[opendtv] Re: Barriers eroding to LCD TV adoption

  • From: "Manfredi, Albert E" <albert.e.manfredi@xxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: <opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Fri, 6 Aug 2004 14:17:28 -0400

Dale Kelly wrote:

> I attended the first series of meetings with the agenda of
> introducing an
> HDTV capable service into the USA. They were held in Monterey, Ca. and
> Washington, DC in approximately 1982. The driving force
> behind this effort
> was the CE communities vision that it would create their next
> wave of high
> end product, After all, it's all about the future growth of a
> major industry
> and the UHF issue pales in comparison.

I completely agree with this. That was indeed the motivation
originally, as I recall. Later on, after it was decided to stay
within one 6 MHz channel, the motivation changed somewhat, to one
of saving on spectrum. But that was 10 years later.

The way I see it, Dale, both this migration to digital and less
spectrum, and the FCC decision to include the UHF band for TV,
were about changes in the spectrum *policy*. Since RF spectrum
allocation is managed by the FCC, I see these as similar events.
The public cares a lot more about the availability of HDTV than
it does about digital transmission per se. In the UHF intro days,
the public was even more blase. What did they care? The UHF stuff
was harder to receive, and the picture and sound were no
different. And they had to buy an extra box. And the stations
which originally broadcast in UHF were strange anyway. Not
mainstream stuff.

I don't think that the public was screaming about more choice
in TV necessarily, and more importantly, I don't think the
public appreciated *why* you needed UHF spectrum to get more
choice. After all, what they saw was 12 channel tuners, and only
three stations available. In fact, where I was, we had *one*
channel of VHF, and the new channel, for heaven knows what reason,
was going to be UHF. Tell me why that made any sense.

But it was a change in policy that ultimately did benefit the
public and everyone else in television.

> On the other hand, the OTA DTV service is a mandate that
> redefines an entire industry. The public, who are mostly happy
> with their current TV choices do not generally see the need
> for such a change and their response has been mostly
> underwhelming. The CE folks, who understandably follow the
> money, see little value in OTA related investment and have
> redefined the DTV transition in non broadcast terms, where
> product profits are high. The CE companies love the DTV
> transition, as they define it, while Broadcasters are
> suffering the inevitable consequences of a transition without
> an economic engine and the viewers are generally nonplused.

Well, you might as well have described the UHF addition.

Existing broadcasters were likely unhappy, as it meant
competition in one case, or it meant getting a UHF channel
with questionable viewership in the other case.

The public couldn't care less, especially if the broadcasters
weren't giving them a damned good reason to upgrade.

The tuners were of questionable quality. Sound familiar?

And the CE manufacturers, who should probably have seen this as
a boon for future sales and a boon for the industry as a whole,
were probably too shortsighted to appreciate the change.

So, what's so different?

Bert
 
 
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