A treat for the eyes.

• Position: What's New? - Home video - MW24FM1 TV/DVD/VCR television set

* The buzzword for the 21st century seems to be synergy, broadly defined as combined action or operation. One area in which the concept is making rapid inroads is home video. Where shelves around the television set once were laden with an assortment of components and there was a maze of tangled wires streaming from their backs, connecting one electronic device to another, synergy combines various operations today into a single multifunctional unit.

A prime example is the catchily named MW24FM1 TV/DVD/VCR Combination from Toshiba America Consumer Products, Inc., Wayne, N.J. It consists of a 24" television set with flat tube design, so that it takes up less room in depth than earlier cathode ray tube models; a DVD player with multidisc capability to run CD-Rs and video CDs as well as movies; and a four-head hi-fi VCR. In short, it provides all your possible viewing options within a single attractive unit, instead of requiring separate DVD and VCR players that have to be wired through the TV set.

There is a school of thought that separate components are better than combos because you can select top-of-the-line items for each function. Sure you could, but at nowhere approaching the suggested retail price of $699.99 for the MW24FM1. Moreover, the combo is hardly chopped liver, as the expression goes. It is laden with special features that make it competitive performance-wise with higher-priced components linked to provide the same functions--without the possibility that the latter might not be 100% compatible. A single manufacturer means every part is designed to work with all the others. Company A, meanwhile, does not produce a TV set designed specifically to coexist with Company B's DVD player, which, in turn, is not assembled with the thought...