At 10:31 AM -0400 6/4/08, Allen Le Roy Limberg wrote:
Cable will have to switch to all digital plants as the analog TV receivers
currently in service are retired. Only DTV receivers are being sold
anymore.
And every one is still being shipped with an analog (cable ready)
tuner. The ONLY boxes that do not include analog tuners are the NTIA
CECBs.
That being said, this is an economic decision for the cable
companies; it is not an issue for DBS which is already digital.
It boils down to opportunity costs for the spectrum currently
dedicated to the analog tiers. IF they can make enough ADDITIONAL
money re-assigning that spectrum to digital cable and broadband
services, THEN they will shut down the analog tiers and deploy
various solutions for those who do not have digital tuners:
1. Low cost D/A devices like the "dongle" that Pace is building;
2. SD quality STBs with and without DVRs
3. HD quality STBs with and without DVRs.
Keep in minds that hardly ANY of the HD capable TVs shipped to date
have digital cable tuners in them. Only a tiny percentage have
one-way cable cards, and virtually none have two-way cable cards.
It's hard to tell how much longer the CE guys will keep shipping new
TVs in the U.S. with NTSC/analog cable ready tuners. My guess is that
they will continue to do so until a significant percentage of cable
systems turn off those analog tiers.
Regards
Craig
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