Oh how I love college football. Growing up in Florida, football is a way a life and choosing an affiliation comes early (Go ‘Canes). Prior to cohabitation, I actually only subscribed to cable during football season to maximize coverage. Yes, I’ll even watch those random teams like New Mexico State or Boise on ESPN2 Thursday nights. So I was pretty excited to learn that the Big Ten television network is launching in time for college football season (35+ games) and in high def. Sadly, this is ACC country and the only football DC seems to care about is the Redskins… It’s highly unlikely Comcast will pick this up as part of the standard channel lineup.
Archives For HDTV
Head on over to Gizmodo to read an excellent “contrast ratio” write-up:
What is contrast ratio? Simply put, it’s the difference between the darkest and brightest spot on a display. This is expressed as a ratio measuring luminosity. A good way to think of contrast is like the volume on a stereo. You might have a stereo that goes all the way to 11, but that doesn’t mean it sounds good.
Just keep in mind an individual spec like contrast ratio doesn’t live in a vacuum: When making a HDTV or projector purchase (or bragging to friends) factors such as color range, resolution, and even price should be taken into account.
Comcast recently commissioned a study that concluded their HD picture quality is superior to DirecTV and Dish, following it up with full page ads in 15 newspapers and radio spots planned.
The study was conducted in March, with 309 subjects showed side-by-side images from DirecTV, Dish and Comcast on identical TV sets. To eliminate set bias, the HD signals were rotated among the sets. Subjects were shown various genres of programming from different networks. 66 percent preferred Comcast to DirecTV, and 70 percent preferred Comcast to Dish.
Dish has no comment, though DirecTV says: “While they’re making claims about their signal clarity, the methodology of the survey seems questionable at best.” Of course, neither Comcast nor the Sat guys have anything to say how their possibly compressed video compares to OTA. 
(via Lost Remote)
While all newly produced televisions require a digital tuner (as of 3/1/07), manufacturers and retailers have been permitted to work through existing inventory. However, in a move to designed to “facilitate the transmission of digital broadcast” the FCC just mandated (PDF) that NTSC-only sets must display a “Consumer Alert” sticker:
This television receiver has only an analog broadcast tuner and will require a converter box after February 17, 2009,to receive over-the-air broadcasts with an antenna because of the Nation’s transition to digital broadcasting. Analog-onlyTVs should continue to work as before with cable and satellite TV services, gaming consoles, VCRs, DVD players, and similar products.
“Labeling of analog-only television sets is a good idea,” FCC Commissioner Michael Copps said in a prepared statement. “It would have been an even better idea had we adopted it fourteen months ago when Congress passed the February 2009 deadline.”
(via eWeek)
Comcast broadcast their earnings call this morning, and in addition to large profits (80% increase) they also announced 25% of their 25 million customers rent HD set-top boxes — having adding 500k+ subs this quarter. Wonder how many of those are Moto 6412 boxes that might see a TiVo upgrade later this year? Comcast’s PPV/VOD revenue is also up significantly, though my on-demand rentals are coming via Xbox 360 and Amazon Unbox on TiVo.
(via paidContent)