At least one television manufacturer has announced some interesting features in upcoming high definition models.

LG is equipping some future models with a built-in DivX player and a hard disk to use in time-shifting.

The DivX feature will play back legally encoded movies through a USB port making it handy to plug in a thumb drive and enjoy a movie.

The 80 Gigabyte hard drive will allow for time-shifting programs and also backing up recorded material via the USB port.

Look for more unique features popping up in future HDTV sets.

We're hearing from a lot of viewers these days who have already obtained their digital set-top converters. If this is any indication of nationwide activity, the coupons are going fast.

If you are planning to apply for a coupon, don't wait too long. Remember it takes at least a month to receive the coupons and then you have 90 days to redeem them.

Get help and apply online for your coupon here: https://www.dtv2009.gov/ or call 1-888-DTV-2009.

Multichannel News is reporting an upswing in HDTV sales.

It’s said that 5.5 million households have purchased their first HD set in December and January, during the 2007-2008 holiday and Super Bowl season. An online survey says that 28 million households in the US now own at least one HDTV set. Also more than 3 million homes have added a second HD set bringing the total of homes that have 2 or more HDTV’s to about 10 million.

Frank N. Magid Associates, who conducted the survey, credits falling prices and the coming digital transition for the surge in sales.

Another tidbit: 4 out of 10 current HDTV owners plan to purchase an additional HD set in the next year.

It seems I’m always the last to find these things out, and you may already know this, but it was announced at the CBS Engineering meeting here in Las Vegas that the fall 2008 season of Survivor, CBS’s hugely popular reality show, will be shot in high definition. It’s just another reason to look into a digital solution, whether it be a new HD set or the digital set-top converter box.

Several of the nation’s largest retailers were hit with heavy fines last week for improperly labeling analog sets that needed converters to operate after February 17th of 2007.

In total, the FCC stung some big retailers with fines totaling about $3.9 million. They also fined other companies around $2.7 million for failure to comply with other digital TV rules, such as importing or shipping analog-only TV sets across state lines and blocking technologies such as the V-chip.

The FCC established rules for retailers last May in order to protect consumers. Units sold after May of 2007 must have a warning label if they are analog-only devices that would require a converter next year.

Please be careful if purchasing a new, non-HD set. As we said before, if the box doesn’t state that it has an ATSC tuner, it won’t be usable after next February without a converter.

The official FCC notice can be found here: http://tinyurl.com/68zvyx. (Requires pdf viewer.)

If there was ever any doubt about the future of digital television, it was certainly dispelled here in Las Vegas. We saw very little in the way of standard definition equipment on display. It was high definition everywhere you looked.

Great strides are being made from our end of things – the broadcast side. Cameras and lenses are improving, effects boxes are more dazzling, even virtual news sets are exceedingly convincing.

There was even some gimmickry in the form of 3D high definition displays. You didn’t use your father’s 3D glasses (the old red and green ones) to watch, though, what you put on was a pair of high tech polarized lenses and the effect was very convincing, though somewhat lacking in definition. Still, it was startling to see an arrow coming toward you, or a fish swimming seemingly inches away from your face.

Bottom line is that high definition is not a curiosity any more. It’s being embraced by the networks and becoming more commonplace in the local station. It's the future and promise of digital television.

We had a good conversation with an antenna manufacturer here at the NAB show in a special area called “The DTV Hotspot”. We asked specifically about smart antennas and their availability. This particular manufacturer was indeed developing a smart antenna for indoor use. It wasn’t ready as yet but looked promising.

They also confirmed our suspicions regarding the smart antenna port on HD televisions: there is no such animal as yet. TV makers still have to be convinced of the value of a smart antenna. Someday they will and it will greatly benefit the home viewer who is without cable or satellite sevice.

Good economic news, too. The digital converter set-top box on display at their booth had a smart antenna port and I was told they paid about $45 for it at a big box store. If they had used the $40 coupon, it would have cost them only $5. What a bargain to keep your older analog set going!

Hello from sunny Las Vegas. We’re attending the National Association of Broadcasters show here. It’s a giant trade show with thousands of attendees from hundreds of countries. It’s where radio and television folk assemble to see what’s new in equipment and hear new ideas and technical paper presentations. For emerging broadcast technology this is where it’s at.

We attended the CBS engineering meeting yesterday morning and on the panel were some lawyers from the FCC. To make a long story short, they emphatically made the point that there is no turning back from the analog shutdown date. There have been rumors claiming otherwise but the FCC and CBS kept saying it: it WILL happen in February of next year. I also spoke privately to FCC representatives at the show and they said the same thing.

Are you prepared? More information here: http://www.dtv.gov/ .

If you have an HD set or are using a digital converter and are having issues with aiming an antenna to receive all the stations you want, there may be help on the way.

We’re seeing new "smart" antennas coming on the market. A typical smart antenna resembles a pancake with four horizontal rods sticking out from it every 90 degrees. What the device does is take information fed back from the receiver to electrically select a combination of those rods to create a directional antenna for optimum reception. In theory it sounds like a handy idea for digital reception which at times can be trickier than analog.

While I haven’t spotted any televisions as yet with the smart antenna port, there are several digital TV converters on the market with the feature. You want to look for the words "smart antenna port" or "EIA/CEA-909 Standard" which refers to the joint standard developed by the Electronic Industries Alliance and the Consumer Electronics Association.

We’d be very interested in hearing from anyone who is currently using this technology.

If you’re one of many who has a battery operated portable that you use outdoors or while camping, you should know that come February of 2009, the TV will be largely useless. The government does not expect that battery operated DTV converters will be manufactured. These sets are still being sold in stores but beware: unless it specifically states that the set has an ATSC tuner, and there are some out there, you will not receive digital on it next year.

Some interesting notes from the Association of Public TV Stations:

- Public awareness of the transition to digital next year has risen to over 76% in February of this year (from about 51% in November of 2007). Apparently the educational campaign by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) is indeed effective.

- About 17% of those aware of the transition “don’t know” as yet what they will do, while around 10% say they will “do nothing”.

- About 26% of Americans think the government is on the right track with the transition program, up from 17% six months ago.

- As of March of this year, over eight million DTV converter coupons have been requested from just over four million households. It looks like most households are opting for the maximum of two coupons. Did you apply yet?


We’re doing our part to spread the word about the digital transition with on-screen crawls and public service announcements as well as information on our websites. We are getting a lot of calls and email lately from people with questions. Please feel free to click on the comments link below each post to ask yours.

Since we’ve started airing informational crawls regarding the loss of analog television next February, we’ve been getting calls from viewers seeking advice on what they need to do to prepare for the analog shutdown. And we expect the number of calls to rise as the year goes on.

It appears that some people may be out of touch or not technically savvy enough to keep up with what’s happening in our industry regarding this whole digital move. This can be especially tough on our senior population who didn’t grow up with modern electronic gadgets and their complicated ways. Now, I’m no youngster by any means, but being in this business as long as I have makes a huge difference. I have to admit, though, that as a consumer I was feeling a bit unprepared and somewhat confused trying to shop for an HD set. (I’ll have to relate that story sometime and how I made the process simpler for myself.) Imagine how difficult it might be for one of your older relatives to decipher what’s going on.

So, if you’re up on the new technology – HD televisions, converters and the like – you may find yourself in the role of advisor for your parents, relatives, friends or neighbors who may be out of the loop. They will depend on your support and ours as well, as we try to educate our viewers on our journey to a digital future.

The next technology to watch for in HDTV displays is the organic light emitting diode or OLED. This promising idea may someday replace the LCD or plasma set as the new standard for image quality.

Because the display is comprised of LED’s, it’s an “emissive” display which requires no back light. The panel is extremely thin. We’re talking something in the order of less than 10 mm. Power consumption is very low compared to current technologies. And probably the biggest advantage is in image quality. With an impressive brightness range and contrast ratio (said to be up to 1,000,000:1), the picture is extremely sharp with color depth that produces life-like images. There is a greater response time compared to LCD which means fast motion will not produce lag or artifacts.

It all sounds great but since this is emerging technology, it’s pretty expensive at the moment and screen size is limited to about 27”. But its potential is exciting and it could be the display of the future.