OTHER TECH

JUNE Dish Network Adds Discovery HD Theater Discovery HD Theater, a channel offering a variety of high-def programs with the emphasis on nature, science, and news, was first offered on EchoStar's Dish Network for $7.99 a month in July 2002. The network planned to have 40 to 50 cable operators carrying the Discovery HD channel by the end of 2002. A gradual rollout began in the summer with AT&T Broadband (now Comcast) in Chicago and Cox Communications in Fairfax County, VA, Las Vegas, NV, and Phoenix, AZ. Besides systems in Long Beach, Turlock, and Victorville, CA, Charter Communications rolled out in Charleston, WV, Miami Beach, FL, Leeds, AL, and Dallas, TX. High-Def for Sale-On Videocassette Prerecorded videocassettes gave enthusiasts their first high-def programming that wasn't delivered via satellite, cable, or broadcast TV. Terminator 2: Judgment Day, The Peacemaker, X-Men, and U-571 were the first releases in JVC's D-Theater digital-VHS format, priced between $35 and $45. The second wave included The Terminator, Dirty Dancing, The Haunting, Galaxy Quest, Independence Day, Fight Club, Backdraft, and End of Days. (As of late fall, 25 D-Theater movies were available.) The D-Theater format's controversial copy protection meant that the only D-VHS VCR able to play the cassettes was JVC's HM-DH30000U, which at the time carried a $2,000 suggested retail price (the actual selling price has since dropped to half that amount). Unfortunately, D-VHS recorders from companies like Mitsubishi lack the copy-protection circuitry necessary for playing the titles. AUGUST FCC Mandates HDTV Tuners Frustrated by the TV makers' lukewarm response to the Powell Plan, the FCC got tough and forced the issue by imposing a schedule for including terrestrial DTV tuners in TVs. The mandate, which is slightly more lenient than the schedule laid out in the April plan, requires digital tuners in half of TVs with 36-inch and larger screens by July 2004 and all TVs of that size by July 2005. Half of all 25- to 35-inch sets must have a digital tuner by July 2005, with all TVs of that size following suit by July 2006. Also, TVs with screen sizes less than 24 inches and all other devices that include off-air TV receivers, like VCRs and personal video or DVD recorders, are required to include DTV tuners by July 2007. The FCC order, which appeared to single out the electronics industry while allowing broadcasters to dawdle on delivering digital TV programming and cable companies to continue fighting over standards, drew objections from the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA), which said that the decision would put an undue cost burden on consumers. The CEA filed a lawsuit in October to overturn the order. A verdict isn't expected until later this year. The suit might be dropped, though, after manufacturers advance their own competitive plans to add tuners to their digital TVs. SEPTEMBER More Prime-time Shows Go High-def In September, the WB Network and Chicago-based Tribune Broadcasting began delivering 5 hours of original high-def programming per week to WB affiliates covering almost 35% of U.S. television households. The network expected to cover another 5% of TV homes by the first few months of 2003. As this issue went to press, WB executives were also hopeful that its New York City affiliate-WPIX-DT-would be granted temporary authority to begin digital transmission by the end of 2002. But finding a permanent spot on the Empire State Building's broadcast tower could take until mid 2003. Programs delivered in HDTV include Family Affair, Everwood, Reba, and Smallville. The WB also transmitted its first HDTV movie-Iron Giant-on Thanksgiving Day. Tribune Broadcasting, which has a 22% stake in the WB network, owns and operates 24 major-market stations, including Chicago super-station WGN-TV. More High-def Sports on the Way The focus of ABC and ESPN's HDTV programming announcements was sports, sports, and more sports. ABC, which is already offering most of its prime-time schedule in the 720p high-def format, said it would expand its coverage in 2003, delivering Super Bowl XXXVII on January 26, the NBA finals on June 4-8, and the NHL Stanley Cup finals on May 31-June 9. ABC also said that the 2003 season of Monday Night Football would be broadcast in high-def. ABC's sister cable network ESPN said it would begin 720p simulcasts in April. Highlights of the new ESPN HD service will include 100 live Major League Baseball, NBA, NFL, and NHL games. OCTOBER Cable-ready Digital TV Pact Signed An agreement signed by Panasonic with CableLabs, a cable industry research and development group, is expected to lead to the first "cable-ready" digital TVs. The sets will connect directly to digital cable services and receive basic and premium digital and HDTV channels without a set-top cable box. Called the POD-Host Interface License Agreement, or PHILA, it allows Panasonic to sell the cable-friendly HDTVs as early as this year. But the company doesn't expect to deliver its first digital-cable sets until late 2003. In this system, a secure communications link is established between a local cable system and the TV via a credit-card-sized module inserted into a slot on the set. The cable operators supply subscribers with the modules, which authorize the channels that can be viewed in a subscription package. Because some troublesome areas such as digital recording and interactive capability have not been negotiated yet, Panasonic opted to sign a scaled-down version of the PHILA agreement. This means that early TVs with modules will lack features like video on demand and won't be able to send signals to a digital recorder through a FireWire connection. Despite this, other TV makers were expected to sign similar agreements with CableLabs by March 2003. In 2003, you can expect to see more HDTV programming, particularly sports; more cable companies offering high-def channels along with the set-top boxes necessary to receive them; and HDTV sets with built-in digital tuners selling for about the same price as current HDTV monitors. You can also expect to see more broadcast stations going digital-and the FCC getting tough with them if they don't. And let's hope 2003 isn't the year when Hollywood succeeds in squashing the fair-use recording rights we've enjoyed since the early days of the VCR. The word is out about HDTV. Now it's time for all of us to get with the program.