Monday, August 18, 2008

Today's High-Def Headlines

After losing out in the battle to define the high-definition successor to the DVD, Toshiba Corp. has turned its attention to the next best thing: the DVD player. Today, the Japanese electronics company is releasing a DVD player that it says does more than previous models to improve the look of standard-definition DVDs on high-definition TVs. The XD-E500 will sell for a suggested price of $149.99, twice as much as regular "upconverting" players, which also improve the look of a DVD, but less than half the price of a Blu-ray player.

TV shipments for North America hit record growth levels in the second quarter, despite a weaker U.S. economy, said DisplaySearch. TV shipments rose 28 percent compared to the same quarter last year to more than 9.3 million units, according to preliminary DisplaySearch findings, marking the strongest quarterly results since the research firm began tracking TV shipments in 2004, it said.

Comcast customers in suburban Harrisburg and Hershey, Pa. will have 10 more HD channels and four more standard-definition channels to choose from Friday when the cable operator completes its latest channel expansion in the area. Additional HD networks that will be added to the Comcast lineup in Hershey and Harrisburg’s suburban areas include: AMC HD, Animal Planet HD, Big Ten Network HD, CNN HD, Fox News Channel HD, FX HD, The History Channel HD, NHL Network HD, Speed Channel HD and The Weather Channel HD.

Panasonic claimed its entire 2008 line of 1080p Viera plasma HDTVs are rated to last 100,000 hours before reaching half its original brightness. The claim is based upon the U.S. average daily viewing time of 6.5 hours; Panasonic 1080p plasma HDTVs could on average take more than 42 years to reach half of their original brightness level.

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