Blu-ray Disc player household penetration is up to 12.3 million in the US for the first quarter of 2009, a 71 per cent gain year over year, according to a survey.
Research firm Centris also found that the number of American households with an HDTV is up to 50.5 million – a gain of 33 per cent from the first quarter of 2008.
Posts Tagged: cable
This Friday sees US television going 100 per cent digital, a move that has impacted on over a quarter of households which have had to invest in new TV sets and/or services to prepare for the June 12th changeover.
However, researchers say that the switch to digital has changed traditional viewing habits.
Germany’s two largest independent cable operators, Tele Columbus and PrimaCom, have selected NDS’ DVR solution XTV to launch the country’s first cable HD DVR service across their networks.
The two operators serve some 3.5 million cable-connected households and operate a large number of independent networks.
A new version of the High-Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI) cable has been announced by the industry alliance responsible for licensing the specification.
HDMI Licensing said the upgraded 1.4 version of HDMI will make it easier to connect Internet-connected HD video devices to TVs and other appliances.
The new cable will be able to transfer Internet data as well as video and audio data – something that the existing version isn’t able to do.
Portugal’s leading cable provider ZON has doubled the take-up of its HD DVR.
Called the ZON Box, it was installed in 93,000 homes in the first quarter of 2009, pushing total installations up to 184,000 – 12 per cent of the total customer base.
Cisco is developing a 320Mbps cable modem – the DPC3212.
It will be one of the first to use the DOCSIS 3.0 standard to pass 300Mbps.
Equipped with a new Broadcom chip, it joins eight – rather than four – cable channels together to reach the maximum speed.
The Blu-ray Disc Association doesn’t take kindly to satellite and cable providers claiming their products deliver high definition picture and sound “equal” to that delivered by Blu-ray Disc.
hdtv.biz-news.com spoke to video compression provider ATEME about its plans to deliver video of Blu-ray quality and beyond
Cable, satellite and IPTV providers will be able to pack more HD video onto limited bandwidth using technology developed by NextIO and Broadcast International.
The companies have teamed up to combine NextIO’s ExpressConnect solution and BI’s ultra-high speed video compression technology.
By combining the technologies it will be possible for video providers to deliver live HDTV at compression levels four to six times higher than is currently possible.
New York-based cable operator Cablevision is to add mainstream HD channels including Discovery, Viacom Inc’s Nickelodeon, FX, FOX News, AMC and The Weather Channel to its line-up in an increasingly competitive market.
The addition of 15 more channels brings its HD offering up to 60 channels.
Cablevision says that more than 1.1 million of its digital cable subscribers have at least one high-definition TV and HD-enabled set-top box.
The digital revolution is sweeping the UK but viewers appear unwilling to pay for the limited range of HD channels on offer.
UK households with digital televisions as their main set now account for 87.2 per cent of the total, according to a study by Ofcom.
The survey by the independent communications industry regulator reveals how the digital TV market is divided up between the three main forms – digital terrestrial television (DTT), satellite and cable television.