HDTV Forum

A big Happy Birthday to HD Library and Forum!

It was about a year ago that HD Library was born, May 1st 2004. Much has happened over the course of the year, some good and some bad. The good is that HD content continues to build as more stations and cable companies come on line. DirecTV will soon be offering your HD locals via satellite. Here in Atlanta Comcast is the HDTV cable system leader with nearly all locals and numerous HD premium channels plus DVRs. Prices continue to drop on new product and the mass market has fallen in love with big pictures in skinny cabinets removing one of the major hurdles for purchasing one. Internal scalers have improved enough when watching SD content that the mass market is no longer returning them in droves. DVI and HDMI is now common on most displays and if you have been looking for DVD at HD scan rates all the majors have finally released a DVI/HDMI enabled player in the $150-300 price range. WMVHD is already here with a number of movie titles in Europe. HD DVD is on the horizon. Sony figured out a way to get 1080I out of their Play Station 2 consoles plus the new generation X-Box console will be unveiled later this month and HD gaming is what it is all about.

So with all that good news what is so bad? While HDTV displays continue to sell like hot cakes only a small percentage of owners go through the trouble of getting an HD feed to it or connecting other sources correctly for the best image which brings us to the saddest event of HD Libraries fiscal year. The loss of VOOM and HDTV Magazine. Both focused on the quality aspects of HDTV yet there were not enough followers to maintain either service. While VOOM needed subscribers in the hundreds of thousands HDTV Magazine needed only 5,000 at $35 a year to keep it going yet for both it seemed like an insurmountable gazillion subscribers to try and get involved in a market where HDTV owners seemed perfectly satisfied with SD on their HD screens. While VOOM finally bit the dust HDTV Magazine restructured returning in a new form. Dale Cripps continues with his comments on the industry via his new Web Blog. The new site offers an HDTV news service edited by Dale and the HDTV Grid Guide developed by Shane Sturgeon.

http://www.hdtvmagazine.com/index.php

HDTV has grown from bouncing baby to nearly graduating young adult. The question to our members this month is will the mass market show up for HDTV upon graduation or just continue watching the SD version of HDTV programming as they have been? Is it the old television broadcast model that is the problem? Considering how many people say they bought an HDTV display for DVD movies will it be HD DVD that saves the HD day and if that is true what does this mean for broadcasters? Will they continue to lose market share to the internet and video games? Will they eventually take the H out of HDTV and transmit 480P SDTV plus multicasting in it

Yes voom as it was is dead, but much of it's programming will continue to live thru Dish Network. Phase I consisting of 10 channels available now, will start with Dish offering a package called, of all things, Voom as an adder package to it's existing HD package for $5.00 extra a month. Hopefully by the end of the year, Phase II, Dish will add an additonal 10-15 Voom channels to it's system.The down side is at present time a two-dish solution is needed due to the Voom frequencies are located at the 61.5 orbital slot.

Hi,

Enjoy your email...

I suspect the biggest issue HDTV is dealing with is people like me, who are
used to TIVO/PVR and not going back, but unwilling to dish out 900 dollars
for a HD PVR/TIVO. Bring it down to a reasonable number like 250-350 bucks and I'll be receiving HD next week....

Frank