Indeed, the satellite television companies have been among the first large media companies to settle as a group on which technology they will use as they begin to offer high-definition video. But cable television, telephone, Internet video and other companies are all ultimately moving toward replacing today's familiar video with a supercrisp digital successor, offering potentially high stakes for companies that can provide the technological foundations.

Microsoft is one of those companies, and it has veered sharply away from its traditional practices in hopes of capturing a piece of that market. Its Windows Media technology, like the MPEG AVC video standard, allows companies to shrink massive high-definition video files into smaller packages, so that more video can be sent over the same amount of wireless or broadband bandwidth.

In 2003, they its Windows Media 9 video format to the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers standard-setting organization for ratification as a high-definition video standard. In anticipation of that, two separate DVD groups have included Microsoft's technology as part of their next-generation disc standards.

The overture to standards bodies was aimed in large part at reassuring broadcasters and large media companies, which are used to working with standard, instead of proprietary, formats.

But for now, a growing and influential portion of the satellite industry seems set on MPEG 4.

Voom, a relatively small player, announced late last year that it would use MPEG 4 for its broadcasts beginning in mid-2005. Echostar Communications said at the recent Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas that it would make a push into high-definition video with its Dish Network beginning this fall, also using MPEG 4. (Cablevision, Voom's parent, said late Thursday that it would sell Voom's Rainbow 1 satellite tv and some other assets to Echostar for $200 million. It plans to continue service through an unspecified transition period. Echostar said it is assessing how to use the satellite to augment its Dish service.)

The News Corp.-owned Direct satellite TV announced at the same show that it was moving to MPEG 4, providing a demonstration of the technology over a satellite transmission. The company said it would ultimately replace the high-definition set-top boxes previously purchased by its customers, but it has not said whether it would pay part or all of those costs.

A low-orbit silver lining for Microsoft has come from Sirius Satellite Radio, which said earlier this month that it would use the company's video technology for its just-announced video service

The picture looks somewhat different on the ground, although it remains fuzzy. Cable companies have yet to indicate which direction they're going, but at least one phone company--giant SBC Communications--is already working closely with Microsoft to develop video services over its high-speed Internet lines. That could tip the scales toward company's video codec, but an SBC representative said the phone company was still deciding between Microsoft and MPEG.

Microsoft also has deals with BellSouth, Telecom Italia and a handful of other telecommunications providers around the world. But these deals largely focus on the ability to deliver video using Internet technology rather than the underlying video format. A smaller number of companies, including U.S. Digital Television, have said they would use the VC-1 video format.

Analysts say it will be easier for firms that don't have any historic investment or stake in the MPEG standards to adopt Microsoft's technology over time.

"Telephone companies going into the business of offering video seem to be very interested" in Microsoft's tools, said Forrester Research analyst Josh Bernoff.

Microsoft itself says the process is still barely under way, with its VC-1 technology still in the last stages of reaching official-standard status. Company executives say media and communications firms will increasingly want to do more than simply broadcast video--offering video on demand, or shows that can be watched just a few times or transferred to portable devices, for example.

The company also predicts that set-top box makers will begin building support for both formats into their products, giving media companies more flexibility to use both, or even to switch between the two for different applications.

"Our hope is that as time moves on, not just the satellitetv  companies, but everyone, will begin looking at the future business models that VC-1 and Windows Media provide," said Jordi Ribas, director of technical strategy for Microsoft's Windows Digital Media Division. "We do not think they are closed doors."

There's just one hitch: It's illegal.

That hasn't stopped satellite TV piracy from growing at an alarming rate. It's spreading so quickly that in a few years more people may be stealing Satellite TV services than are stealing from cable — even though the satellite business, which reports 19 million paying customers, is less than a third of cable's size.

"Satellite TV piracy has gone crazy," says Rik Hawkins, owner of Starpath Communications, which sells DirecTV programming in Hardin County, Ky. "The numbers are bigger than anyone will admit."

Estimates of satellite tv theft — practitioners prefer the term "hacking" — are probably on the low side. They usually don't include people who buy the basic channels and then reprogram the decoders that sit atop their TV sets to let them watch premium and pay-per-view (PPV) channels free.

Satellite TV companies and the channels, movie studios and sports franchises that supply programming lose well over $1 billion a year in uncollected revenue from piracy. The satellite services typically offer far more PPV channels than most cable services do, and all their signals are digital, making them clearer and easier to copy.

DirecTV, the El Segundo, Calif.-based industry leader, with 11 million subscribers, is the target of choice for most pirates, who typically refer to it as "Dave." It offers about twice as many conventional PPV movies and twice as many PPV pornography channels as Englewood, Colo.-based EchoStar, the No. 2 satellite company known for its Dish Network.

The other big attraction is Satellite TV's extensive sports packages. It has exclusive national broadcast rights to 14 Sunday NFL games and the first three rounds of the NCAA men's basketball championship tournament in March. It has non-exclusive rights to packages of pro baseball, basketball, hockey, soccer, and college football and basketball games.

"For every five people buying Satellite TV legitimately, there's one who's getting a system with no connection to a satellite tv provider," says Satellite Business News Editor Bob Scherman. Pirates don't plug decoders into a phone line, which is how satellite firms monitor authorized boxes, so "the company doesn't know these people exist."

Several hackers, who would speak only privately, say they simply want to save a few hundred dollars a year.

Also, "A lot of smart people make this their hobby," says Jimmy Schaeffler, CEO of The Carmel Group, a telecommunications consulting company. With the belief that they're free to manipulate signals that fall into their backyards, "They don't consider it stealing. And law enforcement officials don't see it as a big deal."

Prosecutors and investigators say enforcement is uneven. Some local officials consider piracy a priority, others don't.

A growing number of pirates also find ways to profit from it. Sports bars sometimes use pirated equipment to show big games that are blacked out in their local markets. Some pirates tape PPV porn channels and sell the cassettes privately — often at flea markets.

Some people charge friends and neighbors a fee to set them up with free satellite service. That includes some professional installers who want to pocket an extra few hundred dollars. "He'll size up the customer and say, 'Hey, how would you like a wide-open card?' " says FBI Special Agent Evan Rae, who has investigated several cases.

EchoStar satellite TV declines to discuss the subject, although CEO Charlie Ergen recently told analysts that piracy is something "we haven't seen any progress as an industry on."

DirecTV disagrees.

"In the last two years, we've ramped our enforcement up dramatically, and the information I get is that it's damaging the (piracy) market," says Larry Rissler, vice president of DirecTV's office of  satellite TV signal integrity. "I think I'm safe in saying it hasn't increased. If anything, we've seen a reduction in the last year or so."