|
|
Issue: Jul. 23, 2008
Electronics Giants Shoot for Wireless HDTV Standard This Year
A new industry standard for wireless in-home multi-room connectivity of media—including uncompressed HDTV—ought to be completed by the end of this year, a group of major electronics companies said.
Amimon Inc., which makes the chip at the center of the Wireless Home Digital Interface (WHDI) technology, has joined with Hitachi Ltd., Motorola Inc., Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., Sharp Corp. and Sony Corp. to develop the standard. They said they “intend” to complete the standard this year.
WHDI technology involves a video-modem that operates in the 5 GHz unlicensed band to enable wireless delivery of uncompressed HD video. The group says WHDI allows secure, encrypted HD video delivery through multiple rooms and other potential signal obstructions, such as people and furniture, while maintaining quality with less than one-millisecond latency.
TV Technology columnist Doug Lung reported last year that Joint Source-Channel Coding (JSCC)—instead of conventional data transmission methods that treat each bit as equally important—lets Amimon’s WHDI system transmit data rates between 250 and 800 Mbps using a 20 MHz channel in the 5 GHz band over short distances inside a house.
The group says it wants to enhance the current WHDI technology to enable wireless streaming of uncompressed HD video and audio among various devices from TVs to PCs to game consoles and set-top-boxes, regardless of manufacturer.
“The development of the new standard will ensure that when consumers purchase CE devices and take them home, they will enjoy a fast, easy and hassle-free wireless connection that delivers the highest quality,” said Yoav Nissan-Cohen, chairman and CEO of Amimon, based in Israel with offices in Japan, Korea and Silicon Valley.
WGN-TV Launches HD Local News
WGN-TV, the national cable “superstation” that is first and foremost a local broadcast outlet in Chicago (Nielsen DMA no. 3), fired up its HD transmission engines last weekend for the launch of its first local news content in 1080i.
Despite its national standing with many viewers via cable, the Tribune station was the third broadcaster in the market to make the HD leap, following last year’s switchover by ABC affiliate WLS-TV, and NBC outlet WMAQ-TV’s move earlier this year.
WGN-TV is the CW network affiliate for the Windy City, programming a strong schedule of news, sports and entertainment. Its digital outlet, WGN-DT, in addition to CWW shows in primetime, also provides extensive HD coverage of the town’s several sports teams—including the Cubs, White Sox, Bulls and the NHL’s Blackhawks.
According to a tally compiled by sister publication Television Broadcast, there are now more than 100 stations in nearly 60 markets that air local news in an HD format (although some of those stations still upconvert from their SD transmissions, and a handful continue to provide SD video within an HD-like 16:9 aspect ratio).
HD Player with ‘BD-Live’ Hits North America
After starting out at retailers in Japan and other Asian regions, Sony’s newest next-gen Blu-ray Disc player is now available in North America, the manufacturer said.
The new standalone player (model BDP-S350) expands on the HD disc format’s potential (but not yet fully realized) enhancements by supporting picture-in-picture (BonusView) and BD-Live for tapping into Internet activity.
The new Blu-ray player holds nearly identical price points with Sony’s 80 GB PlayStation 3 game console (which comes with an internal Blu-ray drive). Sony said the BDP-S350 comes with an external port for local storage (for online BD-Live usage), and provides an option for additional Flash storage.
For the green- and space-conscious, the BDP-S350 unit is more than 55 percent smaller than its Sony predecessor, and uses about 40 percent less power in stand-by mode, Sony said.
Video imaging is 1080p at 60 fps with 7.1-channel Dolby TrueHD or Dolby Digital Plus.
U.S.: Sale of Blu-ray-Equipped PS3 Nearly Doubles in May-June
Thanks mostly to one major video game title, according to the NPD Group, American sales of video-game products (both hardware and software) including the PlayStation 3 console with Blu-ray Disc drive grew by 53 percent between June of 2007 and June 2008. The PS3 alone nearly doubled its sales between May and June 2008.
One big game seller, “Metal Gear Solid 4,” from Konami, was instrumental in that dramatic one-month increase in the number of PS3 game consoles sold, said NPD, a market researcher. (“Metal Gear” can only be used with a PS3 console.)
All PS3 units are built with internal Blu-ray drives, so the more game consoles are sold, the wider the base of potential Blu-ray users (even though Blu-ray may not be the determining factor in why many gamers buy PS3 consoles). American PS3 unit sales climbed 94 percent in June (405,500) from the previous month (208,700).
This compares with 219,800 Xbox 360 consoles from Microsoft sold in June (a nearly 18 percent increase from May) and 660,000 Wii consoles sold (a slight decrease from May). Neither Xbox nor Wii come with a Blu-ray drive, although Xbox 360 users can buy a Blu-ray add-on, if desired.
New Survey: American Salesmen Plug LCD over Plasma
In a new study whose findings likely will not come as a big shock to many industry observers, more than 75 percent of salespeople surveyed said they typically steer customers to a LCD HD sets over plasma screens.
The J.D. Power and Associates survey, released this week, gives indications that salespeople on the front lines with consumers often are either misinformed about the products they are selling, or woefully out-of-date on their subject matter.
For example, nearly 40 percent of sales clerks said they routinely warn customers that images can ‘burn into” plasma screens—something that is extremely hard to accomplish with today’s models under the worst of circumstances, and which has not been a serious concern of set makers or plasma owners for several years.
Aside from the survey’s findings, J.D. Power execs say the longevity of plasma displays, in reality, now appears to be pretty much even with LCD (although it’s still a bit too early to conclude with any certainty which technology may have greater staying power over the long haul, apart from anecdotal evidence).
And while LCD does allow for a lighter unit which takes a bit less power to operate in this increasingly green-conscious world, few salespeople surveyed admitted to using these bona fide reasons to favor LCD.
More LCD models sell today than plasma, and at least one major manufacturer (Sony) recently halted its plasma assembly lines in favor of concentrating on LCD units.
The Powers report, which targeted sets of 40 inches and larger, was based upon the walk-in experiences of more than 2,000 “mystery shoppers” during the first half of 2008.
Consortium to focus on High-Res ‘TransferJet’ Downloads
Several major manufacturers have join forces to form a consortium to develop specifications for interconnecting products using a new interoperable wireless transfer technology that would, among other things, allow the rapid transfer of high resolution video and other images.
The technology is known as TransferJet.
According to proponents, which include Kodak, Panasonic and Sony, the consortium seeks to promote a wide range of products and services incorporating TransferJet technology and help grow the technology’s widespread adoption.
According to its Web site, TransferJet wireless technology enables large data transmission rates up to 560 Mbps without the necessity of a complex set-up and operation. The transfer technology works on a touch basis—that is, directly touching two amenable products together allows the automatic transfer of files (including HD content) without requiring an access point. For example, touching a DTV set with a digital camera enables images to be instantaneously displayed on the television screen.
TransferJet, say its backers, can be used as a universal interface across all consumer electronics devices, including smart phones. Current consortium members include:
- Sony
- Canon
- Eastman Kodak
- Hitachi
- Victor (Japan)
- KDDI
- Kenwood
- Panasonic
- Nikon
- Olympus Imaging
- Pioneer
- Samsung Electronics
- Seiko Epson
- Sony Ericsson Mobile
- Toshiba
Cox/Phoenix Adds HD Channels for Olympics
Cox Cable has added four HD channels to its system serving the Phoenix metroplex (Nielsen DMA no. 12) this week, just in time for the 2008 Beijing Olympics, which begin on Aug. 8. Three of the new venues will offer extensive coverage of the Olympics in Beijing from NBC Universal.
The channels include: USA HD, CNBC HD+, NBC Olympic Soccer Channel HD and Lifetime HD.
Cox said the three sports channels will provide a minimum of 750 hours of Olympics coverage with the special soccer channel running only Olympics programming—mostly soccer matches—day and night.
NBCU plans its most extensive coverage ever of the games across the greatest number of electronic media venues.
Verizon Gets Okay to Grow its Virginia Presence
The government leaders of Hampton, Va., recently gave their official go-ahead for a 15-year franchise to Verizon to build out the telco’s fiber-optic FiOS TV service and expand to another part of the Hampton Roads region in the east-central sector of the commonwealth.
Already issuing their own respective FiOS stamps of approval were the surrounding communities of Chesapeake, Newport News, Poquoson and Virginia Beach (with Portsmouth still pending). Some isolated sections of Northern Virginia about 100 miles due north of Richmond are already receiving Verizon FiOS services.
Verizon FiOS is supplying between 25 and 30 HD channels in most of the areas it’s currently serving. The Hampton Roads region will start with 27 HD venues, according to the telco.
Verizon also recently got the official okay from the nation’s largest DMA, New York City, to build out its FiOS service there as well.
Ascent Media Adds to Uncompressed HD Client List
Ascent Media which provides outsourced network origination services, says it’s picking up some big customers for its uncompressed HD video transport business at its Manhattan switching facility in New York City (Nielsen DMA no. 1).
Those heavy hitters include Fox News, NBCU and All Mobile Video, which Ascent Media said are using its switching center at its midtown Fifth Avenue location for their respective uncompressed HD requirements.
Ascent Media said its services began on July 4, using its expanding fiber optics network, when it received, encoded and satellite-uplinked a 14-hour uncompressed HD feed produced by NBC’s Peacock Productions in conjunction with The Travel Channel. Also on the same day, the switching center handled a live, multi-hour Fourth of July celebration from the national mall in Washington D.C., for PBS.
The firm said it has equipped its Manhattan center with the following hardware: NVision NV8256-Plus expandable digital video router with a 1.5 Gb switching fabric and 160x160 input/output capacity; Tektronix WFM700 and WFM7100 Waveform monitors; and Sony and Marshall HD monitors.
South Korea: Firm says Viewers See HD with ‘Ordinary Cable’
LS Cable of Seoul, South Korea, has begun marketing what it calls “smart VoD technology” using signal-condensing that it claims could provide DTV viewers with HD images using ordinary cable.
LS Cable said its technology is “revolutionary” because it doesn’t need to condense an analog signal in a hybrid fiber coaxial network in order to send HD-level images in real time. Existing 30 Mbps cable can be used up to a maximum of 300 Mbps, the company told The Korea Times.
LS said it has signed a contract with a local broadcaster in Gangwon Province to provide up to 10,000 “hybrid IP set-top boxes” where TV viewers can see both ordinary broadcast channels and IP programs by installing the device. The cabler said this technology will reduce “investment costs” by 10 percent over existing technology. (Further details were not yet forthcoming.)
Japan: Summer Blu-ray Shipments Rise Dramatically
Shipments of Blu-ray Disc video recorders and players to retailers in Japan are growing noticeably, sometimes dramatically, on a month-to-month basis this year. The surge in shipments (and subsequent sales) no doubt is at least in response to Blu-ray’s sole disc competition, HD DVD, having fallen off the CE map last February.
According to new figures announced by the Japan Electronics & Information Technology Industries Association, Blu-ray players/recorder shipments reached the 122,000 mark in June—the first time monthly numbers have broken the 100,000 level (or even the 90,000 mark, for that matter) since the disc format was introduced.
In fact, shipments from May to June jumped nearly 50 percent.
Various Asian industry observers note that July could be even healthier for Blu-ray unit sales because apparently millions of Japanese workers receive traditional mid-year bonuses about now—and in August the Olympics in Beijing will get underway, perhaps prompting a desire by some consumers to capture part of the games in HD on disc.
Monthly Japanese Blu-ray shipments for the past six months:
- January – 35,000
- February – 58,000
- March – 77,000
- April – 81,000
- May – 82,000
- June – 122,000
|
|
