Stories by Melissa J. Perenson

HD-DVD players out, but hard to find

After several false starts, Toshiba has officially fired the first salvo in the race for the high-definition capable successor to DVD. Today marked the official launch of HD-DVD, the format backed by Toshiba. (The first Blu-ray Disc players, for the ...

Dell ordering blues

I rely heavily on the Internet for my shopping needs. However, I am a bit stunned by a recent Dell experience. And not in a good way.

Front projectors poised to take flight

According to recently released market information from Pacific Media Associates, the landscape for front projectors is changing. Previously considered a more niche product for business, home, and educational and religious facilities, the world of fro...

Sony's new DSC-T30 packs image stabilization

Sony has just announced its super-slim Cyber-shot DSC-T30, a 7.2-megapixel camera. The camera is equipped with the chops for shooting in low-light environments: the DSC-T30 has Sony's Super Steady Shot optical image stabilization and supports up to I...

Burning Questions: Ulead DVD MovieFactory 5

While many DVD burning packages aim to provide a full suite of services, some are more targeted in their options. Ulead's DVD MovieFactory 5 falls into the latter category.

Burning Questions: High-def players won't copy

Imagine Olympic skaters lined up at the starting line, but the ice ahead of them isn't ready for the race -- not a pretty sight. Yet backers of Blu-ray Disc and HD-DVD, the two high-definition optical disc formats poised to succeed DVD, are in a simi...

Toshiba takes HD DVD on the road

On Thursday, I had a chance to view a working sample of Toshiba's high-end HD DVD player, the HD-XA1 (announced at CES in January). Last week, Toshiba kicked off a 40-city road show, during which the company is visiting more than 130 retail stores to...

Panasonic DMR-EH50S

A svelte DVD recorder with a 100GB hard drive, Panasonic's DMR-EH50S impresses on many levels. In our tests, it produced excellent videos recordings with bright, vivid colors that made events like explosions look extremely realistic. Images also show...

Burning Questions: Burners that do more

Let's face it: DVD burners are now ubiquitous, and it's harder than ever to tell internal drives apart. But by their very nature, external drives have always had a little more room for differentiation. And the latest crop of external models to cross ...

Philips DVDR3365

Even though Philips is one of the companies behind the DVD+R format, the DVDR3365 can record to DVD-R/RW discs as well as to DVD+R/RW. This gesture toward detente in the DVD wars doesn't seem to have extended to the manual, however: While DVD+R recei...

CES - Product roundup

The big talk of last week's Consumer Electronics Show was all about blue: blue-laser DVD, or more precisely, the battle between HD-DVD and Blu-ray Disc to be the next-generation optical disc format. Watching the posturing and positioning for the upco...

Olympus C-55 Zoom

While putting the boxy and hefty Olympus C-55 Zoom through its paces, I found much to like about its design. The sizable grip feels comfortable, and the positioning of the buttons and camera navigation wheel allowed me to use the camera one-handed wi...

Apple iPod mini

With its streamlined, colourful design and easy-to-use click wheel, Apple's original iPod mini established itself as a head turner. The second-generation, 6GB mini upholds the tradition--except this time, you'll be wowed not just by the mini's looks,...

HD-DVD claims the brand advantage

Never underestimate the power of a name. That's the single greatest takeaway I found in a recent study offered up in support of HD-DVD, one of two competing formats in the race for a next-generation disc format with the capacity required for high-def...

Opinion: The next-generation disc: what should it be?

No one wants to back the losing team. And today's consumers are savvy enough to know they don't want to be caught anywhere near the quagmire that is the turf war between competing next-generation optical disc formats Blu-ray Disc and HD-DVD. One of t...