The Miami Herald from Miami, Florida • 27

FRIDAY JANUARY 13 1989 OD THE MIAMI HERALD OD THE ELECTRONIC HOME 1 Yew stuff shows Games are rough in the Big Apple The Hidden-Link keeps your electronics out of sight You can go remote even from the closet Remote controls work around a corner or through a door why Xantech of Sylmar Calif makes infra-red repeaters like the new Hidden-Link ($4995) A three-quar Associated Press Michelle Sullivan demonstrates a Hot Lixx guitar at the Consumer Electronic Show in Las Vegas ter-by-three-inch receiver picks up the signal from your remote and sends it down ordinary speaker wire to two infrared LEDs placed next to your own remote-receiver Equipment can thus be remotely operated even when hidden in a closet or cabinet By JONATHAN TARIFF Knight-Ridder News Service LAS VEGAS Futuristic visions of wide-screen TV recordable compact discs and the fully automated home are the stuff that dreams were made of at the 1989 Winter Consumer Electronics Show But for people who like to plot their gadget purchases in one-year increments rather than in five- or 10-year master plans the winter show which ended Tuesday also held up hundreds of spanking new electronic inventions that will soon make life more exciting and fruitful Here are the hottest new products of we found on our jaunts through the aisles Electronic still cameras: Opening up a whole new product category the Canon Zapshot and Sony Mavica are the first consumer versions of the video still camera While resembling automatic film snapshooters these newfangled cameras electronically record up to 50 images on a micro floppy disc and offer instant playback by plugging the camera into a TV set Sure beats setting up the projector and screen For those who want hard copies of the pictures Sony plans to place video still printers at photo processors It also may install do-it-yourself coin-operated printers in accessible spaces Video still camera prices will be in the $1000 range at first though photo dealers think the product will have to drop below $500 to be popular The picture quality is good but not great It beats yelling: New-tech phones from Telko and Southwestern Bell use your conventional phone line for a second purpose to intercom messages from phone to phone Outside calls still ring through normally while talking room to room Each hybrid phoneinter-com has a speaker for receiving communiques but for two-way conversations both parties have to pick up a handset (Life is tough) The price: per phone Decorative talk: If a Is there such a thing as a software stereotype? In television and movies Californians are typically portrayed as laid-back brainless sun worshipers with too much time on their hands New Yorkers on the other hand are always cold street-smart masochists Two new computer games happen to be set in Los Angeles and New York and I thought it would be interesting to see whether they conform to the usual stereotypes In LA Crackdown (Epyx IBM Apple II Commodore 64128 $40-50) a gang of ruthless international drug racketeers is smuggling electronic components as well as samadhi a hallucinatory narcotic a senior detective on the Los Angeles Police Department with a mission to track down enough evidence to nab the kingpin worry in California so you have to get your hands dirty From the safety of your high-tech police surveillance van with its state-of-the-art video screen you direct all operations The tough stuff is carried out by your partner a rookie from the Police Academy In La La Land the worst that can happen seems to be that your rookie gets dissatisfied with the job and quits One of the requirements of the game is that you give him a rest every 12 to 16 hours Cushy job! It would be an understatement to say New York is portrayed as a harsher crueler world in Manhunter- New York (Sierra all formats $50) The slogan is: Thankful When They Eat Away Your Eyes Be Spared the Sight of Yet to Come!" In the Big Apple 2004 and the alien Orb Alliance has taken over Earth You play a detective here too but this time you have to spy on your friends If you see any subversive activity report it to the aliens a Manhunter you see In New York even the hero is a creep The city has been devastated New York is no longer the fashion capital of the world Now everyone wears brown robes You have to keep your face hidden at all times and if you talk with any other humans you are killed (So where does the fantasy come in?) All in all both programs fit the popular stereotypes Epyx has another program California Games in which players compete in a series of typical West Coast events such as surfing skateboarding and roller-skating I figure only a matter of time until someone comes up with a sister software package for East Coasters New York Games The possibilities are unlimited: Rent Wars (players try to squeeze a worth of possessions into a studio apartment) 100 Yard Cross town Dash (while carrying a Sony Trinitron that you just looted from an appliance store) Grafitti Warrior (martial arts with cans of spray paint) Underground Nightmare (knocking down old ladies to get a seat on the subway) Demolition Derby (ride a taxi uptown in time to make a Broadway opening) lightweight $200 entry (MDR-IF5K) is the first cordless system with sound By transmitting on a higher than normal infrared signal band the Sony set also avoids noise interference problems such as those from room lights that plague cordless phones Get your licks in: Always wished you could play like Eddie Van Halen? Now you can with Hot Lixx computerized guitar which sets off torrents of burning notes (all in the key of C) when you merely push the buttons on the neck and body There are controls for pitch volume echo and distortion even a note-bending wang bar This battery-powered guitar is the brainstorm of Atari 2600 inventor (and perpetual kid) Ron Miller and is priced to fly at under $60 Projection TV everywhere: Resembling an oversize slide projection new portable video projector can throw a razor-sharp video image on any wall or screen with the picture variable from 20 to 200 inches! Sharp says be able to bring one home by Christmas for Swatch watch aficionado love the Metrolight and Clearlight telephones from a new company called Neon Fun Products Clear Lucite cases in a Trimline shape show off multicolor component parts And five little green and white neon lights blink inside to celebrate whenever the phone (with the bell on or off) The $5995 product is well-built by Bell South Products all folks: Where giants like Sony and Philips fear to tread the Nakamichi 1000 digital audio tape recorder and processor will now travel the first DAT recorder officially imported to the United States for sale to consumers thus threatening a major retaliatory lawsuit from the Recording Industry Association of America But at $10000 a pop for this state-of-the-art system the association will have a tough time proving this marketing effort poses a real threat to their music copyrights Look Ma no wires: Cordless headphone systems linked to a sound system or TV by infrared light signals have become quite popular in the last couple of years But sleekly modem ultra Video More help for amateur videographers is available in a new video The Weekend Director (Corsican Productions) The 30-minute tape is hosted by Pat and presents a variety of techniques for attaining that professional look Available for $2495 in video and electronics stores or by calling: (800) 999-VIDEO Never mind whistle while you work How about watch while you cook? GE has released a color-TV-and-AMFM-radio that hangs under a kitchen cabinet The Model 7-7660 ($29995) also can be dismounted for portable uses Audio Olivia Newton-John may be old news to you but about to become the newest hit for one-billion-plus Chinese Pacific Bridgehead International of Los Angeles recently created to promote the exchange of Western and Chinese culture plans a January release of Olivia Greatest Hits on cassette followed by TV specials and home videos This is the first time that a top Western artist is being made officially available to 200 million cassette-player owners and 700 million TV viewers In return the United States is to receive a tour by the China Youth Symphony next summer Compiled by ADAM ROSE Videodisc player touts best picture Contest: The latest winner of free software is Scott Eislef of Miami who will receive Andrew Tobias Managing Your Money This prize will be two writing tools for the Macintosh Spelling Coach Professional and BigThesau-rus from Deneba Software For a shot at winning them send a postcard or electronic mail with the word on it to me at one of the addresses below The winner will be randomly selected ByANDYWICKSTROM Knight-Ridder News Service Philips Consumer Electronics modest about its soon-to-be-marketed laser videodisc player a $1300 unit capable of playing all six types of digital discs from the basic five-inch CD to the 12-inch laser disc has a better picture than Super says David Birch-Jones audio marketing VIDEO manager for Philips has a better picture than ED Beta the best picture available to the consumer Scheduled to arrive in stores this month the player model CDV488 is first product to be sold under the name CD-Video a moniker that encompasses all discs that combine video with digital audio entertainment including Laservi-sion system The CD-Video term capitalizes on the wide consumer familiarity with compact discs and reflects the manufacturing trend toward building combination laser players which can play regular audio-only CDs and movie discs The Philips unit takes the combination idea to its present technological limits It can accommodate without adapters the new three-inch CDs five-inch CDs five-inch gold-colored CD-V (five minutes of video and music followed by 20 minutes of music only) and eight-inch (one hour) and 12-inch (two hours) laser discs But not all In Japan and soon to arrive in the United States a new eight-inch laser disc called the LD single Unlike other videodiscs programming is recorded on just one side Capacity is 20 minutes so a convenient way to package several music videos by one artist This too can be played on the CDV488 with no adapter So which format has the best picture? Birch-Jones acknowledged that ED claim of 500 lines of horizontal resolution surpasses his 425 lines (S-VHS is around 400) But horizontal resolution he noted only measures the black and white portions of a signal When color is taken into account videotape can resolve only 80 lines of information whereas the Philips CD-Video reaches 280 lines New on video Here is a selection of new videocassettes scheduled for release today through Thursday: RECENT MOVIES: Hot to Trot (WW 1988 Warner $8995) The Lighthorsemen (qifkPG 1988 Warner $7995) Last Dance (K 1988 Vestron $8998) Caribe (R 1988 Vestron $7998) Kansas (PR 1988 Media $8995) The Freeway Maniac (not rated 1988 Media $7995) MUSIC AND COMEDY: Dirty Dancing: Live in Concert (Cl 1988 Vestron $2498) SPORTS AND HOW-TO: The Master System to Better Golf: The Seniors (3 volumes 1988 Fox Hills $3995 each) World Champion LA Dodger 1988 Season: Through the Eyes of a Winner (1988 CBSFox $1998) DOCUMENTARY: National Audubon Video (3 volumes Vestron $2998 each) Turn on the Musicl (1988 Hi-Tops $1495) SPANISH LANGUAGE: Hot to Trot Asubtitled PG 1988 Warner $8995) Send me electronic mail via CompuServe (700073263) GEnie (DGUTMAN) Quan-tumLink (DanGut) or the Source (PUB022) or write in care of The Miami Herald Electronic Home 1 Herald Plaza Miami Fla 33132 The best thing on TV is The TV book Sundays ii Just fill out the coupon below and you could win two tickets to the Superbowl Ten runners-up will receive Official Super Bowl satin jackets Remember it's always easier to win your Hot Tickets if you receive The Herald at home To subscribe call 1-800-441-0444 Send your entry to: The Super Bowl Contest The Miami Herald PO Box 015419 Miami FL 33101 Name Address City State Zip Phone (day) (evening) Winners selected by random drawing will be notified by January 1 9 1 988 Employees of tbe Miami Herald Publishing Company are not eligible to win No mechanical reproductions allowed No purchase is necessary You may pick up an entry coupon one per visit) at the back issues of the Miami Herald One Herald Plaza All entries must be received by Jan 1 8 1 989 Good Luck How does your garden grow? Do your plants need professional help? Send all your gardening questions to: Plant Clinic The Miami Herald One Herald Plaza Miami Florida 33132 Then read the Plant Clinic column every Sunday in Home Design for the answers Youil find out what to plant when to plant how to fertilize how much water and sun your plants need The Plant Clinic tells all Every Sunday in Home Design THE MIAMI HERALD Wake Up to whats Going On YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD SERVICE DIRECTORY EVERY THURSDAY AND SUNDAY IN NEIGHBORS Sljc iiTiaitu Hcralci The Newspaper That Sells South Honda THE MIAMI HERALD WAKE UP TO WHATS GOING ON '4t 9.