Are any High Definition Television broadcasts planned?
DIRECTV has announced plans for two full time High Definition Television(HDTV) PPV channels to be available in the 4th quarter of 1998 if the HDTV set manufactures meet their goals of making sets available about that time. DIRECTV has already demonstrated High Definition TV broadcast at 1080I and received with prototype RCA projection TV sets. This will make at least some HDTV programming available nationwide before the end of 1998 and also fits in with terrestrial broadcasters plans to have at least one HDTV channel available in each of the top ten markets by the end of 1998. DIRECTV plans to broadcast two channels of HDTV on a single transponder so High Definition channels will occupy as much bandwidth as three or four standard definition channels. If successful, the DBS companies will need to carefully consider the degree to which they offer additional High Definition channels. Significant High Definition broadcasts will likely be a few years away with the launch dates dependent pri
