Satellite broadcaster DirecTV announced yesterday at CES 2007 that it will offer 100 channels of high definition television in 2007, eclipsing its satellite rival Dish TV as well as most cable TV systems and the new IPTV systems now launching. The company's CES 2007 press release identifies 70 national channels pending and promises many more regional sports sources in HD. DirecTV also carries the HD version of local broadcast channels, although the release says that local HD programming is only available in 49 out of the service's 142 markets. With two new satellite in space, DirecTV will have HD capacity for more than 1,500 local and 150 national channels, according to the company.
As HDTV industry watcher Phillip Swann in TVPredictions points out, local cable companies currently offer only about a dozen HDTV channels. Under pressure from the satellite competition, they may be forced to eliminate some existing standard definition offerings to make room for must-have HD fare. (A high definition channel eats up the bandwidth of four to six standard definition channels.)
I'll bet the most sought-after media-rich homes will have satellite TV for HDTV, cable TV for the broad range of standard channels (and for cable modem Internet service), plus maybe a digital antenna to pull in local high def channels that aren't carried on the multichannel service. Home TV used to be a lot simpler.
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