Audio Video News

Satellite television subscribers will soon be able to take advantage of a new satellite-based Internet service being rolled out by two subsidiaries of <A HREF="http://www.hughes.com"> Hughes Electronics Corporation</A>.

According to new consumer research, more than 95% of digital television (DTV) owners would purchase a DTV set again. That overwhelmingly definitive stamp of approval for DTV was presented last week to conference attendees struggling with HDTV's rollout at the <A HREF="http://www.ce.org">Consumer Electronics Association</A>'s (CEA) DTV Summit, "Is Laissez-Faire Fair?" in Washington, DC.

Last week, <A HREF="http://www.samsung.com">Samsung</A>, <A HREF="http://www.sears.com">Sears</A>, and <A HREF="http://www.cbs.com">CBS Television</A> announced a partnership that will allow fans to watch a full season of college football games in HDTV. The agreement marks the first time a full season of college football will be broadcast in HDTV, as well as the first time a retailer, broadcaster, and manufacturer have joined forces to jointly promote HDTV usage.

According to figures recently compiled by the <A HREF="http://www.dvdinformation.com">DVD Entertainment Group</A>, DVD hardware and software sales continued on a strong upward curve in the first six months of 2001. In the first half of the year, the DEG reports, more than 5 million DVD players were shipped to retailers (not all have sold through to consumers), bringing the total units shipped since the format's launch to 20.4 million. Just over 3 million players had been shipped by the same time last year.

The digital TV rollout may have more problems than were previously anticipated. A study released July 25 by <A HREF="http://www.trivenidigital.com">Triveni Digital</A> indicates that a majority of the nation's digital broadcasts have transport stream errors that can cause reception problems ranging from "tuner lock-up" to audio sync errors. In addition, a July 26 report in the <I>Los Angeles Times</I> says that new content protection schemes could be incompatible with early generation high-definition TVs.