Digital Versatile Disc Hottest New Item At Winter Consumer Electronics Show

High-tech innovations in video and audio took center stage at the Winter Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Nev., last week.

Poised as the successor to laser discs, prerecorded videotapes and CD-ROM software, the DVD (short for digital versatile disc) was the hottest product announcement from many major electronics brands - Toshiba, RCA, Sony, Goldstar, Pioneer, Panasonic, Philips and more. But don’t hold your breath for its arrival.

The first DVD players ($500-$700) and the initial 200 to 300 movie and video-music titles ($20 and up) won’t be available till Labor Day for wiring up to your TV and stereo system. The new DVD discs look like a CD yet offer 14 times the storage capacity per side, superior digital picture and surround sound, plus many unique bells and whistles. With the push of a button, for example, users can decide if they want the kids to see the PG, PG-13, R or unrated version of a film, or if they want to watch a full screen (“pan-and-scan”) or letterboxed version.

Also, multiple languages and subtitle options can be accessed from the same disc. Toshiba plans to offer a DVD CD-ROM drive for computers (about $300) by year’s end, too, with analysts speculating that the PC-variant will take off even faster as a software medium than the movie discs. Standards for a super-hi-fi audio-only version are now being hammered out.

Wide-screen TV: While the Federal Communications Commission and Congress are still dickering over the future of wide-screen digital TV in America, companies such as Proton and Sharp have decided to start selling analog wide-screen sets here. Priced from $2,700, these 16-x-9-ratio format sets exploit the growing availability of letterbox titles on laser disc and the soon-coming DVD format, as well as movie channels such as AMC that show letterboxed movies, and the two mostly letterbox pay-per-view channels recently initiated on DirecTV’s service for the DSS digital satellite system.

At the low end of the price scale is Proton’s WT-3250, a 30-inch screen that is ideal for dens and bedrooms. Sharp’s 43-inch rear-projection wide-screen model (43HWP1000, around $4,000) generates images on color LCD panels rather than with projection tubes, allowing for a set that’s only 15 inches deep and weighs just 90 pounds! Sony and Sanyo also showed LCD rear-projection prototypes at CES but may not bring their variants to market until next year.

Private home theater: The video equivalent of the personal stereo, the new Virtual TV headset ($399, available in March) gives TV watchers and video gamers a private, home-theater experience without disturbing others in the same room. While wearing the comfortable, eight-ounce headset, viewers see a sharp (LCD-produced) image that looms as large as watching a 60-inch projection TV from a distance of 11 feet, as they listen to stereo sound through built-in headphones. The VTV glasses connect to any source that has video and audio output jacks, including TVs, VCRs and all major gaming platforms from Sony, Nintendo and Sega.

Video grabbers: Next best thing to a private surveillance force is Panasonic’s new PV-D506 VHS-C camcorder ($999, available March), which can be set to automatically turn on whenever motion is detected. “It’s a great way to see what your baby sitter’s up to when you’re not around,” noted a company spokesman. You can also set the camcorder’s indoor light to turn on automatically under dim conditions, if desired.

For TV addicts who can’t stand the idea of being out of the house and missing two fave shows playing in the same time slot, Sharp has a novel answer. It’s a two-tuner, one-well VCR that can simultaneously capture two broadcast programs on a single tape. For efficient playback purposes, you can watch both shows simultaneously (side by side on a TV screen), amplifying the one soundtrack that seems more interesting at any moment; or select either show to play full screen. A tape made on this deck also can be played back on a conventional VCR, it is claimed. “You just vary the tracking control to bring up one show or the other,” a demonstrator said. Price will be under $900; availability, spring.

Audio highlights: Sony and Recoton introduced noise-canceling headphones ($100-$200) that make listening to music much more pleasurable in rumbling environments like airplanes and subway cars.

Keeping track of the contents of Technics’ new SL-MC700 110-disc mega CD changer ($500) and the top-end, 200-disc changers coming from Sony ($900-$1200) should be easy as pie. Both designs invite you to plug in a standard IBM-type PC keyboard to type in album titles, artist names and music variety. The same data can then be entered to retrieve a disc and is displayed on a screen whenever the CD rotates into the play slot.