Barry Willis

Direct broadcast satellite services <A HREF="http://www.echostar.com">EchoStar</A> and <A HREF="http://www.directv.com">DirecTV</A> are expanding HDTV programming and hardware options for their subscribers. The news should help boost subscriber growth for both companies, whose combined viewers now total more than 20 million.

Set-top converter boxes (STBs) may eventually disappear, thanks to cable compatibility rules adopted by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on Tuesday, September 10. The rules ratify an agreement reached by cable companies and electronics makers late last year, and insure that new televisions will be able to connect directly to cable feeds nationwide without the need for an adaptive device.

Many home theater experts assert that a center channel loudspeaker belongs <I>behind</I> the screen&mdash;which is what commercial theaters do with them. Yet many acoustically-transparent perforated screens contribute moir&#233; interference to the image when used with fixed-pixel (LCD, DLP, and D-ILA) projectors.

Video-on-Demand (VOD), long one of the cable industry's holy grails, is increasingly becoming a reality.