It's the ultimate chicken-or-egg television question: Which will come first, Internet over TV or TV over the Internet? Last week, Broadwing gave a nod to the latter when it announced that its subsidiary ZoomTown.com has unveiled Intertainer, which the company describes as "a new video-on-demand service" for customers with high-speed, high-bandwidth ADSL online connections. Broadwing says that ZoomTown customers will be among the first in the nation able to receive the service in early 2000. Subscribers will pay the normal monthly fee for DSL service, and will then be charged for their video selections on a pay-per-view basis.

Last week, Thomson multimedia announced a major investment and development partnership with Geocast Network Systems, in an alliance that the company claims is intended to deploy a comprehensive terrestrial broadcast-based digital television datacasting system and service to millions of homes from coast to coast. Thomson says it is making a $15 million investment in Geocast Network Systems, and that "the result will be seamless, high-quality playback of rich-media content at a moment's notice from home entertainment and information devices."

Last week, Pioneer announced that next year it will be the first to offer DVD recorder/players and recordable DVDs to consumers in North America and Europe. According to Pioneer, the new machines will allow recording times of up to six hours, indicating that the recorder will compress the video beyond the MPEG-2 compression found on commercially released DVDs.

Both Sony Electronics and Panavision say they will soon deliver the first prototype 24-frame-progressive high-definition camera system to Lucasfilm for testing prior to its being used in shooting the next two Star Wars films. The companies say that this announcement signifies the beginning of a new era in high-definition digital cinematography.