Magnavox brand will be wedge used to drive DVD recording into mass market in spring when parent Philips extends DVD+R/RW recorder line to selective national accounts, officials said. Magnavox deck will hit $499 sweet spot at discounters and chains, while more feature-laden models under Philips marque continue penetration through upmarket regional selling floors, Philips executives told us Thurs. Meanwhile, gloves have come off in rivalry among recordable DVD formats after Panasonic’s DVD-RAM seminars in London this week attacking DVD+R/RW system.

“Rising costs” of bringing videogames to market are forcing publishers and developers to “find ways to trim expenses,” Gerard Klauer Mattison (GKM) analyst Edward Williams said Mon. in research report. He reacted with little surprise to announcement by Midway Games that it planned to take $14 million charge for restructuring of its Milpitas, Cal., development studio to cut costs by consolidating R&D.

Hoping to ride wave of CE products incorporating personal video recorder (PVR) technology in coming months, PlanetWeb used CES to unveil FrontRow suite of applications that will enable OEMs to add time-shifting, live pause and other PVR functions to virtually any device with hard drive.

Extended-warranty costs for plasma TVs in Hong Kong are giving some consumers there pause before buying, South China Morning Post reported on basis of study released last week by territory’s Consumer Council. Council’s survey of 43 plasma TVs ranging from 32W thru 61W and priced from $3,500 to $21,250 found they carried one-year extended warrantees costing $213 to $1,375 annually. Warranty costs varied according to size of plasma set -- rising as panel size increased-- and depending on whether plan included service only or service and parts. Council study said charges, excluding parts, ranged 2%-13% of set’s initial cost. Yearly fees for maintenance including parts was between 8% and 27% of set’s retail price. New plasma sets in Hong Kong now come only with one-year warranty. Council said complexity of plasma technology prevented conventional repair shops from servicing sets, so consumers had to go directly to TVs’ distributors. It said that for time being, less expensive maintenance alternatives didn’t exist. Council said number of complaints about flat-screen plasma TVs went from one in 2001 to 17 last year, and majority involved maintenance costs.

As aid to blind and visually impaired, Panasonic is expanding availability of its remote controls with single-button access to Second Audio Program (SAP) on TV stereo broadcasts. SAP is simultaneously-broadcast auxiliary channel that can offer program in 2nd language or provide “video descriptive service” in which narrator describes program’s action and key visual elements during pauses in dialog -- thereby enabling sight-impaired to better follow program. Single-button SAP access is located at upper right of Panasonic remotes and has 3 raised dots to distinguish it by touch. Feature was in remotes for 46 Panasonic video products last year, and now will be included on remotes for almost all of company’s products with TV stereo broadcast reception.

Only hours after THQ cut its earnings forecast for its current quarter (CED Dec 24 p3), Midway Games drastically reduced its estimate for 4th quarter ending Dec. 31. Midway said it now expected revenue for 4th quarter would be $78-$83 million, down from $105-$155 million company had predicted. Also, instead of $15-$40 million profit Midway had forecast, it said it now expected loss, although it didn’t say how much. Announcement spurred disappointing reactions from analysts, and shares in game maker dropped.

It’s “premature” to give Sec. 271 authority to SBC for Cal., even though company has made “great strides in opening the local market” there, FCC Comr. Martin said in statement explaining why he dissented in vote to approve SBC’s application (CD Dec 20 p3). “The record does not demonstrate that SBC has satisfied all of the requirements of Section 271,” he said. Congress didn’t give FCC right to look at any Bell’s overall compliance and balance out pluses and minuses, he said. Instead, Congress required that Bell “must meet each and every checklist item” before FCC granted it interLATA relief, Martin said.

ATI Technologies, responding to challenge from rival NVidia, has shipped low-priced TV add-in card for PCs priced at $129. All-in-Wonder VE PCI card, which shipped last week, is aimed at discount and CE chains such as Wal-Mart and Best Buy, Group Product Mgr. Blair Birmingham said. Card based on ATI’s Radeon 7500 graphics processor has 64 MB of double-data rate (DDR) SDRAM, Philips TV tuner, TV-on-demand feature for pausing live TV, Gemstar Guide Plus and Pinnacle Systems’ Studio 8 video editing software. Device requires that desktop or notebook have minimum 500 MHz processor for MPEG-2 video capture. Video can be captured at 720x480 resolution. To further drive price, ATI plans to offer $30 mail-in rebate for short period in mid-Dec. that drops final tag to $99, Birmingham said. ATI’s introduction of All-in-Wonder VE comes as rival NVidia readies Personal Cinema PCI add-in card at $199. NVidia, which failed in first attempt to launch Personal Cinema in 2001, has redesigned card and lined up 6-7 partners that marketed co-branded product.

U.S. Appeals Court, D.C., struck down FCC’s video description rules, saying Communications Act “does not give the FCC unlimited authority to act as it sees fit with respect to all aspects of television transmissions.” Decision came in Motion Picture Assn. of America v. FCC, case in which MPAA was joined by NAB and NCTA. Writing for majority, Judge Harry Edwards pointed out that Telecom Act added specific mandate for FCC to enact rules for closed- captioning, but not for video description. He said there was “a marked difference” in way Congress treated those 2, but FCC nevertheless adopted rules for both.

JVC will sell radio that lets users slow speed of audio output, making it easier for listeners to understand broadcasts. Model to go on sale next month in Japan has signal processor that slows output when program is tuned in, Nikkei said. Processor then gradually increases speed to normal, but shortens pauses between speech so that program occupies allotted amount of broadcast time. Radio receives AM, FM and TV audio, has large display and controls, MSRP of about $279.