HDTV for Less Than $1,000

[Gregg Lengling]

OR the first time, consumers can buy a decent-size high-definition set for under $1,000, and as the winter holidays approach, consumers will probably be bombarded with sales and promotions aimed at getting high-definition sets under trees across the country.

"I think you'll see a lot of advertising this Christmas about the 27-inch and 32-inch categories under $1,000," said Ed Wolff, vice president for merchandising for Panasonic's television group.

Samsung now offers what appears to be the least costly high-definition set in the United States, a 27-inch model in the standard 4:3 picture format for $699. Samsung also offers a 30-inch high-definition wide-screen model and a 32-inch 4:3 high-definition model, each of them for $999. (The standard ratio between the width and height of a television screen is 4:3; wide-screen models generally use a 16:9 standard.)

According to the Yankee Group, a research firm in Boston, about seven million homes have televisions capable of displaying high-definition images, but fewer than two million of those homes are actually watching high-definition signals. One reason for the gap is that after buying a high-definition set, consumers must often purchase an additional HDTV decoder or rent one from a cable company to display HDTV signals.

HDTV makers are beginning to deliver sets that can automatically decipher high-definition signals transmitted over cable, without an external decoder. The low-price Samsung units, however, do not include that capability.