Times are tough aoul over, and even cable giant Comcast isn't immune to a little tightening of the belt. Word coming out of Maine is that Comcast is looking to sell 46 of the markets on the outskirts of its footprint, mostly in Maine, Kentucky, Louisiana, New Mexico, Virginia, Georgia, West Virginia and California. The move is about more than just the monies that will be generated by selling off its subscriber eyeballs, though. At a going rate of $3,000 - $4,500 per subscriber, that's not an insignificant chunk of change, either. By geographically concentrating its service areas, it should be cheaper to deliver services, including the all-important "triple play." If you're affected by this selloff, we're hoping your HD lineup won't suffer for it.

This day last week, DISH Network brought HD locals to Norfolk, Virginia. Today, it's doing the same for Hartford-New Haven, Connecticut and Portland-Auburn, Maine. If you'll recall, neither of these two markets were included on DISH's master list of Spring rollouts, but for whatever reason, it's showing New England some serious love. No mention is made of what channels are being made available, so we'll cautiously assume that the Big Four (ABC, CBS, NBC and FOX) will be ready for viewing in glorious high-def.

Sure, it's been known for some time that FOX 23 out of Portland, Maine didn't beam out its signal in HD over-the-air, and based on a response from the station received by tipster Jay, it doesn't seem as if anything will be changing in the near future. Apparently, the station was purchased (in 2003) after the time period when "stations could file with the FCC for an additional digital channel position had expired." Due to this, FOX 23 is left with the option of switching channel 23 over to digital (and HD) now -- leaving hordes of analog-only viewers out in the proverbial cold -- or waiting things out until February 2009. Needless to say, the station is choosing the latter option, but to its credit, it has made its HD feed available on Time Warner Cable, DirecTV and most recently, Comcast. So yeah, it looks like those in the Portland area will indeed have to point their bank account in the direction of one of the aforementioned providers to catch Super Bowl XLII in HD, but hey, it could be worse. [Disclosure: Engadget is part of the Time Warner family]

There's been an awful lot of HD expansion mentioned lately, but Time Warner Cable (partly owned by Time Warner, parent company of AOL, which owns Engadget) has been sorely absent from the fun. Thanks to a tipster up in Maine, we've now learned that TWC has apparently added six new HD channels in Augusta without so much as a whisper. Customers in the area can now look forward to receiving CNN HD, HGTV HD, National Geographic HD, Food Network HD, Lifetime Movie Network HD and History Channel HD, but we've no idea if these options will make their way into any other surrounding regions.

[Thanks, Jim Johnson]

While the mega-corporations are making this whole HD IPTV thing look easy, it's hard out here for an entrepreneur trying to launch his own gig. Rob Draper, an internationally acclaimed cinematographer, envisions IPTV as the future of television delivery, primarily because advertisers can focus their marketing to select channels / websites rather than just blasting ads out to everyone as they do now, theoretically wasting resources on folks who will shun their offerings anyway. After a failed attempt to make Visionmill, his own IPTV service, "a source of programming for TV food channels" and to turn Camden, Maine a "TV production hotspot," he branched out on his own and created SingleMalt.tv, which is dubbed the "world's first internet TV channel devoted to single malt Scotch whiskey." More important, however, is the fact that everything on the site is shot and delivered in crisp 720p, and while it may be hard to convince Mr. Draper to venture somewhere other than the beautiful hillsides of Scotland to set up shop, there could be more channels in the future as his startup blossoms -- but for now, we can all raise our glasses to 720p over the 'net, eh?