TURN-ONS AND TURN-OFFS IN CURRENT HOME ENTERTAINMENT RELEASES : ****Excellent ***Good **Fair *Poor : TECH FLASHES

THE NAME CHANGE: HBO/Cannon Home Video, once known as Thorn/EMI/HBO Home Video, is now simply HBO Video, as the cable company has bought out Cannon’s shares.

THE PRICE CHANGE: The recent application of 100% tariff hikes on some Japanese-made appliances, such as television sets with screens 20 inches or under, does not apply to VCRs or compact disc players. Nor does it affect televisions or other equipment basically assembled in factories outside Japan for the U.S. market--and several major brands, including Sony and Panasonic, fall in this category.

NEW AUDIOCASSETTES: Nancy Sinatra reads from her “intimate biography” of her singing, swinging dad on the two-cassette release “Frank Sinatra, My Father,” not to be confused with Kitty Kelley’s considerably less fawning book on Ol’ Blue Eyes. Information: (505) 345-1843 (Newman). Lee Remick reads Sidney Sheldon’s “Windmills of the Gods” (abridged) and William Conrad reads selections from the poetry of James Kavanaugh, with guitar-percussion backgrounds by Tommy Tedesco and Shelly Manne. Information: (800) 345-9945 (Dove). And from Warner: Art Linkletter’s “How to Speak in Front of People,” an audio version of the book-video exercise sensation “Callanetics,” read by author Callan Pinckney, and--not to be outdone by Newman’s Nancy Sinatra coup--a tape of Vanna White telling how she rode the “Wheel of Fortune” to fame! Information: (212) 334-1250. (Or check your local bookstore.)