Lots of big announcements that are ushering in the year of HD. I would link but have to run to my flight. A quick recap:
- CEA announces HDTV sales will beat analog TV sales in 06
- Windows Vista will have support for HDTV over digital cable, and DVR! I’ve tested it, it really works. I can’t wait.
- ATI announces HDTV Cablecard designs (note they aren’t the first and only though ;)).
- ViiV PCs from Intel will sport HDTV playback abilities.
- Buzz on the floor that retailers saw Xbox 360 as a key accelerant to HDTV purchases during the holiday season.
- Gates tipped us off that Xbox 360 will get an external HD-DVD drive :):):)
- HD-DVD and Blu-Ray were everywhere at CES, duking it out. Blu-Ray demos focused on hardware demos, Microsoft on ability to copy HD-DVDs to your PC and really rich interactivity. It will be interesting to see how this goes.
- Oh, a consumer HD-DVD player will ship for $499 from Toshiba available this March!
- TiVo announces their new Series 3 with HD over digital cable (OCUR/Cablecard) support and a SATA-based drive, sync to PMC, iPod, and PSP coming (does Portable Media Center (PMC) devices today.
- Tons of HDTV set announcements. Excitement around 1080p – only place to get 1080p today is select WMV-HD discs, almost everything else is up-res’d 1080i but people like the buzz.
More to come…
