Echostar launched a satellite set-top box with built-in DVD player at last week’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Priced at $399, it will be available to the mass market this summer. The DVD unit is the latest wheeze in the cut-throat battle between US satellite and cable (on the one hand), and between Echostar’s DISH system and rival DirecTV (on the other). DiSH systems are already available with built-in hard drives for home recording.

But Echostar, never slow in its desire to be seen as the market innovator, also announced what it claims is the world’s first HDTV-compatible set-top box. The DISH HD receiver is an integrated satellite television receiver with the ability to receive HDTV signals. The receiver delivers HDTV programming onto a 16:9-ratio HDTV screen and supports both 720 progressive and 1080 interlaced HD formats. The unit will be on sale during the second quarter of this year at $499.

HDTV by satellite is already a reality in the US, with channels from HBO and others promised. HDTV-equipped TV sets are few and far between, with sales said to be less than 100,000 units in total. The HBO HDTV feeds are currently delivered in the 1080 interlaced format and promise Hollywood movies as well as HBO made-for-TV original movies in high definition.

Echostar said last week it had added about 1,470,000 new satellite customers in 1999, an increase of 63 per cent over 1998. In December it added about 160,000 customers to its DISH Network, which was the largest monthly gain in its history. The customer base for DISH now stands at about 3.4 million, the company said.

Competitor DirecTV, a unit of Hughes Electronics, added 225,000 net new subscribers in December, taking its total to 7.9 million, the larger numbers helped by DirecTV’s take-over of the 1.4 million Primestar low-power system.