Dale Kelly wrote: > I asked Frank, in two different posts, whether he believes > that Motorola can > deliver Generation 5 performance in the $67 product. I > believe the answer to > that question may be in the fact that it wasn't answerd. > However, since that > box will not have HD capability nor include component/DVI > outputs, it could > certainly be sold for less than $200. If someone asked me whether a 7E7 could be delivered to a certain price point, I would feel equally challenged (and unwilling to reply!). The best Frank can do is find a corporate blurb to post on the topic. Last Christmas, we saw ATSC STBs for sale for $200. It might have been an obsolete design, but it's enough to suggest that this next Christmas we'll see new ones for about the same amount. That's Christmas 2004. If today's state of the art in receiver design has finally passed over the second knee of the performance S curve, manufacturers can start spending more time in production efficiencies and less in development. Meaning faster price erosion than in the past. Besides which, price erosion in the past has already been fast enough to reach the $100 goal by Christmas of 2006. A perfectly reasonable progression would be $200 for 12/2004, $150 for 12/2005, and $100 for 12/2006. Hardly seems unusual for a CE product that won't depend on much more development to be viable. The $67 goal for 1/1/2007, given the above and given the volumes of sale expected with the tuner mandate, is eminently reasonable. All you have to do is follow the price trends of VCRs and DVD players to see this effect repeated in the past. In spades. Bert ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 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.