Apex Digital said it planned to unveil a combination PC gaming console and progressive scan DVD player at CES in Jan. after signing a deal with privately held technology company Digital Interactive Systems Corp. (DISC). An Apex spokeswoman said “we have not yet established a ship date, nor have we confirmed pricing, although we anticipate it being in the $399 range.”

At our deadline Mon., TV set manufacturer Five Rivers Electronic Innovations and 2 unions were claiming victory over a Commerce Dept. preliminary decision that imposed 28-46% antidumping duties on color TVs (CTVs) imported from China. Commerce didn’t propose duties on CTVs from Malaysia.

NPR expects to finish testing the secondary or supplemental digital audio channel by mid-Dec. and submit the results to the National Radio Systems Committee at the Consumer Electronics Show Jan. 9, Vp Engineering Mike Starling told us. NPR is setting much store by the success of the supplemental audio channel as a way of increasing coverage in light of spectrum shortage and to promote localism, an issue that has come to the fore after the FCC decided to raise the ownership limits for commercial TV broadcasters. Starling said testing had been almost completed on schedule Sept. in 4 markets when iBiquity unveiled its new HD Codec (HDC) to replace the PAC Codec. Starling said data collection was done based on the PAC codec at KALW San Francisco, KKJZ L.A., WETA Washington, a long- standing test station for iBiquity, and WNYC N.Y.C. The introduction of the HD Codec in Aug., which drew “rave” reviews from more than 40 broadcast engineers and executives, meant “all our test data on PAC Codec was not conclusive of what would be the real world coverage characteristics and that we have to do several rounds of some regression testing.” The new testing would be confined to Washington and N.Y., Starling said, because those stations were on the air permanently, whereas in L.A. and San Francisco the testing was done on “loaner” transmitters. It won’t be necessary to go back and redo all of those data, he said. Asked whether there had been any preliminary findings on the viability of the 2nd channel, Starling was cautious, saying he didn’t want to be “premature about our expectations.” He said it was believed internally that if a city grade coverage contour of 70 dBu was achieved it would be substantial enough to “warrant asking the Commission to endorse this option” as part of the interim service rules for digital radio. “We think we will clearly exceed that, but I wouldn’t want to predict where we will wind up,” he said. “We will probably be somewhere between the 60 and 70 dBu contour as you could generally expect.”

NPR expects to finish testing the secondary or supplemental digital audio channel by mid-Dec. and submit the results to the National Radio Systems Committee at a Jan. 9 meeting planned during the Las Vegas CES, Vp Engineering Mike Starling told us.

The downward creeping in analog rear-projection TV pricing has turned into a sprint with Circuit City promoting a Magnavox 55” set at $799, post rebate, in an ad circular Thurs.

Electronic Arts (EA) was back atop the U.S. top 10 videogame rental chart in the week ended Nov. 16 as its Medal of Honor: Rising Sun for PS2 hit #1 in its first full week of availability, Rentrak said its preliminary Home Video Essentials data showed. The PS2 version of the game earned $649,564 in rentals for the week, Rentrak said. After a week in which Activision dominated the chart with its #1 Tony Hawk’s Underground for PS2 and had 2 other SKUs in the top 10 vs. only one EA game (CED Nov 17 p7), EA again dominated the chart this time: EA had 3 other SKUs in the chart this time while only 2 Activision games made the cut. EA’s other SKUs this time were The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King on PS2 at #7 (up from #92 a week ago, earning an additional $299,239 in the week for $336,202 total), the Xbox version of Rising Sun at #8 ($276,525 its first week), Madden NFL 2004 on PS2 at #10 (down from #5, earning an additional $218,910 in the week for $3.92 million total). Underground for PS2 slipped to #2 (earning an additional $467,839 in the week for $1.23 million total). Activision’s True Crime: Streets of L.A. moved up 3 steps to #3, earning an additional $412,979 million for total earnings of $662,838. Take-Two Interactive, Sony Computer Entertainment, THQ and Ubisoft each had one game in the top 10: Respectively, the Grand Theft Auto double pack for Xbox at #4 (up 6, earning $395,440 in the week and $572,418 to date), SOCOM II: U.S. Navy SEALs for PS2 at #5 (down 3, $322,308 and $652,472), WWE Smackdown! Here Comes the Pain for PS2 at #6 (down 3, $305,362 and $840,074), Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six 3: Raven Shield for Xbox at #9 (down 5, $236,699 and $610,955).

After a small delay, Acclaim Entertainment filed its 10-Q report with the SEC for its 2nd quarter ended Sept. 28. Acclaim said in an SEC filing late last week that the 10-Q filing would be late because it had “not completed its analysis with respect to certain matters which may have an effect on its financial statements which is not determinable at this time” (CED Nov 17 p4). In the 10-Q filing, received by the SEC after the market closed Tues., Acclaim said that as of Sept. 28, it “had a stockholders’ deficit of $55 million, a working capital deficit of $67.2 million and $7.3 million of cash and cash equivalents.” It said “these factors have continued to raise substantial doubts as to our ability to continue as a going concern.” The company had said earlier it wouldn’t develop new titles for GameCube. In its filing Tues., the company said its “release schedule for the remainder of fiscal 2004 continues to support the PlayStation 2, Xbox and Game Boy Advance platforms as well as PC.” Acclaim also said in the filing that “a preliminary [court] conference” was slated for Dec. 5 in a class action lawsuit that was filed against it by disgruntled investors, charging Acclaim with securities violations. It said it was “defending this action vigorously.” Acclaim said games in its NBA Jam franchise represented 16% of its revenue in the 2nd quarter vs. 14% from the Burnout franchise, 11% from Summer Heat, 9% from ATV, 6% each from Extreme G and Turok, 4% from All Star Baseball, 3% from Speed Kings, 1% each from Vexx, Legends of Wrestling, Aggressive Inline.

Silicon Image shares bounced back Tues., trading up 24? at $6.64, one day after plunging 28% as the company indicated 3rd- quarter results wouldn’t be released on time because auditors were investigating the recognition of license revenue in 2002 and 2003. Silicon Image said wouldn’t file its 3rd-quarter report with the SEC by the Nov. 15 deadline “because an ongoing examination is being conducted by its audit committee.” The company characterized the investigation as preliminary and said it couldn’t predict how long it would take. Upon news of the probe, Wachovia Securities analyst Karl Motey suspended his “market perform” rating on Silicon Image’s stock. The licensing business, which has 85-90% margins, is expected to generate 15% of Silicon Image’s sales this year. Its stock price will “remain under pressure in the near term” until the audit committee investigation is complete, Motey said.

State regulators are seeing the first filings from incumbent telcos identifying the markets where they believe network unbundling isn’t required for effective local competition, as they continue to address unbundling issues from the FCC’s Triennial Review Order (TRO). Meanwhile, more Qwest states said they would participate in a regional TRO- related forum proposed by Qwest to develop a uniform process for handing batch hot cuts in all its states.

The FCC opened an inquiry and adopted a proposal on a controversial “interference temperature” model for quantifying and managing interference among different services, potentially paving the way for new licensed and unlicensed services in existing bands. But several commissioners said that concept requires a cautious approach. Comr. Adelstein said he was worried it was “premature” to move forward with proposed rules “when we haven’t even engaged in a preliminary discussion on the interference temperature approach as a whole.” The proposal called for testing the model on a limited basis at 6 GHz and 12 GHz.