Freeview have recently claimed that 50% of UK homes will be able to watch the 2010 FIFA World Cup in high-definition on Freeview. This follows an earlier announcement by ITV that a full HD version of the channel will be available from the end of this year.

ITV has reached an agreement with the BBC to lease digital terrestrial bandwidth. The first area to receive ITV in HD will be Manchester with the services being rolled out throughout major cities after this including Bradford, Birmingham, Glasgow, Leeds, London and Liverpool.

Unfortunately, in order to watch ITV in HD, new set top boxes will be required with new technology standards, as well as HD LCD TV or Plasma TV – however it is anticipated that these set top boxes will be available to purchase later in the year.

The BBC will be launching their own Freeview HD service soon. This is due for launch later this year but is already currently available to Sky, Virgin Media and Freesat customers.

Movie lovers will like this. If you want to access a movie on demand service without an external device or set top box then LG has come up with the ideal solution.

It was announced recently that LG will be adding streaming capability to their HDTV range with VUDU (an internet on demand video company). To access this package all that is needed is a TV with an Ethernet port and LG’s NetCast Entertainment Access which provides streaming movies, TV shows as well as content from Netfix, Yahoo! Widgets and YouTube.

The VUDU streaming movie service will be updated every week with newly released films from major studios available months before subscription based services, traditionally around the same time as the titles are released on DVD and all without any monthly fees.

Alain Rossmann, CEO of VUDU said “VUDU is blazingly fast on LG’s Broadband HDTVs and makes discovering and watching new HD movies a truly exciting and fun user experience. With this alliance, VUDU is raising the bar on delivering Hollywood movies to this new class of Smart TVs”.

Satellite broadcasters BSkyB have announced a 4% rise in annual profits and have added 124,000 subscribers in the past three months.

This boost is a result of price cuts and promotion for its high-definition TV service.

In January, Sky slashed the cost of its HD set-top box to £49, aiming to attract some of the estimated 9 million households with an HD-ready television. Since then it has signed up 534,000 HD customers and now has over 1.3 million subscribers.

They have attracted 124,000 new users in the three months to the end of June and over its financial year as a whole, Sky added 462,000 new customers, its largest gain in five years.

The high-definition service also helped Sky increase the money it makes from its customers, with annual average revenue per user at a new high of £464.

Not only did Sky attracting new users, but they have also been trying to persuade its existing customers to expand the number of its products they take.

This is positive news for the satellite broadcaster and also shows that more people are now buying HD Ready televisions.

Here at Giant Buyer we offer a full range of LCD and Plasma HD televisions to suit everyone.

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For anyone who is thinking of putting HD Freeview on their Christmas wishlist this year, it looks like Santa will be answering your call.

The Director General of the UK Digital TV Group has anticipated we will be seeing HD Freeview boxes on shop shelves by the end of the year with HD Freeview enabled TVs following shortly after.

This, combined with more channels broadcasting in high definition, means that HD will be easily available for all.

Panasonic are very keen to be seen supporting this move and have already indicated they will be releasing Freeview HD LCD TVs to the market next year, plus they hinted that they will be working on a Blu-ray recorder with two Freeview HD tuners incorporated.

Ofcom seem to be the giver of very good news of late – only a few days ago Ofcom gave the go ahead for wireless LCD TVs to soon be available in the UK and now, Ofcom have revealed that Glasgow, Sunderlands, Leeds and Bradford will join London in benefitting from an earlier than expected Freeview HD switchover!

The original deadline for the HD Freeview switch was set for 2012, but many of the above regions should receive HD Freeview soon after the service launches in the Granada region in December 2009.

The Crystal Palace will be upgraded to DVD-T2 in December with the other three transmitters due to be upgraded during 2010.

BBC Head of Distribution has said that he “…..expects up to half the country to be able see the July 2010 football World Cup on Freeview HD”.

Following on from their music download service, Virgin Media will launch PictureBox – a movie on demand service from July this year, in collation with Universal Pictures with many films available in high definition.

To view the vast selection of recent and library films, virgin subscribers will only need to pay an additional £5 a month, and according to Virgin many of the films to choose from have not yet been seen on free-to-air television.

Although PictureBox has been available through BT Vision for some time, this will mark the first time for the PictureBox service being offered in HD format in the UK.

Katherine Burns, the executive director of content acquisition at Virgin Media said “Our customers love movies on demand and they’re watching millions of films every year. The addition of PictureBox means Virgin Media is the perfect choice for film fans, with a fantastic HD line-up and even more films to choose from, all at great value for money.”

The movies available at launch will include Hot Fuzz, Children of Men, The Holiday, Bourne Ultimatum with classics like The Nutty Professor, Total Recall and Scarface thrown into the HD mix. 28 movies should be available to access at any one time with 7 new films to be added each Friday.

Korean electronics giant LG have kicked off the new year with a bang with the release of eight new LCD TV lines for 2009.

Aiming to cater to all tastes and budgets, LG will introduce small 19 inch and 22 inch budget LCD TV’s to cutting edge 55 inch panel TV’s with cutting edge technology such as LED backlighting.

Amongst their huge range of LCD TV’s for 2009, LG’s high end LH9500 gets wireless streaming capability and LED backlighting. LG use a brand new AV box to stream wireless content to their new screen while the Korean manufacturer says that LED backlighting contributes to a claimed 2,000,000:1 contrast ratio.

The 55in LH9500 comes in at an svelte like 24.8mm and also features TruMotion 200 Hz, Intelligent Sensor for picture optimisation and energy saving.

Its certainly going to be an exciting year for LCD TV’s!

If you just managed to get your hands on a 42-inch TV you better enjoy it now because according to Sharp your TV will be old hat by 2015.

The prediction is based on the sales numbers in the last 12 months, sales of 46-inches TVs and above have risen 272% suggesting big screen TVs are becoming the norm rather the exception. Other screen TV sizes have also increased sales, 40-42 inch TVs sales are up 123% and 37-inch TVs sales are up 308%.

Mr Mike Gabriel, Head of Marketing and Communications for Sharp Electronics UK, said:

“Big screens are no longer for just shop windows or shiny office receptions. The demand for HD-ready 1080p picture quality in the home has led to an increase in both the affordability and availability of larger TVs. People can now expect a home cinema experience from their TV and technology that was once associated with the rich and famous is now accessible to homes across the country.”

The only problem with this mega sized TVs is where to put them as our houses continue to have the same size rooms.

iSuppli have released figures that show that HD televisions have over taken ordinary SD (standard Definition) Televisions for the first time.

iSuppli analyst Sheri Greenspan cites market exposure as the main reason for the boom they comment:

"The technology is everywhere these days, on broadcast television, on cable, on satellite, and on the Internet. You can’t escape hearing about something being broadcast in HD or getting the most out of your HD receiver or the most HD channels available."

Shipments of high definition TV screens have finally surpassed standard definition in 2008.

Even with the credit crunch these figures are expected to rise due to price deductions and the availability of content, with a predicated annual growth rate of 20%. This means that by 2012 there will be over 240 million HDTV’s shipped in comparison to 97 million last year.