Remember the old Frank Capra movie You Can't Take It With You? the Panasonic CF-62 notebook proves Capra wrong. Anything on your desktop system-even multimedia-can accompany you on the road, thanks to the CF-62's integrated PD/CD-ROM drive, Zoomed Video (ZV) port, and MPEG and NTSC capability.

The PD/CD-ROM drive allows you to read from and write to a 650MB rewritable optical disc. The drive also reads quad-speed CD-ROMs. The CF-62 packs a 133MHz Pentium processor, 32-bit PCI bus architecture, a 12.1-inch LCD non-glare display with a resolution of 1024x768 pixels, 1.35GB hard disk, 16MB of RAM, 2MB of EDO video RAM and 16-bit Sound Blaster Pro audio. It also includes a GlidePoint touchpad and IrDA port for wireless communication. Docking unit, port replicator and MPEG pack with NTSC output are optional.

The notebook measures 23.6 by 11.7 by 9.4 inches, and the PD/CD-ROM drive resides under the keyboard.

From $6,000
Panasonic Personal Computer Co.
800-662-3537, 201-348-7000

Like world-class sprinters, CD-ROM drives keep breaking speed barriers. The internal 8X TEAC CD-58E drive boasts a data transfer rate of 1200KBps, a 100ms seek time and 125ms access time with a 128KB data buffer. That's the kind of speed that makes a difference when using applications with 3-D render objects, full-motion video or databases.

Ease-of-use features include a power loading tray that requires no caddy, a power eject button, built-in headphone jack, volume control knob and rear audio output jack for connection to sound cards.

The CD-58E has a Plug-and-Play Enhanced IDE interface. It comes in a kit with a 16-bit IDE interface card, cables, mounting hardware and installation software. The drive is backward-compatible with slower-speed CD-ROM formats; it also supports Audio CD and meets all specifications of the MPC 3 standard.

$249 (street)
TEAC America
213-726-0303, fax 213-727-7672

If you can't miss a beat when it comes to what's happening, you want the TV news right on your PC screen. The Philips PCA20TV card has a built-in TV tuner and connects directly to your cable box, antenna, camcorder or VCR. You can view programs in full screen or reduce the window so you can keep an eye on the tube while you work with other applications. The TV card's video freeze and capture capabilities let you store video frames as bitmap files. The PCA20TV also performs stereo audio decoding and comes with a mini-jack for stereo output.

$329
Philips Electronics
800-235-7373, 408-453-5129

Illuminatus 3.01 lets you produce multimedia programs from more than 5,000 resource files, including publication templates, sound, graphics, slide shows, animations and video. Illuminatus can create electronic memos, interactive product demonstrations and greeting cards. It compresses saved information onto hard disks, diskettes or CD-ROMs.

$149 (direct)
JASC
800-622-2793, 612-930-9800

The ComputerEyes/PCI video capture card, which ships with the Media Studio Pro video editing program, offers a development solution for sophisticated editors and beginners alike. The card captures full-motion video, and the software lets you create wipes, fades and other special effects.

$499.95
Digital Vision
800-346-0090, 617-329-5400

The Bravado 1000 provides 32-bit video-capture and editing capabilities. It plays full-screen, full-motion video and supports composite and S-video input/outputs in both the NTSC and PAL/SECAM standards. You can edit up to 99 tracks of video. The system is based on a PCI Motion-JPEG card from Truevision.

$999 (street)
Truevision
800-729-2656, 408-562-4200