[opendtv] Re: Non-living room HDTV sales rise in US
- From: Craig Birkmaier <craig@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 13 Jan 2007 11:18:32 -0500
At 10:42 AM -0700 1/12/07, Frank Eory wrote:
I agree with you Craig about the wife appeal factor of flat panel
vs. bulky CRT, but I doubt the acceleration of LCD HD displays would
have happened as quickly without the appeal factor of high def. Once
the family has gotten used to watching most of thier favorite shows
in HD on the main living room TV, every old SD display in the house
sucks by comparison, regardless of its physical characteristics
(flatness, weight, etc.).
This may well be true here in the U.S., but how do you explain what
is happening in Europe, where LCD panel displays are JUST as popular?
Could it be that their digital SDTV saturates the capabilities of
these panel displays?
It is still very difficult here in the U.S. to watch all of your
favorite shows in HD. Not that i watch Fox and NBC all that much, but
I still can't get them in HD here in Gainesville. Nor can I get
FoxNews, The Food Network, HGTV, and most of the other channels I
watch most of the time in HD.
I think the more reasoned analysis is that people know how good LCDs
can look, because they have been using them for years with their
computers, DVDs look great on them, and they expect the rest of the
video world to catch up eventually.
As for the statistics of non-living room HD sales in the U.S., I'm
really curious to know the latest post-Christmas numbers. Here's
another anecdotal data point for you all:
I have a teenage son who bought a 32" LCD HDTV over a year ago with
his own money. Why? Because he already had an XBox 360 and was just
dying to do his gaming in high def. To this day, the display has
never been used to watch TV, so obviously the internal 8-VSB demod
has never been home-tested. But when he's not using it for gaming,
it serves nicely for watching DVDs or as a second computer monitor.
This Christmas I picked up another one (newer model, same
manufacturer, $200 cheaper) for my teenage daughter. She actually
does watch a fair amount of TV, mostly HD, so hers is hooked up to
an HD cable STB. The internal 8-VSB demod in that TV will also never
be home-tested.
How many HD cable boxes do you have in your home?
So much for the importance of the FCC's tuner mandate and the
resulting added cost. It's about as useful in my house as the
"V-chip."
Yup, and your experience is shared by the vast majority of consumers
who are buying new HD capable displays.
I have no doubt the 8-VSB chips in those TVs will get excellent
reception here, based on my home-tests of 1st gen (several models)
and my own company's 2nd gen demods so many years ago. In Phoenix,
OTA viewers have the luxury of living in a flat 'valley' with the TV
towers on a large mountain just south of downtown -- nearly ideal
conditions for single-carrier digital reception with very benign
multipath in most parts of the metro area. But for most people who
own one or more HD displays, this is a big "so what?" You didn't
spend all that money so you could get fantastic high def pictures on
just a handful of channels. Yes the technology for delivering the
signal has to work reliably -- that is the most basic fundamental --
but it does not define a viable business model.
I beat this drum almost every month in my BE column. Without a viable
business model broadcasting is going to continue to die. But it will
be a long and painful death, prolonged to a large extent by the new
miracle drug - money from retransmission consent agreements.
Let me add something to the popular cliche 'content is king.' It's
more appropriate to say that the *quality* or popularity of the
content is king, *variety* of content is queen, and the mechanism
for *delivering* content is not even a member of the royal family.
I like this analogy. Content is increasingly decoupled from
distribution. The ability to tie subscribers to your service via
exclusive content is getting more and more difficult. The ability to
pay directly for the content you want is getting easier and more
affordable.
Regards
Craig
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