Detroit Free Press from Detroit, Michigan • Page 50

fa sflff Ideas? Comments? Call us at 222-7837 Or write: Stephen Advokat 321 W. Lafayette Detroit 48231 aWNMM C-J tri S-l C- -J t- RrJ t-J -4 C-i t-1 TREE TRADE IN! 5 YOUR OLD TREE (ANY SIZE) WORTH $25.00 ON ANY OF OUR OR LARGER TREES. THIS IS IN ADDITION HHH Ii AI.KKAM LOW DISCI I I'll I DETROIT FREE PRESSTHURSDAY, NOVEMBER 26, 1987 3D I I I I FIR 2 3f i ft YOUR OLD TREES DONATED TO CHARITY Panasonic's Pocket Watch has a three-inch color screen and an AM-FM radio. 2 Jt tar 'HC 4 ft. BALSAM 71 21 stePhen A wHl Advofcat 1796 TIPS $10050 501 TIPS Lt 418 Stand Included 1868 Stand Included jar 'i NORWAY DOUGLAS musteik.it.kik2 605 TIPS 1297 TIPS SO 1794 Stand Included Stand Included CHRISTMAS MAGIC DOWNTOWN Display Creations 1332 Broadway 1 blk trom Hudson 962-9588 9-5 Daily Closed Sun.

EASTSIDE Hall Road Crossing Opposite Lakeside Ctr. 13901 Hall Rd. Sterling Hts. Shelby 247-6340 10-9 Daily 12-5 Sun. WESTSIDE Westland Crossing Ctr.

Across trom Westland 34794 Warren Westland 422-7600 10-9 Daily 12-5 Sun. I I I I SHOP WHERE THE PROFESSIONALS SHOP! A pocketful of entertainment TOMB Eager for flatness, most companies now rely on LCD pictures, which can be created on a totally flat screen by having tiny light-reflecting crystals move between two thin glass plates in response to electric signals. This requires some outside light to reflect, so this kind of pocket TV is best viewed in daylight or under a lamp. In their first applications in calculators and watches, LCDs merely had to create the relatively simple shapes of numbers. That took only a few "picture elements" or pixels, as they are called.

But forming a moving television picture takes many thousands of pixels, and the By HANS FANTEL New York Times NEW YORK Someone should take a poll to find out what people really do with those little pocket TVs. You certainly can't look at them for very long without getting cross-eyed; yet they are evidently popular, and dealers say sales are especially brisk during the football season. Maybe people with other things to do on Saturday and Sunday afternoons carry them around to sneak a look at the game every now and then. Even those lucky enough to be sitting in the bleachers at the big game can see the instant replay. Moreover, the video DIRECTORY 7 THIS WEEKS NEW RELEASE PVST1N HOFFMAN ISABELLE ADjANI WARREN BEATTY provides close-ups and slow-motion recaps of the action, revealing details that spectators in the back rows may have missed.

The commercial success of these tiny, battery-powered TV sets is all the more astounding considering that their price has been going up. Although some black-and-white models can be had for about $100, the best color sets range up to $550. technical problems of creating a sufficiently sharp and lifelike picture in this way have not yet been solved. There are two ways of activating the pixels to form the image in accordance with the incoming TV signal. One is to activate them row by row as they are lined up in a matrix resembling a chessboard.

This often gives the image a fuzzy and pallid look. An alternative method has been developed in which each pixel is individually activated. The picture is much better, but the method is far more costly. A REMARKABLE design based on this new principle is the Panasonic Pocket Watch, which has a three-inch color screen and also manages to fit an AM-FM stereo radio into its five-by-four-by-two-inch overall dimensions. The picture is by far the best ever achieved on an entirely flat screen, Panasonic had planned to produce this exquisite little item for $299, but by the time all the technical obstacles had finally been overcome, the introduc Electronics sales leap in October What stock market crash? That might be what some electronics executives are wondering, based on October sales figures.

In fact, October was the best sales month of the year, according to figures just released by the Electronics Industries Association. For the week ending Oct. 30, a week after Wall Street plummeted, all-time sales records were set by VCRs (563,900 units), camcorders (88,950) and projection TVs Color TVs (641,700) and black-and-white (134,400) posted their second-best sales weeks of the year. The strong sales spurt at the end of the month helped set October sales records for color TVs, VCRs and camcorders. Compared to October 1986, color television sales last month hit 1.91 million, up 6.9 percent; black-and-white TVs hit 456,900, up 32.2 percent; projection TVs hit 41,000, up 19.1 percent; VCRs reached 1.33 million, up 7.3 percent and camcorder sales were 181,900, up 26.4 percent.

One theory behind the increase in the face of a falling market and general economic decline is that consumers may be buying holiday gifts before a feared price hike, spurred in part by the dollar's fall against the yen. If sales these next two months keep pace with the first 10 months of the year, a record 12.5 million VCRs and nearly 1.8 million camcorders will be sold. OZ TAPE: "The Wizard of Oz," in which Dorothy meets the Scarecrow, Tin Woodman and Cowardly Lion, was not the only time the Kansas native journeyed to Oz. Ban deodorant is offering a discounted cartoon tape of one of Dorothy's later visits. Titled "Dorothy Meets Ozma of Oz," the 30-minute video costs $14.95 with a proof of purchase and a mail-in store certificate.

COMING SOON: "Predator," a summer hit starring Arnold Schwarzenegger as a mercenary fighting against an alien adversary, comes to home video Jan. 21 ($89.98, CBS-Fox Home Video). TURNER PITCH: Cable maverick Ted Turner plans to hawk "The Wizard of Oz," one of hundreds of movies he's acquired by buying the MGM film library, on his WTBS network. Ads will offer the movie by mail for $29.95. If he sells 20,000 to 30,000 copies, Turner says he may sell other classics through his cable operation.

Turner also plans to sell news videocas-settes next year, with footage culled from his Cable News Network, for between $20 and $30 each. He has already been successful with four WTBS wrestling tapes that have sold about 35,000 each. NOVEL GADGETS: Actually, it's more like a gadget novel. Peter McWil-liams, author of "The Personal Computer Book," has come out with "Personal Electronics Book" (Prentice Hall Press; $10.95 paperback; 340 pages), a whimsical compendium of just about every gadget you'd want to know about, and a few you probably wouldn't want to. What makes the book enjoyable is that McWilliams is a knowledgable gadgeteer who takes the industry with a grain of salt.

Make that a ton of salt. While he'll thoughtfully explain the benefits of digital audio tape on one page, McWilliams will spoof the features of some other product on the next. "I wonder why television quickly became TV," he writes, "but the telephone never became TP." This is not a book for the electronics aficionado. But neophytes should find it fun. BEST CD: Just before the holidays, the December issue of "Audio" magazine has come out with a best audio of the year story that names names.

Magazine editors have chosen their favorite amplifiers, compact disc players, loudspeakers, tuners, receivers, cassette deck and sound processors. Topping the list of CD players is the ADS CD3 the Denon DCD-1500 the Magnavox CDB650 the Mission PCM-7000 ($999) and the Sony CDP-705ESD Pi BUYERS HAVE a choice of two basic types. One employs a flattened version of the conventional television picture tube to create the image on the screen. The other uses a so-called liquid crystal display (LCD) similar to those used in pocket calculators and digital watches. Both types have specific advantages and drawbacks.

The flat version of the conventional picture tube yields the sharpest and most detailed picture. The disadvantage is that it only works in black-and- FARMINGTON HILLS ALL LOCATIONS Sony's FD-270 weighs only 13 ounces. NOW PLAYING AUDIO-VIDEO STORE, INC. 29429 W. 12 Mile Road 476-5190 HAZEL PARK ALLEN PARK tory price had to be raised to $550.

Less expensive color LCD sets have been produced by Citizen (the 2 '2 -inch Model TC-53 lists for $150) and Casio, whose 2 12 -inch color set (Model TV6000) sells for $280. One problem with inexpensive LCD models is their limited contrast scale. The ratio in brightness between the lightest and darkest image areas is only 5 to 1, which does not provide for fine shadings. By comparison, the Panasonic Pocket Watch achieves a contrast ratio of 30 tol. white.

Though Sony is known to be developing a color tube of this sort, it has not appeared on the market yet. For the present, Sony has just introduced a black-and-white model with a 2.7-inch screen. Priced at $160, the Sony FD-270 weighs only 13 ounces (with batteries), which makes it one of the lightest. The biggest picture available in pocket portables measures four inches diagonally and is produced by a conventional tube in Sony's FD-42A Measuring eight-by-four-by-three inches and weighing 2 '2 pounds, it will put quite a bulge even in a big pocket. APOLLO VIDEO PHOTO 934 E.

9 Mile Road 399-5383 AMERICAN VIDEO 7607 Allen Road 388-5200 LIVONIA BELLEVILLE Tax would hit consumers' wallets RENT-A-FLICK 38125 Ann Arbor Road 19590 Middlebelt 28011 Eight Mile road VIDEO TREE, INC. 9830 HaggertyRoad 699-5002 MADISON HEIGHTS mere than movies CENTERLINE SKIP'S VIDEO 8817E. Ten Mile Road 757-0860 MURPHY'S VIDEO 30125 John 585-8885 NOVI DEARBORN HEIGHTS MOVIES VHSBETA 26109 Novi Road 349-3080 20TH CENTURY VIDEO 27259 Joy Road 277-4402 By STEPHEN ADVOKAT Free Press Communications Writer Television sets, radios and videocassette recorders would get a little more expensive if Congress adopts a proposal made by the National Association of Broadcasters to reduce the budget deficit. The NAB, a broadcast industry lobbying organization, has suggested levying a two percent tax on those items as a way of raising $345 million a year that would help reduce the deficit for the next two years. After that, the money would be used to fund public broadcasting.

The NAB proposal is in response to a bill introduced by Sen. Ernest Hollings, and approved by the Senate Commerce Committee, that would impose a two-to-three percent transfer fee on the sale of broadcast properties. Such a measure would raise an estimated $300 million a year. Hollings made his proposal as part of a move to restore the fairness doctrine. The 38-year-old regulation, abolished by the FCC this year, forced broadcasters who aired controversial subject matter to devote time to opposing views.

HOLLINGS, who credits the regulation with helping him win the South Carolina governor's office in 1959, wants to reinstate the rule. To make the bill difficult to veto, he has tied to it a deficit-reducing proposal that levies a two percent "transfer" tax on the sale of broadcast properties. In other words, broadcasters who ROYAL OAK violate the doctrine would have to pay a three percent tax upon sale of their properties. That plan has raised concerns among broadcasters. "We think it's discriminatory to ask commercial broadcasters to pay for public broadcasting," said NAB spokeswoman Susan Krause.

"Public broadcasting should be supported by the public. We believe it's more equitable to have the public support public broadcasting. This is a very modest fee. On a $500 TV set, you're talking about $10." But because the measure would raise the price of electronic equipment, at a time when a falling dollar already threatens to increase prices, it is being opposed by the Electronics Industries Association, another Washington lobbying group. The idea of taxing electronic equipment is not new.

The government imposed a 10 percent excise tax on television and radios from 1950 to 1965, and a 1967 Carnegie Commission report advocated reinstating the tflX The NAB says the TVVCR tax is only one of several revenue-generating proposals that should be considered instead of the "transfer" tax. Another calls for a $10,000 fee on new cellular telephone licenses. NAB says the latter would generate $88 million in the next two years. DEARBORN HEIGHTS VIDEO, INC. 27201 W.Warren 278-1755 ROYAL OAK VIDEO 824 W.

11 Mile Road 541-6970 ST. CLAIR SHORES DAVISBURG STARBURST VIDEO'S 24830 Harper 777-4090 SIGRID'S VIDEO OUTPOST 653 Broadway 634-5300 STERLING HEIGHTS DETROIT vidccccsscttcs naiv releases video QQ A NOW SHOWING VIDEOS 13717 19 Mile Road 247-2424 ACTION VIDEO CAMERA 15210 Houston Whittier 521-1644 U.S. current week U.S. previous week U.S. previous week U.S.

current week TOP RENTALS TOP SALES TAYLOR DETROIT MOVIE MAN 23111 Ecorse 21411 Goodard 295-2490 287-8832 AUTOMATIC APPLIANCE 11 100 Gratiot 521-8839 TAYLOR DETROIT Could you tell me if they have ever made a videotape for the movie "The Red Shoes" (1948)? Z.C., Midland A Paramount Home Video has just released the famous ballet movie with Moira Shearer on cassette for only $19.95. A local video store owner should have the tape or can order it for you. Is the movie "Two for the Road," starring Audrey Hepburn and Albert Finney, available on video? S.K., New Hudson. A Not yet. I'm trying to find a copy of "Cromwell," a historical movie.

Is it available? J.C., Birmingham A This 1970 British epic starring Richard Harris and Alec Guinness is available from RCAColumbia Home Video Your local video store should have it or be able to order it for you. The following films are available this week on home video: RCAColumbia; PG; Warren Beatty and Dustin Hoffman are singers looking for their big break in exotic Ishtar. "Superman IV: The Quest For Peace" (1987; Warner Home Video; PG; Christopher Reeve dons his red and blue jammies once more as the Man of Steel. "Delta Force Commando" (1987; Vista; Two U.S. fighter pilots battle terrorism in Nicaragua.

"Gardens of Stone" (1987; CBS Fox; Francis Ford Coppola looks at the Vietnam war from another side the effect the conflict had on men and women at home. "House II: The Second Story" (1987; New World; PG-13; A longtime haunted house is the new home of an arfjst looking for peace and quiet. 1. Lethal Weapon 1 (Warner Home Video) 2. Star Trek IV 3 (Paramount) 3.

Angel Heart 2 (IVE) 4. Tin Men (Touchstone) 5. Lady and the Tramp 4 (Disney) 6. Blind 6 (RCA-Columbia) 7. Mannequin 5 (Media Home Entertainment) 8.

Raising Arizona 7 (CBS-Fox) 9. Burglar 8 (Warner) 10. River's Edge (Nelson) VIDEO MORE, INC. 8210 S. Telegraph 295-3030 SLAM'S VIDEO WORLD, INC.

1 7644 W. Seven Mile 255-7526 1. Lady and the Tramp 1 (Disney) 2. Star Trek IV 2 (Paramount) 3. An American Tall 3 (MCA) 4.

Crocodile Dundee 4 (Paramount) 5. The Godfather 6 (Paramount) 6. Callanetlca 7 (MCA) 7. Fonda's Low-Impact Workout 5 (Karl-Lorimar Home Video) 8. Yellow Submarine (MGMUA) 9.

Sleeping Beauty 8 (Disney) 10. Top Gun 10 (Paramount) These are the best selling videocassettes, complied from U.S. sales, including releases In BETA ancWS formats. WARREN DETROIT VIDEO VAULT 21753 Van Dyke 758-6669 UNIVERSAL LIQUORS WINE SHOPPE 19526 Grand River 533-1666 Most popular videocassette rentals, in BETA and VHS formats, compiled from a survey if U.S. retailers and wholesalers.

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