AT&T recently started offering customers in its St. Louis footprint a second high-definition (HD) stream, which means customers there can watch one HD program while recording another HD program at the same time.

AT&T spokeswoman Jenny Parker said that the company will be offering the second-stream functionality on a market-by-market basis over the next several months.

“We've been seeing great performance from our network and improvements in HD technologies,” Parker wrote in an e-mail to CED. “We use the latest, most advanced encoder available, MPEG-4, which is a more advanced compression technology than other providers use. We also have a switched video architecture in place today.”

AT&T’s U-verse customers are provided with Cisco or Motorola HD set-top boxes (STBs) when they sign up, which means boxes don’t need to be swapped out when a customer elects to receive the HD channels for an additional $10 per month.

Currently, AT&T does not offer HD video-on-demand (VOD), but Parker said that it’s on the company’s roadmap.

AT&T has more than 40 HD channels in all of its U-verse markets after eight HD channels were added near the end of last year. AT&T is not saying what its target is for HD channels this year, other than the HD lineup “will expand significantly this year,” in addition to the second HD stream.

Verizon has said that it expects to have 150 HD channels by the end of the year. Cable operators large and small have also vowed to increase their HD offerings this year to their customers.

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