Raymond Snoddy on Media: HDTV offers vision of the future

Now it is there in my living room and watching television seems shiny and new all over again. And, yes, I did pay for it all myself - the only true test of assessing something new. No freebies here.

But can one really spot the difference? The answer is most definitely yes, although some genres of television lend themselves more readily to enhancement than others; it is difficult to get excited about desk-bound discussion programmes in HD. Having said that, from now on you won't want to see sport, nature, wildlife, films or the arts on television any other way again; even the ads have real impact.

The real tragedy is that the unbelievable marketing opportunity of launching HD with the greatest possible flourish for the World Cup has been blown.

The boxes are in very short supply and thousands of people who wanted to watch the tournament in HD will be disappointed.

Did no one tell the manufacturers when the World Cup was on? Missing this opportunity is the business equivalent of hoofing a penalty over the bar.

It is a sure sign that things are bad when Sky begins offering consumers £20 if they agree to delay their installation of HD until after 10 July.

Yeah, right. Nice try.

Despite being in its early days, HD is already changing viewers' behaviour.

The natural tendency is to hit the red button first to see what is being shown in HD before reluctantly deciding to trade down to something that is not. This focuses attention on a mere 10 channels from a total of 400.

Suddenly channels such as Artsworld, National Geographic and Discovery have been plucked from relative obscurity and placed centre stage.

When Sky and its manufacturers finally get their act together and the HD universe grows, as it surely will, advertisers will have to take note.

It is a high-class environment for marketers.

Despite the problems, Sky has at least gone ahead and done it. The attitude of the terrestrial broadcasters is more difficult to understand. The BBC has an 'experimental' channel of sorts. The David Attenborough 'how I discovered global warming' series looks even more scary in HD. Then there are the likes of Holby City and Crimewatch, before the demonstration loop kicks in with echoes of the potter's wheel that used to fill the screen in the early days of television.

When BBC money is made available for every podcast, download and mobile one-inch picture, why is there not enough money for at least one decent, comprehensive, permanent channel for the next big step forward in television?

As for ITV, Channel 4 and Five, there is no sign to be seen, although ITV has a deal to show the World Cup on cable and Sky will, of course, be depending on pictures from the BBC for its World Cup coverage.

Despite a bungled launch, it is clear that HDTV is the future. It will be nice to enjoy another couple of months of smugness about the fact that it is already installed in my living room.

30 SECONDS ON... HIGH-DEFINITION TV
- Sky's high-definition (HD) digital TV service went live on 22 May.

Some cable TV services are already offering HD programming, and the BBC and ITV are preparing to start broadcasting in the format soon.

- The BBC's first live HD programme will be the opening World Cup match, between Germany and Costa Rica, on 9 June. ITV will also start offering HD during the World Cup, but its coverage will be available to Telewest HD customers, rather than on Sky.

- There is already evidence of strong demand for HDTV: by the end of last year, more than 700,000 HD-ready TV sets had been sold, and it has been predicted that 2.7m will have been sold by the end of this year.

More than 40,000 customers had signed up for Sky's HD service by 3 May, but demand for the £299 set-top boxes has outstripped supply.