This weekend presented an interesting contrast. Saturday evening featured the Michigan - Penn State football game in 720p HDTV on ABC, after which the local news on ABC affiliate WPVI-DT was also carried in 720p HD. On Sunday, I watched Game 4 of baseball’s NCLS (Mets vs. Cardinals) in 720p HDTV on Fox, followed by Fox affiliate WTXF’s evening news, again in 720p HDTV.

Based on those viewing experiences, I finally feel that HDTV had finally turned the corner and become a mainstream program delivery format - particularly since those two newscasts used HDTV not just for their studio cameras, but for their field/remote and helicopter cameras, plus all logos and graphics.

Now, for the contrast: Early Sunday morning, I opened the Philadelphia Inquirer and read that some cable TV customers are electing to take Comcast’s cheapest monthly package (about $15 a month), forsaking video-on-demand (VOD) and HDTV to instead download their favorite programs like Comedy Central’s Chapelle’s Show from free Web sites like YouTube.com.

The article also mentioned the increasing number of viewers who download TV shows from network television Web sites. Some of these shows include extras once limited to DVDs, such as outtakes and cast interviews.

Other nationwide Comcast subscribers are going crazy with cable VOD, with 3 billion videos seen over the past two years. According to the Inquirer article, that works out to ten TV shows for every American - and every one of them was delivered as plain-vanilla, 480-line standard definition television.

VOD has become such a powerful market force that Discovery Networks premiered Shark Rebellion this past summer on Comcasts VOD system 10 days before it was available on cable. According a study released by Nielsen Media Research this past February, households with VOD watch a mind-boggling 12 hours of TV per day, which is 9% more than all extended basic subscribers and 38% greater than basic cable homes.

What goes on here? Wasn’t HDTV supposed to be the "next big thing" that would drive the market for new media? Apparently not when it comes to VOD, where content and availability are all that really matters. With handheld electronic media players and computers everywhere, the key these days for media giants like Comcast and Time Warner seems to be expanded VOD choices, not higher picture resolution.

But expanded cable VOD choices won’t save the day however, if more customers move to fast Internet VOD. Just as some Web pioneers were clever enough to use the Internet to make low-cost long distance phone calls (creating a whole new industry - voice over IP - along the way), others are getting their favorite TV shows like Lost and House from ABC’s and Fox’ Web sites, skipping cable VOD altogether.

And it’s clear that the lack of VOD programs in HDTV formats has had little impact. A popular TV show isn’t any less so because it is presented with 480i picture lines (or less!) instead of 720 or 1080i. It seems what consumers want is convenience and flexibility with electronic media.

Many analysts (myself included) have repeatedly pointed out the rough road ahead for the two competing blue laser high-definition DVD formats. Given the difficulty the average consumer has distinguishing between SDTV and HDTV, the high prices of Blu-ray and HD DVD players, and the limited number of movie titles, the ever-increasing demand for SDTV VOD and lower-resolution Web-delivered TV is making that road look more and more like a minefield…