Cutting Edge

A new study on HDTV released by the Yankee Group predicts that 46.8 million homes will have HDTV monitors by the end of 2007. The study, released as part of "The Connected Consumer Summit: Setting Strategy, Identifying Allies and Eliminating Threats in the Race for Digital Entertainment Dollars," also says that 41.6 million homes will receive HD programming by 2007. Cable MSOs will serve 50% of the viewers, DBS 41%, and over-the-air broadcast 9%. Today, the company says, an estimated 5% of homes viewing HD programming receive signals via cable, 37% via DBS and 58% over the air.

Station group Liberty has purchased a range of Snell & Wilcox IQ Modular intelligent infrastructure products and HD5200 upconverters for its 15 TV stations. The equipment, currently operating at 11 of the 15, will be used for the group's DTV broadcast rollout. The IQ Modular systems are housed in 3RU enclosure rack frames and are installed in single-rack DTV systems for each station. Signals are sent into the modular system and then to Snell & Wilcox's HD5200 for upconversion before passing to HD master control.

GoldPocket Interactive acquired WatchPoint Media, creator of StoryTeller iTV authoring software, last week. The acquisition is expected to help GoldPocket enter the European iTV market. The company will offer a powerful new system combining StoryTeller's iTV content-production software with real-time, two-way interactivity via GoldPocket's EventMatrix interactive network.

"After an initial trial with CinemaNow, we were able to gain positive and useful insight that helped prepare us for future distribution of our films via the Internet," said David Bishop, president and COO, MGM Home Entertainment Group. An initial trial was successful, he said, leading to the broader agreement. CinemaNow will offer MGM's new-release films the same day they become available in their traditional pay-per-view window along with previously released movies from MGM's vast film library.

Rockwell Scientific's ProCamHD 3530 HDTV CMOS-based image sensor is being featured in Ikegami's recently introduced HDL-40 full-digital box-type HD camera. The two companies have been collaborating for several months to test and certify the advantages and benefits of ProCamHD's precedent-setting design. The CMOS version is a one-piece, full-digital box-type HDTV camera with 1080i and 1080/720p progressive scanning. It uses a 2/3-inch 2.1 million-pixel Rockwell ProCamHD CMOS-based sensor.