Audio Video News

Despite the apparent eagerness of consumer electronics manufacturers to bring out new, improved, and much cheaper high-definition television equipment, the situation behind the scenes is anything but rosy. Satellite services are coming on board with the new format at an encouraging rate, but cable companies, who deliver most of the television signals to most American viewers, have been dragging their feet for years. Reluctance to adapt digital transmission because of its bandwidth demands has hindered the rollout of the new system by as much as five years, according to some estimates.

Satellite receivers with HDTV capability are big news here in Las Vegas. Several companies have followed in the wake of RCA's announcement of its $649 DTC100, an HDTV-ready DirecTV satellite receiver, among them Hughes, Mitsubishi, Panasonic, and Toshiba. Now Samsung Electronics America has announced a set-top box with all the latest technology.

DVD's early adopters were almost entirely technophile males, and their tastes in films were completely predictable: action and science fiction. Now that DVD players are finding their way into more homes, the popularity of other film genres in the digital format is growing.

Cable companies and TV stations have been brawling over how much the former should pay the latter for the right to carry their content. This time the warring parties are Time Warner Cable and Sinclair, owner of 33 stations in 21 markets including CBS, NBC, ABC, and Fox affiliates. The channels may go dark as early as this coming weekend.

But there's a twist. The Fox network has agreed to provide TWC with a signal if the local station withholds it. That's because its parent, News Corp., already has a retransmission agreement with TWC.