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Cliff Benham wrote: Why would manufacturers build STBs that could sell for $50? TheyThat's what I was alluding to in my earlier post where I mentioned China Inc. being the only party that might possibly be interested. They could probably make a profit on a STB that sold for $50 in 2009, but the margins would be slim and I don't think they wouldn't even bother if the TAM was, say, 1 or 2 million units. $50M-$100M of revenue at low margins just isn't that interesting compared to other products a company can invest in and take to market. And, if they are thatI doubt the cheap ones would work any better! Still you believe a consumer will think it perfectly natural and OK to No, I think it would be much more natural for a consumer to either find another use for that TV set (like as a game console display), or a way to connect it to NTSC signals that are not coming from off-air (those will be gone), or more likely they will just throw it away or garage sale it away for a few dollars. What you are actually saying is that it has been decided that "Free TV"Whether it "has been decided" or not, free TV is almost gone anyway for 85% of Americans, and they have already accepted that as a fact of life. If they are not watching them, why are they there? To act asNo, people have 6 TV sets because they last more than a decade (sometimes 2 decades) and consumers are reluctant to throw them out until they break. Old TV sets get accumulated and handed down, so to speak, until they truly become junk for the landfill. the ones we have now don't workI never mentioned ATSC STB performance, and I especially would not make claims about ATSC vs. NTSC reception peformance. It is what it is, and it will work reliably enough for some people with an indoor antenna, while others will struggle with reception even with an outdoor rooftop antenna. Like you said, it's a crap shoot. All the more reason I don't think there's much of a market for ATSC STBs, or much chance that integrated DTT tuners in new DTV sets will ever be widely used. OTA has been dying for a long time for reasons that have little to do with NTSC RF performance. The switch to ATSC is just another nail in the coffin. Two more nails if the reception issues are really as bad as some people think they are. -- Frank ---------------------------------------------------------------------- You can UNSUBSCRIBE from the OpenDTV list in two ways: - Using the UNSUBSCRIBE command in your user configuration settings at FreeLists.org - By sending a message to: opendtv-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with the word unsubscribe in the subject line. |