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Jan 8: What's on HDTV today
What we're watching: If you know me on a Sunday night, you know it's all about Grey's Anatomy, back with a new episode after taking a week off. *shrug*, I'm at work when General Hospital is on and I gotta get my fill of soap opera-y doctoring. It's even one of Sarah's Top 5 of 2005. I'm probably going to have to hand in my man card if anyone finds out I read the fake blog of one of the characters.Edit: Oops, looks like the Grey's Anatomy ep is one of those lame recap episodes, feel free to skip if you're up to speed already. (Thanks Bill K)If Grey's isn't your speed, HBO has The Sopranos followed up by Deadwood in glistening 1080i, and I hear that in surround sound you can actually tell what the people in Deadwood are saying. Crazy, I know. After the jump is our traditional listing of HD programs throughout the night.
HD-DVD gets exclusive support from The Weinstein Company
Former Miramax heads Harvey and Bob Weinstein have decided to join Universal in exclusively supporting Toshiba's HD-DVD format. Our friend Warren Lieberfarb (he of the "Sony is using tactics from the Art of War" statement) is a consultant to their distribution company, Genius, so this is not entirely surprising. No word on what titles to expect or exactly when, but apparently they will probably release in summer rather than spring with the launch of the first HD-DVD players. Also, Studio Canal has pledged to release 30 titles in europe, while Toshiba is expecting more than 200 HD-DVD discs available before the 2006 holiday season. Will that be enough to stave off the Blu-ray/PS3 behemoth bearing down on them?The Passion of the Clerks, Sin City 2, Scary Movie 4, Michael Moore's "Sicko", all on HD-DVD only apparently.
Is Apple about to announce new Viiv-powered plasma TV's?
Maybe, or maybe not. But thats the basis of an offbeat piece on Powerpage. Apple branded 42 and 50" widescreen plasmas, running MacOS, and with Bluetooth and Airport technology also built in. Only thing missing is an iPod video dock, then it would be the perfect Apple rumor, hinging on their new partering with Intel.So what do you think, a possibility, or someone pulling at the strings of the Apple and HDTV-addicted?[Via digg]
Cable downconverting illegal under new bill
As reported by 1080eye, Congress' DTV bill would not allow cable companies to downgrade digital channels to analog broadcast, meaning cable customers with analog televisions would need to upgrade to digital set top boxes as well. My reaction to this is it's a real non-story. The cable companies don't want to broadcast in analog, first of all it's insecure, (look at all the "special" boxes you probably get email offers for daily) and it uses a lot of bandwidth they'd love to have for more Internet, VOD and HDTV offerings. Plus it's cheaper for them when a customer wants to upgrade/downgrade service, you just flip a switch instead of sending a technician out to the home to change the filter at the pole.Take a look at the next flyer you receive, in most areas the cable company is offering a discount over analog cable pricing in order to move digital boxes and their assortment of additional features into the home. They are more than ready to pull analog support as soon as possible. This could be reported in multiple ways, if the bill did not have such a provision, I'm sure there would be an op-ed column ranting about how Congress is in the cable companies pocket by forcing people with older TV's to get cable TV. I think it's better that it be across the board to avoid confusion, DTV is coming, and you'll need a new digital set, or a set-top box of some kind to get television reception, period.[Via HDBlog.net]
CES: Blu-ray specification is done, full list of supporters and titles
Well, Blu-ray is done, which I'd hope it would be, what with them announcing players and content and all. If you're interested in licensing the Blu-ray technology you can get in touch with your local Blu-ray licensing agent and execute the secret handshake licensing agreement. Also we've got the complete list of player manufacturers, computer software, and launch titles from Buena Vista Home Entertainment, Lionsgate Home Entertainment Eagle Rock Entertainment, as well as the Japan only content announced so far.
Yule log broadcasts a preview of new art forms?
Perhaps. As flat panel displays continue to drop in price, some people believe we'll have so many that this new trend will take off with "ambient video" and this is just one early example of it. We already saw the live log feed on INHD and the log DVD earlier, and as the CEO of ScreenDreams came by to mention, it will also be available in next generation DVD formats whenever they become available.Will this take off, will I walk throughout my house as my networked LCD wallpaper reacts to my movements and mood? I dunno if I really want it to, plus I'd probably have to change it all around when my parents visit.
Warner tees up HD-DVD, Blu-ray titles
The next gen DVD announcements keep on coming, this time we've got the list of titles annonunced by Warner Home Video for Blu-ray and HD-DVD, dates for the HD-DVD releases, none yet for Blu-ray. One title jumps out at me, Unforgiven. Only because I recall seeing For a Few Dollars more on Sony's Blu-ray release list. I love Westerns, but I didn't know they were in such high demand in high definition (or else I wouldn't have already bought so many boxed sets *sob*). Other than how quickly I'll be buying Swordfish in every high definition format available, other questions remaining include what kind of extras we can expect to see on either or both formats and how much it will cost us.Check after the jump for the full list for both.
Paramount announces Blu-ray, HD-DVD titles
Well, CES is here and that means plenty of Blu-ray and HD-DVD announcements, even if we still don't know exactly when we will have players for either format yet. Paramount has announced mirrored launch lineups for their "Paramount High Definition" series. It will be interesting to see how available selection plays into the format battle brewing for 2006."The titles scheduled for launch include recent hits such as "Four Brothers" and "Sahara," sci-fi thrillers "Aeon Flux" and "Sky Captain & the World of Tomorrow," action-adventures "The Italian Job" and "Tomb Raider," the renowned music documentary "U2: Rattle and Hum" and Tim Burton's "Sleepy Hollow." Rounding out the debut slate are "We Were Soldiers" and "Manchurian Candidate" starring Academy Award(R) winners Mel Gibson and Denzel Washington, respectively.The 2006 line-up continues with the debut of a "Mission Impossible" trilogy for HD DVD which includes the new "Mission Impossible 3," "Mission Impossible" and "Mission Impossible 2," scheduled for later in the year."The only one of these movies I'm looking forward to is "The Italian Job", love that Marky Mark guy.
Forget dual tuner, try ALL-CHANNEL recording
Thats what Japanese researchers for Sharp and Sony are saying we can expect......in 2010. The good news is that once broadcasters switch to DTV, building devices capable of recording whats being broadcast on every channel, all of the time will become much less complicated, the bad news is that even with new compression technologies like MPEG-4, you'll still need a 2-3TB HDD to store all the high definition content being broadcast, and there isn't an affordable 3 TB storage method yet, but they expect there will be in the next few years.Another challenge is building a suitable GUI for such a product, navigating through 7,000 recorded programs could be a bit difficult. Additionally, if IPTV and video on demand services really take off, there might not be a need for all-channel recorders by the time they become available, or broadcasters might move to block them to protect their advertising revenue. Despite all the potential challenges, it is an interesting concept, I just can't wait until 7,000 high definition programs are broadcast every week.
Initial release of Viiv Media Center PC's not to feature Digital Media Adaptor support
Digitimes is reporting that Intel's line of Viiv media center PC's, set to launch at CES this week, will not feature support for Digital Media Adaptors. According to Alex at eHomeupgrade, this also means no Media Center Extender or Xbox 360 streaming support. Ugh, I hope the other features Intel will unveil make up for this lack of functionality (apparently it will be added in June in a Viiv 1.5 release). We'll have all that news and more in our CES coverage later this week.Update: Alex updated to mention he's not sure exactly what Digitimes means by the statement, which I have to agree with, it's really vague, especially since we don't know exactly what Viiv is all about yet. Like Windows Media Extender would, in my mind, be a function of the Media Center OS, so why wouldn't the PC's be able to do it, unless there is more to it than that, I guess all will be revelaed in a few days.
The race to dominate 1080p
While the question of whether or not next year will be the year for high definition to take over, it will definitely be remembered as the year 1080p hit the scene. With several different manufacturers lining up plasma and LCD displays, Displaybank took a quick look at the competitors.From 40" to 102", "full" HD will be a big marketing buzzword in 2006. I predict we will see a $15k 1080p HDTV PS3 bundle from Gamestop at some point. It will be madness.
