You are incorrect in the current time frame. HDTV is not a premium niche market TODAY. It is something that people consider when they replace their TV set. They know they can buy an analog set for $1000 or less; they also know that for a few bucks (or a few thousand bucks) more they can buy a TV set that will do their DVDs justice. Doing digital cable or digital OTA justice is just icing on the cake. I should note -- again and again -- that for a mere $300 more, these people can have a OTA stb, if their set does not offer one. These are medium income people -- okay, often with two household incomes. They do not buy a premium niche product (it ain't a niche); they buy the "next best thing." Do you also consider DVDs to be a premium niche market? How about high-speed internet access? (Here in San Diego, more than 55% of the internet connections are DSL or cable modems; in Boston, it's 51%) HDTV is a niche product. In Tijuana. If you want to go that route, all TV is a premium niche product in parts of the third world. John Willkie -----Original Message----- From: opendtv-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:opendtv-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of Craig Birkmaier Sent: Sunday, June 27, 2004 8:56 AM To: opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: [opendtv] Re: News: No Motive for HDTV Rollouts At 3:49 PM -0400 6/24/04, Manfredi, Albert E wrote: >It's the cost of doing business. Exactly. The question should not >be "how can I make money from HDTV," but rather, as time moves on, >"how can I stay in business without HDTV?" What business do you want to stay in? I will predict once again, as I have many times in the past, that HDTV will continue to be a premium niche market for a decade or more to come, and that it will NEVER completely replace other video resolutions. Will entertainment television evolve to HDTV? The reality is that for the most part it has been HD for decades, IF it was shot on film, and this has been the case for most high value content. It may not, however, have been shot widescreen. Will news evolve to HDTV? Don't hold your breath. The application does not require it. It should be obvious that the ability to be anywhere, anytime that news happens, is far more important than being there in HD. We are now accustomed to watching low frame rate satellite videophones and stuff shot with consumer camcorders (because the shooter was lucky enough to capture a newsworthy event). Will documentary evolve to HDTV? Absolutely. It is a virtual requirement today. This form of content is significantly improved with high quality imagery. It came as no surprise that Discorvery would be one of the first networks to move to HDTV. Will TV sports evolve to HDTV? It looks like the evolution has begun, but it may take a decade for the networks to shift to HD for all of the sporting events they cover. And for independent sports productions it may take significantly longer. I would not expect to see every college football game that is covered today shot in HD for a decade or more. We are talking about several hundred games on any given Saturday in the fall. The "truck" inventory is simply not available to shoot many of these games in HD. On the other hand, I do expect that HD is going to find an important role in sports performance evaluation. The ability to shoot a practice with a few cameras locked down on wide shots is significantly more appealing than having a bunch of people shooting close-ups with SDTV camcorders. And then there's High school sports, which may become a more important source of local content as the roadblocks to cheap distribution are eliminated. Will point of sale and digital signage evolve to HDTV? Absolutely! These applications can benefit from the ability to combine video and graphics easily in a high resolution environment. This is primarily being driven by the availability of addressable panel displays (LCD and Plasma). Will professional communications and training evolve to HDTV? Yes, where it is appropriate. Many professional applications need the resolution boost of HD, especially so that they can use high resolution graphics in combination with high resolution video. But a video conference with the CEO via the corporate intranet is not going to be HD any time soon. I recently visited the facilities of the Home Shopping Network in Clearwater. We talked about the potential of HDTV for their applications. The response was not only NO, but HELL NO! There is little desire to show either talent or products to their disadvantage, and this is often what happens with HDTV. Hell, we do all kinds of tricks to make people look good on SDTV, that involve eliminating resolution (like wrinkle removal). But HSN is very interested in moving to widescreen - you could call this a major renovation of the sales floor. Imagine what you could do if your store is suddenly 25% larger... This has many parallels to what happened with computer displays. People wanted more desktop real estate, not more resolution. They wanted to have more windows open, and places to place all of those tool pallets while working on a document, image or video production. For HSN, widescreen means more room to sell more products with more graphics and less "competition" between the many messages that they are delivering simultaneously. >This has happened so many times it should have been obvious way >back in the early days. It's like transition to color, transition >to hifi sound, transition to radial tires in cars, transition to >stereo radios in cars, factory-installed air conditioning, etc >etc. The profit motive quickly vanishes. Product designers need >to remain up to date because if they don't, the other guy will. > And AM radio has experienced a rebirth...based on content, not fidelity. We are evolving into a world with MANY visual resolutions that are appropriate for many applications. The notion that HDTV is going to completely replace SDTV is absurd. Regards Craig ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 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.