The Year of HDTV

The big buzzword in home electronics and entertainment for 2007 has been HDTV. 2007 is the year that high definition television has finally gone mainstream.

Leading the push to move to HD has been DirecTV, who with their heavy HD advertising campaign has pushed its competitors in high gear to expand their HD offerings. In addition DirecTV after promising new HD for almost two years now finally got its act in place and is now offering customers over 80 HD channels.

Dish Network the former leader of HD content has been sitting quiet over the past few weeks, but I get the gut feeling that Dish Network has a few surprises coming. In fact I am hearing a rumor that Dish Network may be adding SCI-FI Channel HD and USA Network HD as early as this afternoon, but no later then next Wednesday. In addition Dish Network has started reclaiming bandwidth, which can be used for additional future HD channels. But what Dish is really waiting for is to launch some new satellites, the new satellites are ready to go, however because of a recent launch pad explosion and bad weather the Dish Network satellite launches keep getting pushed back.

Cable companies have also been scrambling to add more HD content. As we get ready to close the year for us technology geeks 2007 might be remembered as the year of HDTV.

As you might have read here yesterday at MultiChannel.COM, HDNet has settled its lawsuit against DirecTV.

In reading the details of the settlement I think it’s a win-win for all parties. HDNet is one of the most unique HD channels out there; it is 24/7 pure HD with most of the programming produced by HDNet and is commercial fee. To have HDNet sent to the new HD tier could have been the death of the network. To see it remain in the general HD access plan means that HDNet can live on and continue to produce the best HD programming on TV.

On the other hand HDNet Movies fits in the new HD tier perfectly, as it’s a movie channel. If something happened to HDNet Movies it would not be as big of a loss as losing HDNet.

I applaud Mark Cuban and DirecTV for working together and for coming to a great compromise, which works best for both companies.

Have a great weekend!