Sales of big-screen digital TVs, such as those sold by Samsung Electronics, have jumped in anticipation of growth in HDTV programming, which has been slow to develop. HDTV is still rare in most U.S. homes, but cable and satellite companies have been racing to make the technology available as they increasingly compete for customers.

In some ways it is no wonder that HDTV growth has been slow. From what I’ve seen there are only a handful of channels and even a lowend HDTV is going to cost around $500 USD. That is still not an attractive pricepoint where most people — especially in today’s economy — are going to want to make the HD plunge. Especially considering that paying extra monthly fees to cable or satellite for the High Definition channels is also required. Yes, you can get some of the local channels in HD but that still requires a tuner which is a couple hundred dollars and tuners aren’t usually included in the lower end HDTVs. On the positive side, DVD players with progressive scan capability and XBox games look fantastic at 420p (progressive scan) with the special component cables: High Definition AV Pack ($19.95). If one is set to buy a new big screen TV then rear end projection HDTVs are in the right ballpark price-wise at $1000-$2000, but plasma TVs are still out of the world (the quality rocks though). I have read that the word is that by 2006 only HDTVs will be sold, so this should bring the pricepoint down, but until then, it’s still pretty much a luxury purchase.

Did this post make you go hmm?

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