I dreamed of couch-potato heaven

Looking for a Christmas gift for that certain TV critic in your life? You can get an up-close look at the perfect present this weekend when Panasonic bring its High Definition Truck Tour to South Florida. No, idiot, the truck isn't high-def. (I thought this blog had smarter readers.) It's what's inside that's high-def -- a 103-inch plasma HD television set, the biggest in the world. That's the size of a queen mattress, for heaven's sake, and it costs a mere $70,000.

The truck is rigged with fancy sound and various HD accessories like camcorder so you can play around inside what Panasonic calls the ultimate HD environment. You might even take home some of the goodies for free: Panasonic is handing out $20,000 in HD gear as prizes to folks who stop by. The truck will be parked in the Brandsmart parking lot at 4320 NW 167th Street in Miami, from 10 to 6 p.m. on Saturday and 10 to 5 p.m. on Sunday. My favorite color is blue, by the way, but I'm not picky.

There's an HD set in your (near) future

Last week, I wrote that NBC's 756 hours of high-definition coverage of next year's Beijing Olympics might be be the tipping point for HD television, turning it into the standard for American consumers. But HD took another big step just this week, with Direct TV's announcement of dozens of new high-def channels that give it a total of 72 -- with a promise that the number will rise to 100 by the end of the year and as many as 150 by March. Among the newest additions are the Cartoon Network, the Fox Business Network, FX, National Geographic Channel, HD Theater, A&E HD and Smithsonian HD.

Now the pressure will be on cable company's to match Direct TV's offering. And just like that, the principal reason not to buy an HD set -- the lack of programming -- will disappear. NBC's Olympic coverage will be the icing on the cake.

Let a thousand HD sets bloom

When you buy your first high-def television set, be sure to say thank you to the Chinese taxpayers who made it possible. China is spending an insane $40 billion on the summer Olympics in Beijing next summer, much of it to build new stadiums wired top-to-bottom with fiber-optic cable. The main beneficiary of that will be American TV viewers, who will get 756 hours of high-definition coverage of the Olympics -- nearly double the amount from the last summer Olympics in Greece. NBC Sports executive producer David Neal, speaking at an industry conference in New York Wednesday, predicted all that high-def coverage will be the tipping point for HD sets in America: "It will be a signature moment for the adoption of high-definition as a mainstream delivery medium for consumers," he said,  predicting that more than half of all U.S. households will have high-def sets by the end of 2008.

   

Three yards and a cloud of pixels

More evidence that, within a couple of years, high-definition TV will be the standard: The new college sports channel Big Ten Network, which goes live Aug. 30, will air 85 percent of its schedule or more in HD. Imagine how cool it would have been to see Woody Hayes slap that Clemson linebacker in HD.

The 104-channel universe

A new study released by the Nielsen Company Monday says the average American home now gets 104 television channels. That's up eight channels over a year ago, and up 43 since the year 2000. Not that anybody watches them all -- the average family only really uses about 16 of those channels, Nielsen says, a figure that's been relatively constant since 2000. That suggests that when Congress finally gets around to considering proposals to force cable systems to offer so-called a la carte pricing -- that is, to allow consumers to order (and pay for) only the channels they want, instead of having to accept big programming packages devised by the cable systems -- there may be a lot of popular support for the idea. Why pay for 88 channels you never watch?

The study also says that 87 percent of Americans have their televisions hooked up to either cable or satellite. Keep that in mind some idiot (usually a politician or a sports columnist, two of America's most IQ-deprived demographics) starts screaming about how the move of NFL or major-league baseball games to a cable channel will deprive large chunks of the TV audience of the ability to watch. Of the 13 percent of Americans who don't have cable or satellite, a good chunk -- probably about half -- don't watch television at all. Americans who watch television consider cable not a luxury but a staple, and it's routinely present even in low-income homes. Time for the chattering classes to catch on.   

While you're out wrecking malls today...

If there's a giant high-definition flat-panel TV on your shopping list -- hint, hint, loyal readers -- Panasonic has set up a consumer hotline to help you sort through the choices. You can talk to a live expert by calling 1-888-777-7134, Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Eastern time. The hotline is open from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. on weekends. And no, they don't know where you can find a parking space at Dadeland Mall.