If you haven't seen enough behind-the-scenes footage in the run-up to the 2008 Olympics in Beijing (or you just don't subscribe to AT&T's U-verse TV for whatever reason), MOJO is hoping to give you even more just prior to the start of the Games in August. Reportedly, the network will begin airing a 10-part weekday series on July 28th at 9:00PM ET / PT in which US Olympic athletes are profiled and interviewed in order to give the general public a look at what it takes to compete at the highest level. For a full list of who all will be showcased, check out the read link.

[Via Multichannel News]

Though many of you may not be familiar with the "television arm of the USA TODAY brand," USA TODAY LIVE is announcing a new partnership with the likes of MOJO HD and Versus (and Fuse, for what it's worth) in order to pump out a smorgasbord of series-based programming in 2008. Up first is City Limits Fishing, a six-part weekly series (starting February 15th) on Versus that highlights world class fishing spots within some of America's most bustling cities. If that's not your bag, you can check out the ten-part Gotta Get Gold series on MOJO HD (starting July 28th), which concentrates on "what it takes to train and to compete at the highest levels in athletics." For more details on each show as well as what's available through Fuse, hit up the read link below.

[Via TVover]

That's the problem cable providers are facing, as we keep pushing for more channels and capacity keeps...staying the same. USA Today had a nice writeup today concerning the problems faced as they try to add more channels and features to compete with satellite television providers, and a couple different ways they can solve them. Unfortunately for CableCard DVR and television users, one of the proposed solutions "switched digital" would make their cards useless and force them into using a digital cable box. As TV works now, every channel is sent to you all the time, the proposed solution changes things so that you are only sent the channel you are currently watching. Time Warner has implemented the technology in a few areas already, while Cox and Cablevision are looking into it. The other workaround means stripping channels from analog cable packages, and replacing them with high definition channels.

This conundrum may explain the sudden disappearance of CableCard, as manufacturers wait for the 2.0 standard instead of throwing in a feature that may soon be obsolete anyway.

Well done Kim Komando of USA Today. Well done. Projectors can be a great option for some consumers that seeks a HUGE screen but have space requirements. (and a budget)  But they can be daunting because of the huge price range ($800 - $15,000) but Kim did a great job laying out most of the things you need to look for. She goes over LCD, DLP, and CRT options and talks about how important lumens is. Kim even talks about their Achilles heal: the pricey bulb.

Ms. Komando covers most of what a person should look for but forgot to cover the different resolution. A lot of lower priced units do not produce a high enough resolution to be considered high-def. They will display the same image, but will do so by lowering the resolution of the signal to its native resolution. You can find good inexpensive projectors for under a thousand that does have a good resolution however; just stay away from the 800x600 units if you want to use it for HDTV.

Check out Kim's guide to projectors if you have any questions about these mini-giants of TVs.

Or any of the other dozen states where movie theaters have refused to show the movie, fighting like the Luddites they are to protect their antiquated way of doing business. Director Steven Soderbergh, in partnership with our friend Mark Cuban and others is releasing his new movie "Bubble" ("the weirdest goddamn movie ever released by a major American filmmaker.") in theater, on cable and on DVD on the same day, giving viewers the choice of how they want to experience it from the beginning, instead of artificial time delays between each step.

Immediate (or close to it) digital distribution is the future, and these theaters are silly to fight it.  If they had any sense, they'd sell copies o the DVD on the way out. if they had offered me a copy of The Island as I exited the theater, I would have gladly dropped $20 more on top of what I had just spent on a ticket and popcorn.

Any HDBeat readers live in states that won't be getting a choice of how they want to see their movies?