Dish Wins Big in Spectrum Auction

When the Federal Communications Commission auctioned off about $19 billion worth of wireless spectrum last week, the most voracious bidders were wireless companies like Verizon and AT&T who plan to use the airwaves for expansions of phone and data services.

But one wealthy bidder was not like the others. Satellite TV broadcaster Dish Network got its hands on $711 million worth of 700-Megahertz spectrum.

DirecTV Restricts DVR Pay-per-View

DirecTV will flip a switch on April 15 that prevents pay-per-view movies downloaded to a DVR from being watched more than 24 hours after the purchase. How's that for great service?

Would You Leave Your HDTV for 3-D?

Mark Cuban loves HDTV, which is why he founded all-high-def network HDNet. But he also loves NBA basketball, which is why he owns the Dallas Mavericks. Why, then, is he pitting his two loves against each other by urging people in Dallas to leave their HDTVs behind and watch live basketball in a theater in 3-D?

Future of HDTV Is Bright with LECs

Display technology researchers are on a roll. A professor at University of California Santa Barbara has discovered a way to combine lighting technologies to create an even brighter, more energy efficient, longer lasting back-light than LED by adding in "light emitting electrochemical cells" (LEC).

LECs dim about a thousand times slower than LEDs and manipulate ions rather than slow electrons to create light. (Note: These are just regular LED lights pictured here).

With so many technologies under study for placement in consumer electronics, the field of competition is getting fierce. We have no idea which of these will actually make their way into living rooms, but we do know this: the HDTVs of the future are going to be super-cheap, everlasting, and blindingly bright.

Keep up the good work, academic engineers. Couch potatoes of the future are counting on you. —Rachel Rosmarin

Discovery News

Blu-ray's Invincible Copy Protection Breached

Industry analysts like to say that part of the reason Blu-ray won the high-def format war against HD DVD was because of Blu-ray promised Hollywood rock-solid copy protection against illegal pirating of movies.

Well, that was short-lived. This week Antigua-based software company Slysoft announced it was able to hack into Blu-ray's double-whammy protection scheme which included both a virtual machine tool called BD+ in addition to traditional digital rights management protections.

Dish and DirecTV Snub Local HD

Some Dish Network and DirecTV high-def subscribers may not see local channels in HD until 2013 due to a ruling this week by the Federal Communications Commission. The satellite carriers insisted they didn't have the capacity to carry all the local stations that broadcast in HD by 2009, and the FCC agreed.

PS3's Blu-ray Player Upgrades with Downloads

If Sony's PlayStation 3 didn't already look like a great deal to people shopping for a Blu-ray player (it costs about $20 more than several other players but comes with an entire gaming system attached), its value proposition versus the competition just shot through the roof.

By the end of March, the PS3 will become the first Blu-ray player on the market with all the extra features of Blu-ray 2.0 technology (also known as BD-Live), according to Sony. Only a couple other Blu-ray 2.0 players will launch this year.

Got That Spreadsheet for Me?

Don't be surprised if it's not Excel your co-workers are watching on their PCs over the next few days. A survey conducted by the Consumer Electronics Association and the Sports Video Group shows that 38 percent of sports fans expect to download and watch a game--at no cost--over the next few years. That's up 10 percent from last year.

This year's NCAA March Madness, which began today, would be a good time to start. CBSSports.com is showing all 63 games for free on NCAA March Madness On Demand. The 640 x 360 widescreen video viewer is hardly high-def viewing at its best--even jerky at times--but it's more than passable. It sure beats watching second-quarter sales projections.

 

Canon Exchanges One Dying TV for Another

So, Canon, you're really serious about this SED TV thing, aren't you?

Like Sony and Panasonic before you, you've ditched rear-projection television technology plans. That makes sense, almost everyone agrees it is an outdated, dying design.

But you just won't let up about SED, even though, frankly, that technology seems pretty DOA to us as well. But maybe you know something about surface-conduction electron-emitter displays that we don't.

Cameras in Cable Boxes Under Consideration by Comcast

It is unusual for corporate executives to blab about new product concepts that aren't even in testing yet, and even more rare for them to openly discuss product ideas that appear very controversial.

That's why we're surprised that Comcast's senior vice president of user experience, Robert Kunkel, talked to Giga Omni Media blog NewTeeVee about a potential cable box with a built-in camera that can recognize the members of your household and their viewing habits.