Industry News
By Shane C. Buettner February 12, 2006 — Marantz Becomes Preferred Brand Of Juilliard
Marantz has entered into a strategic marketing relationship with New York's prestigious Juilliard School, and will be recognized as "the preferred audio/video brand of The Juilliard School." Announced in December of 2005, the relationship coincides with Juilliard's yearlong 100th anniversary celebration, and will see Marantz serving as the performing arts conservatory's Official Audio/Visual Sponsor and donating its AV products for educational use and world premier performances at the school throughout the year.

Marantz's Bill Lee remarked that, "This new marketing relationship between our two institutions will help us increase awareness of the Marantz brand among influential Juilliard performing arts students, professional musicians and alumni."

Juilliard's 100th anniversary celebration launched with the May, 2005 commencement ceremonies and lasts through commencement of 2006. The celebration will feature a wide range of newly commissioned works in dance, drama and music and will culminate with a telecast "Live From Lincoln Center" of the Centennial Gala on April 3rd.

Juilliard's list of notable students is long and extraordinary enough to fill volumes. But I'll name a choice few I found on Wikipedia. Musician/composers: Miles Davis (dropped out!), Rene Fleming, Philip Glass, Bernard Herrmann, Yo-Yo Ma, Wynton Marsalis, Niona Simone, and John Williams. Actor/actresses: William Hurt, Kevin Kline, Laura Linney, Christopher Reeve, Ving Rhames, Kevin Spacey, and Robin Williams. Odd notables from Wikipedia include (recently) former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan studying saxophone, and Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea (as Michael Balzary) attending to study trumpet. Happy birthday Juilliard!

LG Working On HD DVD/Blu-ray Combi Player?
Virtual eyebrows were raised this week with news reaching the web that longtime Blu-ray Disc supporter LG Electronics has entered into a patent cross-licensing agreement with Toshiba for optical disc products, which includes "next-generation DVDs." This would lead to the obvious conclusion that LG is planning to build an HD DVD player in the future, but not so fast.

I followed up with LG, but LG Electronics USA's John Taylor declined to comment on future product plans. Asking around further, my industry sources indicate that LG is reportedly working on a combination Blu-ray-HD DVD player. How's that for an answer to the format war?

Tributaries' Power Play
Tributaries Cable has introduced its first power line conditioner/surge suppressor- the TX500 AC Power Manager. It offers surge suppression and noise filtering for with outlets for ten components, with individually protected and filtered pairs designated for duty with analog, digital, and power amp components. It also protects two phone connections and provides independent RF signal paths for cable, satellite or antenna with steady 75-ohm impedances and bandwidth specified as "in excess of 1.5GHz.

The ten AC outlets can be programmed by simple DIP-switches to be always on, turn immediately on, or turn on with a five or ten second delay. Dual DC trigger inputs are provided, as well as output jacks that allow the unit to be "daisy-chained" to additional TX500s, Tributaries power strips or other compatible devices. The front panel display shows the incoming AC line voltage, and will alert users of any polarity faults in the wiring.

The Tributaries Cable TX500 Power Manageris available now at an MSRP of $750.