Yahoo! News:

Start-up company USDTV on Tuesday unveiled a digital television service being rolled out in various U.S. cities this year and sent via VHF/UHF antennas in a lower-cost alternative to cable and satellite television.

For $19.95 (with two year price guarantee) they are promising to be a low cost alternative for those who want to watch HDTV and not pay the higher satellite and cable prices. Check out the USDTV channel lineup No TechTV, no premium movie channels (HBO, Showtime, TMC, etc) and it looks like no HD.NET either.

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.

Here’s some things I don’t like about Comcast cable since switching from DirecTV:

1) TechTV costs $5.99 more a month, even when we’re already paying $22 more a month than when we already had TechTV with DirecTV. TechTV was one of the few premium channels I watched. TechTV should be included with the Silver, Gold and Platinum package when people buy a premium channel like HBO (like we did). Cable is more expensive.

2) Paying extra for HDTV is fine, but having to pay extra for each cable box is annoying. I guess this goes with the territory, since you have to do the same with satellite receivers. It seems there should be an option that is like networking computers where you could put one cable box through your LAN and then pipe it into every TV in the house. This would probably be something pirates would exploit and hence the reason they don’t do it, but having muliple pieces of hardware in every room seems like a waste to me. Solutions?
3) I do not like the red light message spam on the front of the cable box. The messages are usually of very little value like “Did you know that this channel was added?” — save that annoying red light for really important messages, not cable spam. I can sign up through the web to be notified for stuff like that.
4) Not very good documentation on the HDTV receiver itself. The only thing I was given at installation/delivery was an outdated program lineup card. I was never provided with anything explaining what the USB port were used for (images, from what I understand now). The menu often refers to the web, but since our TV isn’t hooked into the web it sort of is self defeating. Unless your computer is in the same room (which ours can be, because we are on a wireless LAN), you might have to go back and forth between rooms to get help. That’s not very customer friendly.
5) We were originally told that customer service was 24/7 365 days per year, only to find out that this was not true. Support for technical issues is 24/7 but if you need sales department you’ll be told at some times on the weekends and in the evening to call back “during office hours”
6) Higher price. Since switching back to cable we’re getting all kinds of multi-room offers for satellite that are much, much better than what we’re paying for HDTV Cable. Cable TV is just more expensive, no matter how you look at it. I’ve been told the picture quality is better for satellite than cable, but frankly I think cable looks better. Although, now that we finally bought a low-end HDTV to watch HDTV everything looks better. I would be interested to compare — side by side – satellite HD vs. cable HD. 

These are just a few of my observations so far. We are thoroughly enjoying the cable internet though. Lots of good things to report on in that department.

American Idol host, Ryan Seacrest, has his own talk show now called RyanOnAir and they are looking for a courtyard correspondent to shoot a special three minute video segment:

If you think that you or someone your know has what it takes to be a courtyard correspondent on one episode of On Air With Ryan Seacrest then On Air With Ryan Seacrest wants to hear from you! Send us one (1) videotape, showcasing your correspondent talents. Tapes must be no longer than three minutes. The videotape must be recently recorded and must be on a 1/2 inch VHS tape. Please make sure your videotape can be seen and heard clearly. Sit close to the camera, and turn off the television, radio, or anything else that might add extra noise. Do not sit with a window behind you. You should not wear clothing that bears any visible logos or trademarks. Any music featured on the videotape must be original music. Send your videotape to:

FAN COURTYARD CORRESPONDENT C/O ON AIR WITH RYAN SEACREST
P.O. Box 4325,
Hollywood, CA 90078

Do you have what it takes? This could be fun to enter!

TiVo-like devices to get booster shot - News - ZDNet: Maxtor is working on Digital Video Recorder (DVRs) which can record or broadcast at least six media streams at a time. This would mean these DVRs would be capable of simultaneously recording up to five live channels while playing one previously recorded one. Current DVR technology only allows up to three media streams at one time.

DVRs in development not only will be able to serve up video in multiple rooms at the same time, but also handle data from a home video security system, said Jasbir Sidhu, director of engineering for consumer electronics products at Maxtor. The coming DVRs may hit the market sometime in the next 18 months, he said.

The fascinating part is they still only going to utilyze one hard drive.

Despite a doubling in the number of media streams DVRs can handle in the future, a single hard drive is still sufficient for the task, Maxtor’s Sidhu said. That’s because the hard drive can transfer data at a rate of up to 60 megabytes per second (mbps), while TV signals–even high-definition TV streams–require much less bandwidth. Standard television consumes up to 10mbps and HDTV needs up to about 20mbps, according to Sidhu.

TV Geeks are rejoicing everywhere over this news!

This last week we switched from satellite to cable with High Definition TV. We don’t actually have a high definition TV set yet, but we are in the shopping mode and will be buying one within the next couple weeks. One of the services which interested me most about the new cable was HBO On Demand. I can’t wait for HBO On Demand to be available in this area [check your HBO On Demand availability here] so I can thoroughly review it. We just got HD cable through Comcast. They say by year end we’ll be able to receive HBO On Demand. My issue with premium stations (HBO, Showtime, etc), and in my opinion an age old cable TV frustration, has always been that I couldn’t watch the shows when I had the time to watch them and that even with all those channels there wasn’t anything worth watching when I had the time to watch them. I can still TiVO the programs I want to watch, which is a godsend, but then you still have to wait for the scheduled time/date to pass. What if is there is something on HBO that doesn’t air for another 3 or 4 days? Somebody figured this out and the HBO On Demand service will take care of that waiting period, without the associated pricey pay-per-view fees, allowing subscribers to tune into events, specials and movies on demand. Right on.

At blogcritics, Anita Campbell shared a blog entry about the decline of video stores over the next 10 years, citing a report that outlines a bleak future for video stores. Getting everything through our broadband computer connection and not having to visit the stores and pay those ridiculous late fees (which is where these videos stores make the real money), sounds like a good progression to me. I do feel somewhat badly for the small video store operators who know your name and what kind of movies you like (like the small local banks), but then most of these folks are being pushed out of biz by the likes of Blockbuster, Hollywood and other video store chains.

I wonder about the future of TV syndication with this rage of DVD sales. This coming Tuesday the first season of Gilligan’s Island is coming to DVD. Last week season one of Barney Miller came out (among some other blasts from the past) and it seems practically every new show is being pressed and pumped out on DVD these days. Again, I wonder if this means that the days of reruns will go the way of the dinosaur someday? I mean, what will TV show if everybody has it in their personal library or can stream it from the web on demand? This is a long ways off, but it’s something I’ve been thinking of. The Gilligan’s Island fan club is here, BTW.

Does DirecTV’s Gametracker bring the web, NFL and TV closer together? Yes! Unlike many other TV blended with web apps which tend to be distracting, this application actually improves the experience of watching the football games on Sunday. In the past to experience the best action, web-savvy football fans had to refresh NFL.com (which usually crashes on opening day at least a few times) and/or randomly switch back and forth between channels to hopefully find the good parts of games based upon information gleaned from websites with varying latency issues; it was a distracting and somewhat futile endeavor. These power user football fans don’t watch one game at a time, no, we watch a half dozen or more, and surf the web at the same time. Fortunately, the brains at DirecTV noticed these fans and the technology gap that existed and granted us salvation in the form of Gametracker.

Gametracker is a new, free shockwave application that is part of (and requires) DirecTV’s NFL Sunday Ticket sports package which costs $209 USD for the 2003 season or 4 payments of $52.25, conveniently added to one’s bill. For those who love the NFL, have DirecTV and can put this in their entertainment budget, this package is a must-have.

Ever since seeing their press release I’ve been looking forward to Gametracker. So much in fact that I kept visiting the teaser page that they put up, and even once called DirecTV to inquire about how I could actually download the Gametracker app. For a little while it seemed like this might be the ultimate phantom app as their customer service was somewhat clueless about how to actually download the software and had trouble forwarding me to a page where it could, at the time, ”in the future” be downloaded. To my delight, though, I found that DirecTV put a prominent link on their home page beneath their “Feedback” link.

Gametracker isa shockwave application that allows Sunday Ticket subscribers to get more interactive with the games by allowing real-time scores of all active games with what DirecTV channels the games are currently on, real-time news and updates about the games and player stats, NFL trivia challenges among all connected players, various chatrooms, and a picks menu so players can track their picks. DirecTV teamed up with Goldpocket to put together this sharp, interactive app.

Probably the best feature is that when something is happening in the red zone, Gametracker will alert — in bright red, outlined text — that you might want to switch channels. This is one application to keep prominently fired up in the laptop while watching the games. If it wasn’t for their overall poor marketing of Gametracker and the fact that you can’t use it if you don’t have the NFL Sunday Ticket this would be a must have for every football fan. Despite these minor shortcomings, if you have the Sunday Ticket then proceed directly to download, because this one is a touchdown. Grade: A+

Interview with Scott Newman of GoldPocket Interactive:

We’re seeing technologies reduce cost, we’re seeing them add value. And there is no question in my mind that when you interact with one of our shows–the first time someone is able to chat and interact with people through a TV show, to vote on the show in real time, and see their name on television–it changes the way you interact and communicate.

TV is moving towards being more like the internet in interactivity, very cool!