Today's High-Def Headlines

Circuit City’s Prospects Mixed: Analysts - TWICE
Analysts are spinning several scenarios for a post-Chapter 11 Circuit City and none of them are good. The rosiest projection, by Banc of America Securities’ David Strasser, envisions a vastly smaller multiregional chain, with 200 to 300 stores at best. In a research note, Strasser said he expects the company will look to close “significantly more” than the previously announced 155 stores, and that it will be able to “more aggressively market parts of the business to a variety of buyers” once it enters bankruptcy.

Circuit City Files for Bankruptcy Protection - Reuters
Circuit City Stores Inc, the No. 2 U.S. consumer electronics retailer, filed for bankruptcy on Monday just weeks before the start of the holiday shopping season, becoming the largest retailer to file for Chapter 11 since Kmart in 2002. Circuit City fell victim to tighter credit terms from vendors, a dwindling cash position and decreased consumer spending amid a deepening economic crisis.

Flat Panel TV Shipments Begin Their Decline - CNET News.com
One of the hottest products in consumer electronics is finally cooling off. A report released Tuesday confirms that flat-panel television shipments to retailers are beginning to tail off. Specifically, LCD and plasma TV shipment grew just 21 percent, and 20 percent, respectively year over year during the third quarter of 2008, according to DisplaySearch's Quarterly Global TV Shipment and Forecast Report.

CTAM: HD Panel Tackles Recession Marketing - TV Week
With economic bad news dominating headlines, high-definition television executives are betting TV’s comfort factor will keep increasing demand for HD programming, according to a panel of industry powerhouses. The Cable and Telecommunications Association for Marketing kicked off its 2008 convention in Boston with a TelevisionWeek panel on whether the financial crisis will slow down the HD market. Moderator Chuck Ross, TVWeek publisher and editorial director, surveyed the panel which said the industry tends to ride through hard times as a comfortable, inexpensive form of entertainment.

MGM HD Ink’s Carriage Pact With AT&T’s U-verse - MCN
MGM HD is marking its first anniversary by landing a carriage deal with AT&T’s U-verse service, and by picking up distribution on cable systems that have been carrying Mojo HD, which is going dark next month.With its new AT&T pact, MGM HD now has affiliation deals with all the major distributors, namely DirecTV, Dish Network, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Verizon and Bright House Networks, according to Lee.

Vudu Cracks 1,000 HD Titles - B&C
Online movie service Vudu says it is now offering over 1,100 HD titles for instant, on-demand viewing, which it says represents the largest library of HD content available on-demand today. Santa Clara, Calif.-based Vudu, which uses a proprietary Internet-connected set-top box to facilitate on-demand viewing of 10,000 movies and TV shows, ramped up its HD offerings dramatically this fall. In September it introduced a new 1080-line progressive format called HDX that dramatically improved the picture quality it delivers for select HD titles, and overall, it has been adding some 150 new HD titles a week ranging from new release like Journey to the Center of the Earth to classics like Cool Hand Luke.

DirecTV Adds Six More Local HD Markets - MCN
DirecTV Thursday launched local HDTV service in six new markets, offering such service now in 109 DMAs. The latest launches are Boise, Idaho; Harlingen-Weslaco-Brownsville-McAllen, Texas; Macon, Ga.; Sioux Falls, S.D.; Traverse City-Cadillac, Mich.; and Fort Smith, Ark.

Panasonic Begins Sanyo Takeover - TWICE
Panasonic and Sanyo officially acknowledged Friday that the two companies will start discussions “for a capital and business alliance between the two corporations,” with the aim of making Sanyo a Panasonic subsidiary. The boards of each company met separately on the proposal Friday. According to a statement issued by Panasonic, both companies will start discussions “with the aim of maximizing both companies' corporate values by pursuing synergies between both companies and further strengthening initiatives to achieve potential revenue and profit growth through this alliance”.

Shopping for TVs With the Experts - AP/WashPost
Technological advances have made giant flat-panel TV screens with intensely detailed pictures affordable to the average American consumer. But which one to choose? Home theater enthusiasts say you can get the biggest bang for your buck with a system that uses a digital projector. They can easily be hooked up to your computer, video game system or DVD player, or cable signal, and they display images at a variety of sizes.