Jon Iverson

Although broadcasters still have until 2006 to implement DTV, the <A HREF="http://www.CE.org">Consumer Electronics Association</A> (CEA) is reporting that manufacturer-to-dealer sales of digital television (DTV) products continued to beat past year performance. For the latest figures, DTV products are defined to include integrated sets and monitors displaying active vertical scanning lines of at least 480p and, in the case of integrated sets, receiving and decoding ATSC terrestrial digital transmissions.

It looked good on paper and at the demo: Digital Television and HDTV would revive the video market and create a wave of demand for new sets and playback equipment. Then there were the <A HREF="http://www.guidetohometheater.com/shownews.cgi?785">8VSB versus COFDM</A> and <A HREF="http://www.guidetohometheater.com/shownews.cgi?1237">copy protection</A> flaps, leading to shifting connection standards and uncertainty both on the manufacturing end and in the marketplace.

HDTV fans rejoice: The magic formula needed to bring high definition video into millions of consumer homes may be near. Nine of the major audio/video consumer electronics companies announced last week that they have jointly established the basic specifications for a next generation large capacity optical disc video recording format called "Blu-ray Disc."

One of the primary obstacles to getting high-bandwidth video such as HDTV to the home via cable is the limited signal-carrying capacity of what is termed "the last mile." Currently, cable modem users share a data pipe with TV channels that can carry about 30 megabits-per-second (mbps) into their homes.