June 28 issue - So you've got a 63-inch, widescreen, HDTV-ready, flat-panel, plasma TV with surround sound and you're still not satisfied? Not to worry: your favorite shows and ball games may be coming to a movie theater near you. In four New England cities, Showcase Cinemas recently teamed with the Boston Red Sox to broadcast a game against the Padres on its 58- by 25-foot screens. "People loved it; it was just like being in Fenway," says Shari Redstone, president of the company that owns the chain. And last month some 270 of the 52.5 million viewers who caught the "Friends" finale were in a Jordan's Furniture store in Natick, Mass. La-Z-Boy shoppers were treated to a 60-foot-tall Jennifer Aniston on the store's IMAX. How soon before must-see TV hits your local cineplex nightly? "It's a very exciting idea," says Josh Bernhoff, analyst at the tech-research company Forrester Research. As the ability to broadcast in high definition becomes more widespread, he expects to see even more TV programming popping up on movie screens. Special events like the Super Bowl are already filmed in high definition, leaving Bernhoff with just one question: "I am wondering whether the wave goes left to right or front to back."
