Another headline-grabbing week for DirecTV, as the satellite TV service continues to add new (and not-so new) HD channels to its fast-growing lineup. It's been a long time coming (the company started talking about this in 2005), but finally promises are being kept.
The other big story this week was the first jury trial for someone accused by the recording industry of illegal file-sharing. Although the industry has been accused in the past of leveling charges with little or very flimsy evidence, they clearly had more than enough to convince a jury of wrongdoing in this case.
Time to reel in the week...
HDTV Programming
DirecTV was again in the spotlight this week as the satcaster added another 11 new HD channels to its lineup, just a week after adding more than 20 new high-def offerings. Included in the new HD channel rollout were Bravo, Sci-Fi and the USA Network, three premium movies channels (2 x Cinemax and 1 x HBO) and five regional sports networks. With a late-week straggler addtion of the Food Channel, the DirecTV HD channel count now stands at 41.
On the other hand, not all HD channels are created equally, a fact that's readily obvious to anyone who's observed the evolution of HD programming over the past few years. The issue is a legitimate one for programmers, as there simply isn't enough true HD programming to go around for every shiny, new HD channel to provide high-def images on a 24/7 basis. But what isn't legitimate is the practice of taking standard-definition programming and presenting it as HD in the program guide listings; plain and simple, this is counterfeit HD and it causes serious confusion to HD newcomers about what is and what isn't high-definition programming.
In addition, many of the new DirecTV channels are s-t-r-e-t-c-h-i-n-g standard definition programming so that it fills the widescreen picture area, a practice that has been adamantly rejected by the overriding majority of HD viewers in the past. Why aren't these programmers paying attention to the best practices of their HD colleagues who've already learned these lessons the hard way? Engadget does a nice job of summing up both these problems, including a listing of the newest image-distorting, HD-counterfeiting reprobates.
It's also pretty obvious that DirecTV HD rollout campaign has ratcheted up the stakes for its cable, satellite and teleco competition. One of the new HD channels that has gained incredibly effective traction straight out of the gate is TBS. No doubt this is in large part due to the fact that TBS is the exclusive source for most of the first two rounds of the Major League Baseball playoffs, which began Wednesday.
But even with the DirecTV and MLB momentum behind TBS, a number of pay TV providers haven't managed to climb onto the TBS bandwagon. This has caused serious PR hits for Verizon and Charter Communications in the Boston area, as Red Sox fans who subscribe to those systems aren't able to see their beloved team in HD. Making things worse for New Englanders, DISH Network also failed to deliver TBS HD for the first couple of days of playoff games, though DISH did manage to have TBS HD available in time for Friday evening's playoff games.
Looking away from the traditional Pay TV providers, Engadget reports on speculation that Apple may soon be adding some HD programming via iTunes for its Apple TV set-top box, a product recently christened "the iFlop" by Forbes magazine (subscription required).
A Minnesota woman is officially the first consumer to opt for a jury trial rather than negotiated settlement after being accused of illegal file-sharing by the Recording Industry of America Association. And, as reported here Friday, she's now also the first person to lose to the RIAA in court, with a federal jury ordering here to pay $222,000 in damages to the recording companies represented by the industry group. Not surprisingly she's unhappy about both the ruling and the damages awarded, and is now mulling her option for an appeal.
One counter to rampant file-sharing that seems to be taking root in both the UK and North America is early education of schoolchildren counseling against the practice. While education is absolutely a legitimate element in any industry campaign against file-sharing, it is questionable whether these industries should be treading into the classroom. This is especially true when there's ample evidence that parts of the entertainment industry routinely overstate the true scope of copyright, with "fair use" rights often misrepresented or omitted altogether. Education is commendable; propaganda is not.
And now for something completely different... Radiohead, the popular UK band, is not only making a new album available for download, it's allowing consumers to name the price they're willing to pay. At the same time, Radiohead is offering a fixed-price, physical product that includes a CD, vinyl album, photos, lyrics, etc. It appears the band believe that embracing free music downloads will be an effective way to promote the sale of other band products. Definitely a development to watch.
While the FCC has done a good thing for consumers in making it easier for teleco and other cable TV operators to gain more timely decisions and transparent terms for access to local markets, the local authorities who previously had sole say in awarding pay TV franchises are very unhappy. Now, several local governments are banding together to legally challenge the FCC's jurisdiction.
The main thrust behind the CableCard mandate was to provide consumers plug-and-play access to greater choice for how and what they connected to their cable television feeds. But with variable CC availability, sometimes unreasonable "install" fees, poor field support and a complex process for certifying third-party hardware, things have not turned out well. Engadget examines the current state of play for CableCards in a report from earlier this week, but be sure to follow their links to prior articles on past and future CC developments.
Nearly everyone agrees that one of the more interesting aspects of our new digital television system is that it gives broadcasters the ability to send multiple "program streams" over bandwidth that previously allowed for only a single program.
FCC Chairman Kevin Martin has long been an advocate for multicasting, and several times he has mounted an effort to get his fellow commissioners to issue an agency order that would require cable television providers to carry all parts of a digital broadcast feed if they carry any part of it. Cable TV companies, based on both bandwidth and competitive concerns, have effectively lobbied against Martin's proposals.
This web site is all about quality, so it's hard (but still tempting) to be snarky about two recent articles that declare competing products to be the best of their type.
But that's exactly what happened recently, with Home Theater Magazine reviewer Geoffrey Morrison declaring the Pioneer Elite Kuro 110-FD plasma display "the greatest flat panel ever," while Consumer Reports called the Panasonic TH-50PZ700U plasma "the best ever tested."
To be fair, these were two different reviewers and evaluation processes, so the conclusions reached are perfectly reasonable. And my own experience with both Panasonic and Pioneer plasmas tells me that these reports (even though I'm not a big fan of Consumer Reports) have the genuine ring of truth to them -- both are excellent products that are well worth considering if you're in the market for a hang-on-the-wall HDTV.
But still, there's a whole dictionary full of words that can be used without resorting to the same old tired superlatives. Can we back off the boring hype just a little?
iSuppli has produced an interesting web report outline about the impact on LCD sales and pricing in the run-up to the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing. The analyst notes that several new plants are due to begin producing new supplies of LCD panels in early 2008, and while this could be a bonus for LCD makers if demand is high, it could also end up being be a significant drag on prices if demand doesn't develop as hoped.
My advice is not to try to read the tea leaves -- if you're in the market for an LCD HDTV, find something that you like now and buy it. If LCD prices really do take a major tumble next summer, you'll have the option of picking up something cheap for the bedroom or home office. But why wait months more to enjoy the growing range of available HDTV programming?
The annual CEATEC trade show in Tokyo is one of the world's more important showcases for consumer electronics companies. There were a number of interesting new products and technologies highlighted during this week's CEATEC, and you can browse through the all the headlines at the Trade Shows topic section here at the ISF Forum.
In any event, it's difficult to understand any pressing need to bring this new technology to market. After decades of having to decide only the size and brand of the CRT TV they would buy, consumers are now faced with a head-spinning array of technology choices (plasma, LCD, DLP, LCoS) and form factors (flat panel, rear-projection and front-projection). Presenting consumers with yet another new technology to ponder, doesn't really seem helpful at this point.
And unless these OLED displays are massively superior in terms of picture quality, physical form (substantially lighter and/or thinner) or some other important trait, why should consumers care? From the manufacturer viewpoint, it's hard to envision these new technologies creating much in the way of new demand -- so, in effect, they are just going to steal away minor sales volumes from display types that would probably be more profitable.
At this point, it's really difficult to see how OLED and other new technologies (such as SED), fit into the big picture for HDTV consumer displays.
Premature declarations of victory seem all the rage these days, particularly when it comes to the HD DVD versus Blu-ray high-definition disc format battle. A key Panasonic executive is the latest to make a final battle forecast, predicting that all hostilities will have ceased by the first day of January 2008, with Blu-ray taking the gold medal prize.
The Panasonic exec, Kazuhiro Tsuga, said he bases his opinion on the fact that Blu-ray player prices are set to drop and that there's a growing focus on incorporating the Blu-ray technology into personal computer notebooks <yawn>. Tsuga also reiterated his previously expressed opinion that hybrid Blu-ray/HD DVD players are "stupid" and said his company would not build one.
Elsewhere on the Blu-ray front, online forums have been abuzz with distressed reports that two prominent new Blu-ray discs -- "Rise of the Silver Surfer" and "Day After Tomorrow," both from FOX -- have caused problems for a number of popular BD players. A spokesman for FOX laid the blame on the player manufacturers and urged consumers to channel complaints directly to those companies.
In the end it's a bit difficult to take any of the HD DVD and Blu-ray victory claims seriously, not only because the absolute sales numbers are spectacularly tiny, but also because both camps are acting less like Steve Jobs and more like Crazy Eddie, the used car salesman. Witness this week's announcements that Blu-ray retailers will continue through the Christmas shopping season to bundle FIVE free BD discs with all Blu-ray players sold, while Best Buy announced it will include NINE free HD DVDs with its sales of Toshiba's new third-generation player.
As they say -- it's deja vu all over again, as the myriad rumors of lower prices for Sony PlayStation 3 hardware have come true. The new 40GB model is so far limited to Europe and Australia, with the price pegged at £300 in the UK, €400 in continental Europe and A$700 in Australia.
In addition to the smaller hard drive, the new PS3 model has been stripped of backward compatibility for PS2 games titles. However, all of the Blu-ray movie-related features appear to remain in place. There's as of yet, no official word on whether the 40GB model will be offered in the US, and if so, what pricing would be.
OK, I'll admit there's really no legitimate home theater/picture quality angle to a news item about the Nintendo Wii -- in fact, I can't even recall any of my calibration customers owning a Wii. Then again, I'm not a gamer myself, so I'm not sure I would have noticed if it had been right in front of me.
Still, I can't help expressing my admiration for Nintendo in what it has accomplished with the Wii product launch. Nintendo seemed to be heading toward being a game market also-ran, at least when when stacked up next to the PS and XBox franchises. No one really thought much about the Wii, particularly as it was seen to be underpowered and without high-definition-quality graphics. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, it ends up a big smash, largely as a result of really understanding its target market and meeting those expectations.
Now, nearly a year after the Wii debut, Nintendo can't keep up with demand, a situation the company expects to continue throughout the upcoming holiday shopping season.
I used to write headlines for a living, so I know something about how this works. Also, ever since I discovered Google Reader, I've been reading a couple of thousand headlines a week. None of that necessarily makes me an expert, but it does qualify me to comment on the headline below.
Sorry, ZDNet, but this is dumb, it's so 2006, and it doesn't even relate that well to the subject of the article. You wouldn't have to be as smart as a 5th grader to do better...
Video Savant 
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