Jon Iverson

A recently released study has found that the high price of digital television sets, high capital investment costs, lack of advertising support, and scant offerings from broadcasters have restrained the penetration of digital television since its rollout in November 1998. But the report concludes that "despite its anti-climactic beginning, digital television still represents an important and potentially lucrative market in the consumer television industry."

Last week, <A HREF="http://www.disney.com">The Walt Disney Company</A> and <A HREF="http://www.ti.com/dlp">Texas Instruments</A> announced that DLP Cinema technology will be featured in an all-digital showing of Disney/Pixar's new computer-animated film, <I>Toy Story 2</I>, at six locations in North America. According to the companies, <I>Toy Story 2</I> will be the first major studio feature to be released simultaneously in both digital and traditional film formats.

Is the world ready for interactive television? The <A HREF="http://www.pbs.org">Public Broadcasting Service</A> (PBS) apparently thinks so. Last week PBS, along with several of its member stations, LG Electronics, and <A HREF="http://www.lgerca.com">LG Electronics Research Center of America</A> (LGERCA), began demonstrating "enhanced digital television and data broadcasting" to their viewers as part of PBS Digital Week 2.0.

According to figures released last week by the <A HREF="http://www.cemacity.org">Consumer Electronics Manufacturers Association</A> (CEMA), an additional 900,000 DVD-Video players were shipped to retail in the third quarter of 1999, bringing total year-to-date hardware shipments to 2.2 million. The CEMA statistics also reveal that DVD-Video experienced approximately a 225% rate of growth in the third quarter of 1999 vs. the third quarter of 1998, shipping 600,000 more hardware units than shipped in the third quarter of 1998. CEMA estimates that total players shipped in 1999 will exceed 3 million units.