New Mitsubishi TVs Rolled Out

The last DLP manufacturer unveiled its 2009 models at its line show this week, TWICE reports. New for this year is the Unisen sub-brand that includes a premium 5.1 channel surround-sound audio system built into the television.

Time Warner Renews Outdoor HD, Talking to HDNet

Time Warner Cable said yesterday that it has re-upped its carriage agreement with The Outdoor Channel, a deal that includes the Outdoor HD high-definition feed.

On a perhaps more interesting note, Time Warner appears to be continuing its negotiations with HDNet after notices were posted online to customers telling them that Mark Cuban's two HD channels would be dropped on March 31st. According to Multichannel News, the plan was to replace HDNet and HDNet Movies with Smithsonian HD and MavTV HD.

MLB Network Schedule for Thurs. Night Games

MLB Network today released the first part of the schedule for its weekly Thursday night games that will debut the week of Opening Day in April, all of which should be in HD. If your hometown team is slated for one of these games, you'll either get a different game or some other alternate programming. Drum roll, please:

April 9, 7 p.m., Brewers at Giants; Called by Matt Vasgersian, Joe Magrane
April 16, 1 p.m., Indians at Yankees; Called by Bob Costas, Harold Reynolds, Jim Kaat
April 16, 8 p.m., Blue Jays at Twins; Called by Victor Rojas and Dan Plesac
April 23, 8 p.m., Dodgers at Astros; Called by Vasgersian and Magrane
April 30, 7 p.m., Red Sox at Rays; Called by Rojas and Magrane
May 7, 7 p.m., Phillies at Mets; Called by Costas and Al Leiter
May 1, 4, 8 p.m., Orioles at Royals; TBD
May 21, 8 p.m., Cubs at Cardinals; TBD

G.E. HDTVs Delayed

The much-anticipated line of HDTVs from General Electric have been delayed by as much as three months due to marketing issues, perhaps associated with the stagnating economy. G.E.'s HDTVs are being developed in conjunction with Taiwanese manufacturer Tatung and are being positioned as something of a premium brand, which the company may have some troubles with given current consumer sentiment. More from the NY Times.

Amazon, iTunes Unveil New HD Offerings

It's a busy week for online HD offerings: yesterday Apple's iTunes launched its HD movie download service, while according to the NY Times, Amazon is about to kick off its own HD television show download capability. Both iTunes and Amazon price their TV episodes in high-def at $2.99 while the iTunes HD movie download service costs $19.99 per movie or $4.99 to rent them.

Sharp Outfitting NY Mets' Citi Field with 800 LCD TVs

Sharp Electronics said today that it has inked a multi-year deal with the New York Mets baseball team to outfit the new Citi Field with more than 800 LCD TVs. The highlight is a 108-inch LCD TV in the main lobby of the stadium.

California May Ban Some Big-Screen TVs

The State of California's Energy Commission is considering banning big-screen TVs that don't meet certain energy efficiency requirements. The Orange County Register reports that as part of the CEC's ongoing offensive against greenhouse gas, as many as one-quarter of TVs bigger than 40 inches may be taken off the market starting this summer because the CEC believes they consume too much energy.

Keep in mind that the federal government's Energy Star program already monitors and regulates the energy efficiency of most major appliances such as TVs. 

Panasonic's 2009 HDTVs Unveiled

TWICE reports on the Panasonic line show from last week in which the company rolled out its new Z1 flagship series of ultra-thin (1-inch) plasma TVs. TWICE does an excellent job recapping the show so check it out to see the new stuff from Panny.

Programming: HD vs. SD

Broadcasting & Cable runs an interesting piece today about the economics of selling content shot in high-def vs. standard-def. Some cable channels like National Geographic and Discovery are only buying HD programming while most reality shows are still in low-def to keep costs down. A key factor is the ability to rerun programming to spread the costs out over time and recoup more in advertising revenue, something that is fairly difficult with competition-based reality shows.

DISH Picks Up 4 New HD Channels

DISH said last week that it has added Showtime Too HD, Showtime Showcase HD, TMC HD & BET J HD. This spring it will add the HD feeds of BET, Comedy Central, CMT, MTV, Nickelodeon, Spike TV and VH1.

Verizon FiOS Adds MLB Network HD, Extra Innings

Verizon said today that FiOS TV customers now have access to MLB Network HD along with the MLB Extra Innings package that shows up to 10 baseball games a week in high-def. MLB Network will air 26 live games this season. More from TV Week.

Reviewed: Sony 32" Bravia XBR6 LCD TV

Earlier this week I told you that Sony had its line show in Las Vegas, unveiling its 2009 models that should hit stores soon. As such, there are sales on a number of the 2008 models, and being in the market for a smallish LCD TV for my office, I decided to see what I could find. I wound up buying a 32-inch Sony Bravia KDL-32XBR6 for $749.99 at Best Buy (just marked down $250 from $999.99). I've always liked the XBR series but found it overly expensive, which is why I never bought one.

I decided to spend a little extra and go with the 1080p XBR even though conventional wisdom says that at 32 inches you won't be able to see a difference between 1080p and 768p/720p. That may be true but I'll probably use this as a [very large] computer monitor from time to time, a task for which 1080p is better equipped.

My initial impressions of the 32-inch XBR are very positive. I'm watching the Denver-Portland NBA game on TNT HD right now and it looks absolutely fantastic. Interestingly, when I watched a college game yesterday on ESPN HD, it didn't look as good as I thought it should -- but the TNT HD feed for NBA games looks great. The TV's color is very nice, contrast ratio is outstanding and lack of motion blur is a welcome sign. Even the black levels look good, something for which LCD TV's aren't generally known.

I'll post more thoughts as I log more viewing time but I am so far quite pleased with this TV.

UPDATE: I just checked BestBuy.com and the price for this model has gone back up to $999.99. I wouldn't worry too much if you really want it at $749.99 because the new XBR9 models are coming out in a little over two weeks (March 22) and are marked at a pre-sale price of just $100 more than the old XBR6's. I'm sure the XBR6 will go on sale again very soon.

AT&T U-verse Now Up To 100 HD Channels

AT&T said yesterday that its U-verse IPTV service now offers 100 HD channels in every market in which it is available with the recent additions of ESPNEWS HD, ESPNU HD, ABC Family HD, Disney HD and Disney XD HD. AT&T U-verse TV ranked "Highest in Residential Television Service Satisfaction in the North Central, South, and West Regions," according to the J.D. Power and Associates 2008 Residential Television Service Provider Satisfaction Study.

I ordered U-verse on Monday and the installation is in two weeks so I'll report back on how the IPTV HD channels compare quality-wise to DIRECTV and Time Warner Cable.

Sony Uses Line Show to Unveil New Models

CNET News.com has full coverage of Sony's line show in Las Vegas that included a new group of LCD TVs with Yahoo Widgets and another line of power-friendly green TVs that turn off when no human presence is detected within a certain radius of the TV. Very cool.

TWICE also has the story.

Consumers Want Their 3-D TV. Or Do They?

A study co-authored by the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) and released on Friday finds that 3-D TV may be the next big thing. According to the group, 41 million American adults said they've seen a 3-D movie in theaters in the last 12 months (which seems high to me), although interestingly only 40% of those say they'd prefer to see a movie in 3-D over the standard 2-D.

There are some other interesting stats here (thanks to TWICE), but I want to focus on that 40% number above because it seems a bit underwhelming. I'm guessing that when HDTV was first introduced, something close to 100% of the people who saw a show, movie or sporting event in HD preferred it in high-def over standard-def. That seems pretty obvious. So when only 40% of the people who have seen a 3-D movie prefer it in 3-D, that says to me that the technology has a ways to go before it will be adopted in any large scale. 

Unofficial DTV Transition Going Down Tonight

As we discussed last week, one of the odd side effects of the recent legislation extending the digital TV transition from Feb. 17th to June 12th is that Congress gave many of the nation's broadcasters the option to cut over on the original date anyway. There's now a confirmed number on how many exactly we're talking about and it's not small -- 421 stations nationwide will cease analog broadcasting at 11:59PM tonight. When you add in the 220 that have already done so, 641 of the nation's 1,800 local broadcast stations will be digital-only at midnight tonight, or about 36% according to the FCC and TWICE. 

At first glance, this seemed odd to me. The justification for delaying the DTV cutover was that some percentage of U.S. households aren't ready yet. But by letting some broadcasters shut off the analog signals today, what is the message from the FCC? Apparently what the Commission has done is try to have at least one of the "Big 4" network affiliates (ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX) in each market continue to broadcast in analog so that households not yet ready for all-digital will still be able to get local news and emergency information. This explains why here in San Diego, four of the five major networks (counting The CW) will go digital-only tonight while the local NBC affiliate will continue its analog broadcast.

This whole thing is a bit of a mess, especially considering there are still boatloads of people on waiting lists for the government's DTV coupon. Here's hoping this thing gets sorted out in the next couple of months so that we're not in this same position the week before June 12th...

'The Simpsons' Premiers in HD This Sunday

Long-running animated comedy 'The Simpsons' is set to make its high-def debut this Sunday night and I for one will be sure to set the DVR. More from TV Week.

It's Official: Pioneer to Quit TV Biz

Rumors of the demise of Pioneer's unprofitable TV business were spot-on, as the company this morning announced it will quit selling plasma TVs by March of next year. About 10,000 workers will be laid off as a result.

Pioneer always seemed to me to be searching for its identity in the flat-panel TV industry. At the low end are manufacturers like Vizio (which coincidentally announced today that it will quit making plasma displays to focus exclusively on LCD TVs), in the middle are behemoths like Panasonic and Samsung, and at the top are high-end makers like Runco. Pioneer sought to be at the higher end of the spectrum but particularly once it started buying its plasma panels from Panasonic, it had trouble justifying the premiums it was charging.

DTV Delay Signed by Obama

The most interesting thing about President Obama today signing legislation to delay the digital TV transition from Feb. 17th to June 12th is that something in the neighborhood of 500 local broadcast stations nationwide have already said that they plan to proceed with their own DTV transitions next Thursday as originally mandated by law. Apparently they need FCC approval for this but we could very soon be in a patchwork situation where a large percentage of the country's TV stations require a digital converter to view while others wait until June.

Here in San Diego, four of the five major local broadcasters want to transition to DTV next week while the lone holdout for June is the NBC affiliate.

What a mess!

Pioneer to Dump Plasma Biz?

There were various reports yesterday in both the U.S. and Japan that plasma TV maker Pioneer is mulling an exit from the flat-panel TV business. Pioneer's plasma operations are unprofitable for the company, even though it decided last year to stop manufacturing its own plasma display panels and buy them from Panasonic instead. More from the Wall Street Journal.

Time Warner NYC Up to 100 HD Channels

Multichannel News is out today with a story of the positive benefits of competition for HD consumers. Now that Verizon has rolled into New York City, key rival Time Warner Cable has increased its high-def channel count to over 100 in each of the city's five boroughs. 65 of those are part of the regular cable package that's available to all customers with an HD box, while the remainder are various incarnations of premium movie channels from the likes of HBO, Showtime, Cinemax and Starz.

New York City's other primary cable company, Cablevision, offers about 70 high-def channels.

DTV Delay Passes Congress, Awaits Obama Signature

Legislation to delay the digital TV transition on a one-time basis from Feb. 17th to June 12th passed the U.S. House of Representatives yesterday by a largely party-line 264-158 vote.  The bill, which had already cleared the Senate, was sent to the White House for President Obama's signature, which will occur today or tomorrow. TV Week has the full story.

DISH Adds Fox News HD, Testing Fox Business HD

Without fanfare DISH Network has added the high-def simulcast of Fox News Channel and is testing Fox Business Network HD, MCN reports. There have been past distribution disputes between DISH and News Corp. that have led to the delay in getting both channels' high-def feeds on DISH's satellites.

Cox Cable Inks Deal for FX, Speed & Fuel TV in HD

Cox Communications has reached a distribution agreement with Fox Cable Networks that will allow it to carry the high-def feeds of FX, Speed & Fuel TV. 600,000 Cox homes will have access to FX HD and Speed HD immediately, with more to come as Fuel TV HD is included in the mix. More from Multichannel News.

Panasonic Losing Billions, Cutting Back

The slowdown in HDTV growth caused by the recession has hit all of the manufacturers, with Panasonic today becoming the latest to forecast a multi-billion dollar loss for this fiscal year that will result in a reorg with job cuts. All told, about 15,000 employees will be laid off and 27 plants shuttered across the globe. Panasonic expects a $4.3 billion loss for the fiscal year ending March 31st.

AT&T Hooks Up With DIRECTV

AT&T yesterday officially announced its new partnership with DIRECTV. Having made public the termination of its relationship with DISH Network last fall, yesterday's announcement marked the beginning of the new AT&T | DIRECTV co-branded satellite service, which the telco giant will market in areas where its U-verse IPTV service is not yet available.

DIRECTV now has partnerships with the three largest U.S. telcos -- AT&T, Verizon and Qwest.

Panasonic Plasmas Getting Thinner, Greener

Reuters is out with a story today from Panasonic, which in April will launch a new line of plasma TVs in Japan that are much thinner than the company's standard plasmas and will require only half as much energy to operate. The skinny, green plasmas will hit U.S. store shelves sometime this summer. In Japan the 50-inch model will set you back a cool 600,000 yen, which sounds only slightly better in greenbacks -- $6,685.

Circuit City Liquidation Moving Along Quickly

The four firms conducting the going-out-of-business sale for all Circuit City stores across the country report that 25% of the inventory has sold in the first two weeks of the liquidation. All told there is $1.8 billion in merchandise to be sold, with $450 million gone already.

More discounting starts today, with all plasma TVs being sold for 25% off their original retail price and certain LCDs going for 20% off. Be careful though, because according to this TWICE article some customers have reported that prices were actually higher at Circuit over the last two weeks due to the discounting coming off of the original MSRP rather than sale prices.

BREAKING NEWS: DTV Delay Fails in U.S. House

Just in from Washington: A measure to delay the digital TV transition from Feb. 17 until June 12 this afternoon failed to pass the U.S. House of Representatives, coming up short of the two-thirds majority it needed for passage. The Senate had already unanimously passed the bill, which was supported by President Obama. More from TWICE.

Circuit City Going Out of Business Sale -- Not All That?

BusinessWeek has an interesting piece about the liquidation process surrounding the Circuit City bankruptcy. The short version is that many shoppers are expecting great deals but the reality is that 10-30% off retail is the extent of the discounting, with most major electronics falling at the 10% end of that spectrum. From a consumer perspective, the discounting will ramp up as the weeks pass but on the flip side, the good stuff will be the first to go. And obviously you won't be able to return anything. Caveat emptor, to be sure, but happy shopping if you go!

Cablevision Adds HD Premiums to Replace VOOM

When Cablevision announced last month that it was terminating its carriage relationship with the VOOM suite of 15 high-def channels, it said that it would immediately replace them with new HD nets so that its high-def channel count would stay the same (almost 70). This week the New York City cable company has done that, although customers have to subscribe to all the premium movie channels (HBO, Showtime, Cinemax, Starz) to get the newbies.

The new HD premium channels Cablevision customers can now receive are: Encore HD, Starz Kids & Family HD, Starz Edge HD, HBO Signature HD, HBO Family HD, HBO Comedy HD, HBO Zone HD, HBO2 HD, HBO Latino HD, Action Max HD, More Max HD, @Max HD, Outer Max HD, Showtime Too HD and Showtime Showcase HD.