comes to Denon products. The first ever CD player that I owned was a Denon, and it was a truly excellent bit of kit. I kept that CD player for many years, more than happy with its performance, while Denon continued to produce excellent mid-range Hi-Fi products. And when I say mid-range, I mean a rung or two below the true audiophile stuff from the likes of Unison Research, Linn and Naim.

More recently I’ve been drawn to Denon for its home cinema equipment, with the company producing some of the best surround sound amps and receivers on the market. While Denon’s original THX rated DVD player was legendary when it launched – not only was the image and sound quality incredible, but the solid (and I mean SOLID) metal construction and Champaign finish made it look like a work of art.

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I was thinking of beginning this review with a plug for Sennheiser, a company that has quietly been producing top quality headphones for many years, but rarely seems to grab the limelight. But every review I've ever seen seems to do that, so I won't. Oh, I did already? Never mind.

It's not as if the glowing comments aren't well-deserved. In fact Sennheiser is probably the only name anyone without an unhealthy interest in the headphones market would be able to give you if you asked them to name a company producing high-end headphones.

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Apple may have blazed a trail in the world of digital music players for the past few years, but in the flash player stakes it’s beginning to fall behind the competition. Not in the number of players it sells, or the amount of legal music downloads its customers enjoy, but in what it’s managing to fit into its smaller players.

It still insists on not squeezing a screen onto its shuffle while other manufacturers’ tiny players are building them in. And its latest nano, despite much of the competition incorporating video playback features as standard, is still sticking to its music-only philosophy, even though it has a lovely colour screen.

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A 42in HD Ready TV from one of the flat TV world’s most respected brands costing just £650? What’s not to like, for heaven’s sake? Um, quite a lot, actually…

The uncertainties about Philips’ 42PF5521D start to gather as soon as you clap eyes on it. For while it’s not exactly ugly, there’s no doubt that the brash contrast of deep black screen frame with slightly cheap-looking silver speaker section certainly lacks the refinement and build quality of many TV rivals these days. Still, we guess we can live with aesthetic compromises for £650, provided the performance quality turns out to be there.

The set’s connections are mixed too. The provision of two HDMIs seems actually pretty generous, but the gloss is taken off this by the fact that there’s no dedicated analogue PC interface, meaning that one of the HDMIs has to do double duty as a digital PC input as well as a jack for HDMI video sources.

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Don't miss this opportunity to get a little extra off some of the best priced components in the AV world! Emotiva Audio, from July 1st to July 10th ONLY, is offering 10% off AND free freight on ALL orders! If you've been on the fence, spend hours a day pouring over reviews and the Emotiva site, don't hesitate. The time is now!
Emotiva homepage: http://www.emotiva.com

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DALLAS (June 18, 2007) – Continuing its focus on providing feature-rich audio innovations, Texas Instruments Incorporated (TI) (NYSE: TXN) today announced that its Aureus™ generation of audio digital signal processors (DSPs) is the first audio/video receiver (AVR) implementation approved for both Dolby® TrueHD and Dolby Digital Plus, bringing high-quality audio from the movie theater to the home theater as it was originally intended to be heard. With AVRs based on TI’s award-winning Aureus DA7xx DSPs, manufacturers will now be able to provide consumers high definition (HD) Dolby surround sound from next-generation HD DVD and Blu-Ray Disc players, recorders and home theater in a box (HTIB) systems, which enable enhanced audio features such as the decoding of up to 8 discrete channels of lossless 192 kHz audio delivered synchronously over High-Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI). (For more information please visit www.ti.com/performanceaudio5.)

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