OTHER TECH

Since satellite services normally bundle hardware with service, Dish announced no prices for these new devices. However, in a hint of how advantageous bundled pricing can be, it did announce a complete satellite HDTV system for $1,600 that includes a 30-inch LCD TV and a Dish 811 high-def receiver. You also have to subscribe to one of Dish's regular programming packages plus a year of its HD Pak, the price of which has been lowered to $10 a month for new subscribers.

DirecTV Goes InteractiveIn the room next door immediately following the Dish Network presentation, DirecTV strutted its stuff. First of all, subscribers in twelve major markets will be able to receive local HDTV channels by the end of this year, and DirecTV promises that within three years it will deliver 1,500 local channels and 150 national channels in high-definition.

DirecTV goes interactive with a new "Active" package that includes three interactive channels, each of which shows six programs at once in one of these categories: news, sports, and kids. Talk about multitasking and short attention spans! Active also provides lottery results, horoscopes, and previews of other DirecTV channels and new programming. To make the most of this service, which comes at no additional charge, DirecTV debuted its latest digital hard-disk recorder, which can store 100 hours of programming and incorporates three tuners, so you can record two different shows while watching a third. A really neat feature is that you can record a pay-per-view program, but only pay for it when you view it - Dish won't bill you if you never get around to watching the movie or event.

Like Dish Network, DirecTV gave no price for its new hardware.

Cable Strikes BackThe cable industry remains keenly aware of satellite TV's challenge. Shortly before the official opening of CES, in a hotel far from the Las Vegas Convention Center, Samsung and Time Warner Cable inked a deal to work together on next-generation interactive connections for digital cable based on the "OpenCable" standard developed by Cable Television Laboratories. Current CableCARDs, which let you watch premium cable channels without a set-top box, just a cable plugged directly into the back of the TV, cannot support interactive program guides or video on demand (see "Wild Card"). Version 2 of the standard, which would permit true two-way VOD, isn't completed yet, but Samsung plans to forge ahead anyway. (Current satellite systems require a telephone line to send data back to the user.) At the show, Samsung had a 50-inch DLP rear-projection HDTV with a prototype two-way card slot it called iDCR (interactive digital cable ready). < < Back to the International CES 2005 index