Ever since I moved to Europe I've continually run into this perception that America is a high-definition dreamland. Europeans seem to think American consumers are buying HD-ready TV's in droves, that thousands and thousands of hours of HD programming is available, and that it generally all puts European HDTV to shame.
But it's just not true. Yes, the US is in fact a more advanced HD market than Europe. In America, all major channels regularly offer HD content. In Europe, only one TV operator (HD1, formerly called Euro1080) regularly offers HD content, and only two or three more (including Premiere and ProSiebenSat) are starting to offer sporadic HD content. But as Jupiter's US DTV Analyst Todd Chanko points out, just because the US is ahead right now doesn't mean they've got it all figured out. In fact, they have plenty of issues of their own.
The transition to HD isn't going to be an easy one, on any continent. And Europeans have very little to be jealous about on this topic -- everyone, everywhere, is struggling towards the HD promised land.
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The US Is NOT High-Def Heaven
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