Today's CES High-Def Headlines

Comcast to Offer 1,000 HD ‘Choices’ - MCN
In a message aimed at both Wall Street and the consumer electronics industry, Comcast CEO Brian Roberts Tuesday detailed his company’s future roadmap for convergence and competition, “Comcast 3.0.” Roberts offered the plan, which includes ramping up to 1,000 HDTV offerings by the end of the year, during a morning keynote address at the 2008 Consumer Electronics Show, the first such keynote by a cable company chief. Roberts devoted a good portion of his speech talking about Comcast’s plan to give consumers more than 1,000 HD choices in 2008, its strategy to begin adding additional HD movies, as well as announcing Project Infinity – its vision to give consumers the ability to watch any movie, TV show, user generated content or other video that a producer wants to make available On Demand.

Samsung Gives Video Road Map - TWICE
Samsung doesn’t plan this year to exit the rear-projection TV market despite the market’s decline, and it will launch its second dual-format HD disc player later this year as planned despite Warner’s surprise decision to pull out of the HD DVD market. The technology road map was outlined here for the press during a Samsung-moderated roundtable in which executives from Korea also said the company will ship its first 3-D-ready plasma displays in late March for use with 3-D PC games. The company also said it doesn’t expect to commercialize OLED TV technology until 2010.

JVC Unveils Slim Design LCD TV Line - TWICE
JVC unveiled at its Caesar’s Palace showroom Tuesday new Procision series LCD TVs billed as “the world’s thinnest tuner-equipped LC televisions.” The models measure 1.5 inches deep across most of the set and less than 3 inches at the center. Each is trimmed with a 0.98-inch bezel.

XStreamHD Promises HD From The Heavens - TWICE
A new service promising to deliver 1080p HD video content and lossless DTS audio to homes via satellite made its debut yesterday at International CES. At a press conference, here, XStreamHD CEO George Gonzalez, flanked by actor/investor Michael Douglas, introduced the company’s HD delivery system that is expected to launch in the fourth quarter.

Martin Says Analog Cutoff A ‘Hard Date’ - TWICE
FCC chairman Kevin Martin said in a wide-ranging International CES Industry Insiders event that the Feb. 17, 2009, analog cutoff was a “hard date” and there was no way he could envision it changing. “After all of our efforts we couldn’t just turn around and say ‘We’re just kidding.’” He added there couldn’t be anything worse to “dis-incentivize” the transition and those lining up to bid on the newly available 700 MHz spectrum.