MTVNHD -- the international variant of MHD Palladia -- promised to continue its quest for European domination, and France is next to go, but not on Numericable. Hooking up with SES ASTRA's satellite capacity, the network's bringing music and children's programming to HD CanalSat subscribers at some unspecified future date. so it could be today, tomorrow, next week or later but yes, France, you will soon be ignoring the same extremely limited content loop others have been experiencing for some time now.

MTV Networks High Definition goes live September 15 in Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Norway, Poland and Sweden, including original programming like Chartblast, Uncompressed and HD Extreme and MTV Top 20. The bad news of course, is that beyond the original programming, Viacom is stuffing the 24-hour English language channel -- broadcasting straight out of Poland, a Buenos Aires production hub is due later on -- full of Nickelodeon programs on weekend mornings, and the rest will be filled with what appears to be the same 300 hours of high def library already being looped on MHD / Palladia right now. France, Germany, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, the UK, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Venezuela should have their shot at boredom by the end of the year.

[Via Reuters]

Europeans eagerly awaiting more high definition concerts (updated weekly, still) rejoice, as MTV is launching a European HD channel next month. Although it goes unnamed, based on the content mentioned (concerts, special music events and festivals) and the relaunch of Palladia (the station formerly known as MHD) happening at the same time we've been able to reach the surprising and stunning realization that they are pretty much one and the same. In addition to being underwhelmed by an incredibly limited amount of HD content in rotation at any given time, our HDTV-equipped friends in German speaking markets can look forward to Nick programs on the weekend. D-d-d-dora, Dora.

MTV explains renaming MHD to "Palladia" as conveying a sense of spectacle, "a grand stage, a vast arena and the excitement of live musical performances." Whether or not you buy that, it looks like Viacom is giving the channel's content a much-needed refresh, promising a new concert every Saturday at 9 p.m., and a collection of rock movies airing every Thursday night at 9. The first week of September is Outdoor Music Week, bringing home outdoor performances from a host of superstars, starting with Glastonbury 2008 on Monday, September 1. New name or now, two years later we're still caught on the one new concert per week schedule, hopefully the grand stage sees an expansion sometime soon.

As we've seen with Discovery's Planet Green, and -- to a lesser extent, History HD, Food HD and SPEED HD -- these high-def channels prefer to change up (or shorten, at least) their names every now and then. The latest to take on a new identity is MTV Networks' MHD, which is apparently being redubbed Palladia HD in DISH Network / TWC's EPG. We've all ideas the name change will filter down to all carriers in short order, but we're just letting you know to not get overly excited upon seeing it emerge in your channel lineup. Sadly, you actually haven't gained another channel -- it's just that the one with the loudest commercials has been renamed.

[Image courtesy of Photobucket]

Heads up, international HD mavens. A kind tipster just alerted us to one TVP HD, a channel that just started broadcasting Olympics coverage and will continue to throughout the 2008 Games. After the spectacle has concluded, it will reportedly morph into a station much like BBC HD. Currently, the channel is available via digital cable in Poland on carriers like Multimedia Polska, Aster and a few other smaller companies that provide HD receivers. We're also told that it'll launch shortly on UPC Cable, ITI's digital satellite platform N and (in trial form) via DVB-T. In somewhat related news, the European version of MTV HD just starting testing yesterday on the Hot Bird satellite, with an expected go-live date sometime in September.

[Thanks, Arsenal]

Here at Engadget HD, we've been watching TV for a long, long time, and we can't honestly say that we've ever viewed commercial time as content time. Nevertheless, MTV Networks is teaming up with Cadbury and DISH Network in order to launch its "first-ever advertiser-supported interactive television campaign." Available "exclusively" to DISH Network customers (a curse disguised as a blessing?), the campaign will debut during The N's reality series Queen Bees on July 11th at 9:00PM ET / PT. Put simply, it will present viewers with sets of questions to answer during the show (no, that's not distracting at all), and in the next commercial break, the poll results will be shown. According to the outfits involved, this is their attempt to "reinvent commercial time as content time" and "encourage viewer retention throughout the pod." We're curious -- does anyone at MTV / Cadbury / DISH actually believe this stuff, or does it just sound great on a conference call?

After Sat. 1 HD and ProSieben HD went dark in Germany until 2010, things haven't been as dormant as expected. Late last month, we received word that both FOX and TNT would be making their way over (and hopefully in HD), and now we're seeing that both National Geographic HD and MHD (MTV HD) could be arriving on undisclosed cable carriers in the near future. Reportedly, Nat Geo HD -- which is nearly ready in Austria and Switzerland -- could be arriving any moment, while MHD is likely to land on PREMIERE this December. Slowly but surely, it looks as if Europe may actually be moving forward in adopting HDTV programming.

[Thanks, Chris]

Read - National Geographic HD to Germany
Read - MHD to Germany

Here's an interesting one. Apparently, Verizon has inked a deal with MTV to become its sole video-on-demand distributor of the upcoming series Randy Jackson Presents: America's Best Dance Crew. Granted, the VOD content won't be in high-definition or anything, but it will be available exclusively to FiOS TV subscribers just 24 hours after it debuts on February 7 at 10:00PM. More interesting here, however, is the premise of locking down specific carriers for doling out video-on-demand content -- personally, we aren't exactly enthralled by the idea (non-FiOS TV customers feel a bit left out?), but it's an interesting concept to draw in customers, for sure.

Responding to the request of "more MHD, please," we're thrilled to see the high-definition spinoff giving some much needed love to live concerts shot in HD. In case Times Square is too crowded, or you just aren't much for going out on the town, Gorillaz are hoping that you ring in the New Year with them as MHD airs the band's live concert from Harlem, NY at 9:00PM EST/PST on December 31st. "Gorillaz: Live in Harlem" will be shot at Harlem's legendary Apollo Theater, and while the original airing takes places three hours before 2007, it will re-air at the stroke of midnight for those who miss the premiere.

MTV's high definition network, MHD plans to premiere a new concert every week for the rest of the year. According to Tom Calderone, Executive Vice President of VH1, live concert and music programming are among the top things HD viewers want in a music channel. Of course, that doesn't explain why they only show music videos at 3 AM, but hopefully this is the start of an improvement. MHD launched earlier this year and is already available in half the HDTV-equipped homes in the country. MHD certainly puts up nice concert programming, the problem is they repeat the same content over and over throughout the week. Most networks don't consider adding one new episode of a show each week a major achievement, we'll be very excited when MHD reaches that point.

The concert premieres planned:

• CMT Giants: Reba McEntire, premiering Saturday, November 18 at 8pm ET/PT on CMT and simulcast on MHD
• The 2006 MTV European Music Awards, premiering Saturday, November 25 at 9pm ET/PT
• CMT Crossroads: Lindsey Buckingham and Little Big Town, premiering Saturday, December 2 at 9pm ET/PT on CMT and simulcast on MHD
• Life & Rhymes: Snoop Dogg, premiering Saturday, December 9 at 9pm ET/PT
• Summer Fest: Lynyrd Skynyrd, premiering December 16 at 9pm ET/PT
• Isle of Wight Festival: Snow Patrol and Jet, premiering December 23 at 9pm ET/PT

People like MTV's high-def station, MHD, because the station isn't anything like what MTV has evolved into. MHD is all about music not some reality TV show where the grandparents of some teenage girl all sit on a bus trying to decide how to spend $120,000 on her 13th birthday. No, MHD is like the MTV of old, when music was king video killed the radio star and that is the way it is going to stay too according to MTV's senior vice president and GM, Eric Sherman. This station is going to stay all about the music. There isn't going to be any reality TV shows, documentaries, or even award shows in high-def because it has little to nothing to do with HD. Cool, now if we can get back a little Beavis and Butthead to fill in the commercial breaks here and there, it would be just like the good 'ol MTV.

UPDATE: TV Week provided us with the actual interview they conducted as part of their weekly HD newsletter.

MTV's high definition channel MHD continued its stealth launch on Comcast at least in the Detroit area, showing up on this blogger's channel listing late last night. INHD2 is but a memory, Tour de Gorge and Twilight Zone reruns, you shall be missed. 8~ hours in it's a welcome addition, many widescreen videos obviously mastered for HD including the Gorillaz Feel Good Inc. video that played during MTV-HD's original debut in January. Is this the HDTV killer app that will truly give high-def a boost along with game consoles and next gen DVDs? That remains to be seen but we can't help thinking it might be nice if the cable company actually told people it was on. We'll be able to give some more in depth impressions once this Rihanna video goes off we've had some time to let it sink in.

We have good news for all of you Cox Communications subscribers in the Roide Island and Connecticut areas - you are getting MTV's high-def station, MHD. One of our eagle-eyed readers noticed the announcement on Cox's own pages so we have a great feeling that this is going to happen. The page indicates that MHD is going to launch on July 26 and will be found on channel 730. Cool.

[thanks for the tip Dave]

TVPredictions says yes. Although the network is already available to some Comcast, Time Warner and Charter subscribers, most cable customers don't have the channel yet. According to their source the channel will be added in Philadelphia at the beginning of August, and roll out in other cities shortly afterwards. With the Xbox 360 already available and the PS3 debuting this fall, their 18 to 34 year-old target demographic has an increasing number of reasons to pick up an HDTV and MTV is obviously looking to be at the forefront. MHD getting more exposure on a national level will almost certainly bring more viewers (and subsequently more HD content) than other cable networks making the switch like HGTV and Food Network.

A big question is whether this will be in addition to ESPN2-HD or replacing it, with the sports network fading out in many areas post-World Cup the way Universal HD did after the Winter Olympics. While Real World HD would be cool, we need Cribs in high-def so we can look at other people's HDTVs on our HDTVs.