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I have google alerts for HiDefTV and Sed TV, everything comes out in Japan first. If I want to know what works, my relatives call Manila and get a user reaction since it's probably been sold there a year before we see it.

One of the issues is standards.

The Japanese seem to be more willing to buy products that are nonstandard. That is, products that have limited sources of software/movies/music etc.

Here we are reluctant to buy something that doesn't have a big base of support (movies, music, etc.) and that may be obsolete in a year.

I saw high definition TVs in Japan in October 1991. I think the set I saw (as I recall, a 30" CRT set), cost about $32,000. I think there was only one channel broadcasting HD in the early 1990s in Tokyo. I remember watching soccer on an HDTV set at a bar in Narita airport probably around 1993. Japan originally used an analog broadcast format for HDTV.

I bought a 30" CRT HDTV a year a half ago for $540. It could pick up digital broadcasts from five stations.

Despite the talk, the U.S. is far ahead of the rest of the world in HDTV set sales, HDTV broadcast stations, HDTV content, and HDTV satellite and cable. In the Atlanta market, 39 distinct HD channels are available via over the air broadcast, cable, and satellite.