Today's High-Def Headlines

DirecTV Rolls 11 With HD - MCN
DirecTV’s high-definition channel rollout continued apace today, with the nation’s leading satellite service adding 11 more enhanced services to its lineup. Six of the new adds were national services, three apiece from the NBC Universal and HBO camps, while five were the HD feeds for regional sports networks. Among the former category, DirecTV today launched Bravo HD, Sci Fi Channel HD and USA Network HD, as well as Cinemax HD East, Cinemax HD West and HBO HD West. The distributor now offers 40 national HD services.

L.A. Gets HD Baseball on TBS - MCN
Time Warner Cable engineers in Southern California scrambled to enable the regional system to activate TBS HD, announcing at 3:30 p.m. Oct. 3 that it had managed to add TBS’s high-definition channel in time for the region to watch the Los Angeles Angels in their first play-off game against the Boston Red Sox in the American League divisional play-off. Time Warner, which serves the majority of Los Angeles, Orange and Riverside counties, is offering three ways to watch the local team in the play-offs: in standard definition on TBS’s usual channel placement, in HD on Channel 413, or as a simulcast on CNN en Espanol on Channel 305 with play-by-play commentary by CNN senior sports anchor Diego Bustos.

LCD & Plasma TVs: One Plasma Hits a New High - Consumer Reports
The best sets are better than ever. The Panasonic TH-50PZ700U had the best picture of any flat-panel TV we’ve ever tested. One of the new breed of 1080p plasma sets now hitting stores, it combines “full HD”--1920x1080 native resolution, the highest currently available--with the characteristic strengths of plasma technology. Its ability to reproduce the finest detail, plus its rich, vibrant colors and deep blacks, lend an almost three-dimensional look to images.

JVC Demos 180Hz LCD Technology - TWICE
Victor Company of Japan (JVC) unveiled at CEATEC its new LCD TV technology that offers a 180Hz “panel operation frequency” rate, improving upon current 120Hz models. JVC's 180Hz technology was said to use a proprietary algorithm enabling the panel to “predict, produce and insert” two additional frames of images every second in a standard 60 fps video stream, according to a report in Nikkei Business news.

Sharp Demos Super-Thin LCD - TWICE
As Sony launches onto the Japanese consumer market an 11-inch OLED TV measuring just 0.11 inches thick, Sharp is demonstrating at CEATEC a 12.1-inch LCD panel with just about the same thickness. The new LCD panel was said to be three-times thicker than Sharp’s previous LCD versions.

TV Rivals Muscle Up for a High-Def Duel - Sacramento Bee
If high-definition is the new front in the battle for TV viewers, it appears that DirecTV is seizing the high ground -- at least for now. Fortified by new satellite capacity, DirecTV added 21 high-definition channels to its lineup last week, bringing its total to 30. It expects to double that by the end of October and offer up to 100 channels by year's end, although some of those will be pay-per-view, not new channels.

Cox Communications and Turner Bring High Definition Programming to Customers
Cox Communications and Turner Networks announced an agreement Wednesday that will allow Cox to offer TBS in HD and CNN HD in Cox markets.

HDTV Customers Are Happy With Picture Quality, Less Enthusiastic About Programming Options, Nielsen Finds
High definition (HD) television owners are much more satisfied with the picture quality of HD television than they are with the amount or selection of HD programming, The Nielsen Company reported today. According to Nielsen Media Research's 2007 High Definition Survey, 85 percent of HD owners gave a 4 or 5 rating (with 5 meaning "excellent" and 1 meaning "poor") for picture quality but only 39 percent provided the same rating for programming selection.