President's Message
May 2000

1. At the beginning of April the decision was made to move the offices of the Boston Audio Society and the BAS Speaker to the Big Apple. This is in line with the general consolidation of the audio publishing industry in New York City and mirrors the move of High Fidelity from Great Barrington MA (near Tanglewood), Audio from Philadelphia PA, Audio Amateur from Peterborough NH, and, recently, Stereophile from Santa Fe NM.

2. A British retailer, Tesco, has begun selling players that can play DVDs produced anywhere when properly programmed, thus allowing customers to circumvent existing price controls, the Telegraph said. Tesco has written to Warner Home Video demanding an end to the regional coding policy. Other news about DVDs is at www.insidedvd.com. [see other DVD links on our links page]

3. Electronics World (UK), Mar2000, has a summary of DVD technology and marketing. It says "A common misconception holds that DVD has created a universal television playback system. But this is not the case. It suffers the same NTSC versus PAL problem as videotape and laserdisc. There is also variation in the degree to which players can handle 'alien' discs. All DVD players in PAL countries play both PAL and NTSC, some can also output a PAL-encoded version of American NTSC discs. The wider choice of DVDs in the USA led to a healthy importing business [into the UK] until it ran afoul of discs being seized on account of not having UK censor certification. However individuals can import discs for their personal use. BBC Enterprises has hinted that future releases of Doctor Who and classic drama and concert performances will appear only on DVD." [However films are encoded at 24 fps on all DVDs--the NTSC output uses 3/2 pulldown, PAL probably just runs about 4% fast. Using a computer allows playback at 72 fps, avoiding many artifacts].

4. A website, www.net4music.com, allows you to download sheetmusic for a fee. Over 40,000 pieces of music are available with 10,000 added every month.


 

The Boston Audio Society
PO BOX 260211
Boston MA 02126

problems? email Barry: webmaster@bostonaudiosociety.org

updated 11/11/04