[opendtv] Re: Bob, where are the tunerless monitors?

  • From: Craig Birkmaier <craig@xxxxxxxxx>
  • To: opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Mon, 16 Jul 2007 08:47:30 -0400

At 4:12 PM -0400 7/15/07, Albert Manfredi wrote:

Which, of course, I never said was the case. Again, an NTSC OTA user who buys an HDTV set will have an incentive to at least try out his ATSC receiver, to get images in his set that are equivalent to those he saw in the store. So THIS is what will cause a migration to DTT, *from* OTA analog.

Perhaps.

In the end its all about content. Homes that really want HD content are overwhelmingly choosing cable and DBS. Having access to network programming in HD is NOT causing us to watch more of this content.

The problem with OTA HD is that it still the same old major network programming which is on the decline other than sports. If consumers are happy with this then they may well migrate from NTSC to ATSC. For others, the loss of NTSC will provide the stimulus to sign up for a subscription service.

Some may move to the limited basic cable tier because it will be cheaper than buying a new TV.

This was in response to Bob's consistently pessimistic assessment that no one is watching DTT. In spite of broadcasters best efforts not to promote their new medium, the pathologically negative assessments do bear constant review, given the enormous sales of HDTVs and the fact that they now have DTT reception capability out of the box.

Better pictures is NOT helping broadcasters hold onto viewers. This past season represents the most serious erosion of their audience to date. Much of the programming - can you say Reality Sucks - is not worth watching, but the real killer to me is the increased commercial load.

I'm working on several articles about ATSC enhancements and the potential for broadcasting to mobile devices. As I interview people I am discovering a renewed enthusiasm to use the spectrum to develop new businesses. The Open Mobile Video Coalition now has members representing more than 600 broadcast stations in the U.S.

But there's a bit of a catch 22 here. If they find that there is an audience for mobile video and data services- and I think they will, they will need to take bits away from their "legacy" ATSC broadcasts.

The new mobile service will have the ability to use more efficient codecs, but the legacy service will be stuck with MPEG-2 and significantly fewer bits to deliver those programs. And this situation is only going to get worse, as millions of legacy ATSC receivers are sold in the next few years.

Broadcasters may get stuck between a rock and a hard place. On one hand they will need to develop the markets for new mobile services and the devices that will receive these broadcasts. On the other hand they will be faced with the need to migrate everyone to new receivers if they want to offer both mobile and fixed services with decent image quality.

Sadly, we could now be shipping ATSC receivers with advanced codec support - instead we are entrenching MPEG-2, making it even more difficult to change the receiver base moving forward.

So, another example of pathological negativism. My take on this is that almost half of viewers with HDTV sets, which are just about the only ones selling anymore, have wised up to what HDTV is. Again, without being spoonfed by broadcasters at all. The only conclusion you can possibly draw is that as HDTV sets continue to sell, a huge percentage of viewers will be watching HDTV.

You didn't finish the sentence:

The only conclusion you can possibly draw is that as HDTV sets continue to sell, a huge percentage of viewers will be watching HDTV via the umbilical services that offer the HD programming that people want to watch.


Or are you still going to pretend that 44 percent constitutes a "niche" audience?

I answered this question for John. When more than 50% of U.S. homes have an HD capable display that is 40" or larger AND a source of HD programming it will no longer be a niche market. Don;t get me wrong, I do believe that this will happen, perhaps within the next 5-10 years, but it has not happened yet.


Another point is this: one of my friends fits in this category. He bought an HDTV set, but not the HD tier from his cable company. So does that mean he doesn't watch HDTV? Nope. He also bought an OTA antenna. Question is, how do your stats cover these cases?

They are not my stats. Obviously, to get an accurate picture of the audience and what it is watching you need to ask the right questions. The CEA study may have done this, but I'm not going to pay hundreds of dollars for the study to find out. Obviously your friend must have some reason to pay for cable in addition to that which he can get for free. Why don't you ask your friend why OTA HD is not sufficient? And then ask what percentage of their TV viewing is via that antenna?


By the way, Target is selling a 13" TrueTech (house brand) CRT SDTV for $99. 4:3 aspect ratio. One of the very few CRT TVs left on its shelves. This also sports an SDTV logo, same as the one I first saw last weekend. It's the same as the HDTV logo, with S replacing H.

Yup.

There's a lot of hype about the number of homes that now have an "HC capable set." But we are JUST beginning to enter the market development phase where millions of people will be replacing their cheap NTSC sets with cheap ATSC sets. This is going to bring the average screen size down not up.

HD is still a niche market and will remain so for the near future. And if broadcasters figure out how to develop the mobile market, HD may well take a back seat to more lucrative options for those bits.

We are NOT in a transition to HD. We are in a transition to DTV; HD is just one of the services that will be delivered via OTA broadcasts.

My iPhone has significantly better video quality that ANY NTSC broadcast, but it's not HD.

Regards
Craig


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