Why can’t we get HD-only TV service?
on March 17, 2010
In a random survey of HD Report readers we found that almost eighty percent of poll-takers would order an HD-only service plan if one was offered. So why aren’t the service providers offering this? It seems like a reasonable request to order only the channel formats which fit your 16:9 HDTV. Full Story


After discussing it for over six months DirecTV and Comcast finally came to an agreement to get Versus back on the satellite’s lineup. DirecTV says Comcast wanted more money for the Versus feed, and Comcast argued DirecTV wanted to cut the channel’s potential audience almost in half from 14 million households. Meanwhile, hockey fans with DirecTV were unable to watch the NHL on Versus. 
Although Hulu recently lost popular Viacom content from “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” and “The Colbert Report”, they may make up for some lost viewership with the addition of content from NFL Network. The NFL channel on Hulu (
LIFE, the BBC’s follow up to the hugely popular Planet Earth series, will be broadcast over 11 episodes in HD starting Sunday, March 21, 2010. The series will break new grounds in filming, showcasing techniques such as The HD Heli-Gimbal (producing rock-steady aerial shots with 800mm lens distance capacity), Extreme High-Speed Photography (reaching speeds of up to 1,000 FPS), Underwater Time-Lapse Sequences, and new techniques in microscopy, infra-red, and ultrasonic imagery. 
Terrific news for some mobile users on the Netflix front: iPhone and Nintendo DS users may have to wait a while, but Netflix chief Reed Hastings and staff have already sent out surveys to gauge what consumers desire when it comes to mobile use of the streaming service. 
Sony announced today the addition of HD content from the major studios to their Playstation Network video-on-demand service. 20th Century Fox, Walt Disney Pictures, Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Universal Pictures, and Warner Bros. are the six major studios to provide titles for rent or own through the Playstation Network. 

After an ongoing dispute between Disney (ABC’s parent company) and cable TV provider Cablevision failed to be resolved, the network was pulled at midnight on Saturday, Dec. 6. The dispute wasn’t settled until Sunday night at 8:43 p.m, almost fifteen minutes after the Academy Awards had already started. Until then, 3.1 million Cablevision subscribers were unable to get ABC.
Samsung’s new line of multimedia R80 notebooks will hit Best Buy stores on Sunday, March 7. Two of the three R80 models are loaded with nVIDIA GeForce graphics cards (R580 and R780) and the less expensive R480 and R580 models come with internal Blu-ray Disc drives. It’s strange that the more expensive R780 doesn’t come with a BD drive, but those are specs we got. The 16:9 hi-def resolution LED displays vary in size according to the model. (See chart below.) All three models include HDMI ports. 
In the U.S. the Wi-Fi enabled Apple iPad (available in 16GB, 32GB and 64GB) will hit stores on Saturday, April 3. Later in April, the 3G models will be released throughout the U.S. as well as Japan, Australia and Europe. The iPad is almost an enlarged iPhone, with the functionality of Amazon’s kindle its driving point. The large 9.7″ display on the iPad is LED backlit at 1024 x 768 resolution. “iPad is something completely new,” said Steve Jobs. Continue on for pricing.
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