[opendtv] Re: Cheap SDTV
- From: "Manfredi, Albert E" <albert.e.manfredi@xxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 13 Apr 2007 17:53:58 -0400
John Shutt wrote:
> Enter the FCC tuner mandate. What this has done is to force
> manufacturers to include an ATSC tuner into their sets.
I'm still miffed that the FCC forced Americans to buy UHF tuners, back
in the early 1960s.
> However, once you do that, you have 90% of what you need to
> also include a QAM tuner for digital cable. Currently, cable
> companies are relying on cable boxes to control access to the
> expanded digital tier of service. With the recent availability
> of so many digital cable ready television sets, how long
> before they begin to encrypt those digital channels as well?
There should be no logical reason for cable companies to encrypt what
channels are available FOTA, at the very least, right? At least not for
cable outlets in private homes, where the homeowner or renter needs to
pay for the cable anyway. In apartments, the cable company could, in
principle, control whether an apartment gets a live cable feed or not,
just like they do in private homes. I know some apartments provide live
cable feeds always, but that should really be up to the cable company.
This is why the new Samsung plain-jane STB sells well here (well, sells
out regularly anyway). It allows cable subscribers to receive HDTV from
all local channels without having to pay extra over their existing cable
subscription fee.
Who knows. That could be why retailers are "encouraged" to keep very few
in stock.
That $125 price John Limpert saw is impressively low, considering that
the common wisdom held that ATSC tuners would add "hundreds of dollars"
to the price of cheap sets. An optimist sees one negative truism after
another being knocked down.
Bert
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