Audio Video News

Last week, <A HREF="http://www.directmoviesonline.com/">Direct Movies Online.com</A> announced the debut of its website, which the company claims provides "near-DVD-quality" streaming video on a pay-per-view (PPV) basis. The company says that DMOL was created to address the demand for an increase in the quantity and quality of streaming video content available to consumers via broadband Internet access.

Home Premiere "cannibalizes theatrical ticket sales," said the letter, which was published online by the National Association of Theater Owners and as an ad in Variety. The letter is aimed at four studios who have embraced the DirecTV plan including Sony Pictures, Twentieth Century-Fox, Universal, and Warner Bros.

The Satellite Home Viewer Improvement Act of 1999, <A HREF="http://www.guidetohometheater.com/shownews.cgi?575">recently passed</A> by Congress and expected to be signed into law by President Clinton, will usher in a new level of competition to the television broadcasting industry&mdash;and a new era of service for viewers, according to direct-broadcast satellite service <A HREF="http://www.directv.com/">DirecTV</A>. The bill allows DBS companies to provide signals from local TV stations, just as cable companies have always done.

One of the more interesting announcements at CES this year was from DirecTV, who revealed that they would be launching four next-generation satellites by 2007 in order to carry more than 1500 local HDTV channels and 150 national HD channels. The first two of these satellites, dubbed Spaceway 1 and Spaceway 2, are scheduled to be sent aloft early in the second quarter of 2005, and they will transmit local HD channels to 12 US markets (New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston, San Francisco, Dallas, Washington DC, Atlanta, Detroit, Houston, and Tampa) by mid-year.