[opendtv] Re: So Soon? Next-Gen Broadcast TV In Works | TVNewsCheck.com

At 11:37 AM -0400 4/28/11, Mark A. Aitken wrote:
Frankly, I am not sure that the last transition was all that traumatic. It is hard to say something was traumatic when 85% of the population barely noticed. 

Clearly more than 85% of the population were aware.
Yes, aware that they had to do nothing, except perhaps to pay for a more expensive digital tier to feed that expensive new screen in the family room.
It may have been traumatic for the broadcasters, but it is hard to feel sorry about self inflicted wounds.
You should have lived it in the shoes of a Broadcaster who knew that better options had been and were available...
Well, I was not in your shoes, but I certainly was walking along side you and other broadcasters who were trying to get the FCC to let you prove that there were better solutions.
I still remember the Congressional hearing/demo when you walked around the room with the antenna to demonstrate the robust COFDM broadcast, while the ATSC antenna was taped to a window sill behind a curtain.
It is likely that had Broadcasting NOT converted to digital (remember when DTV was about what Broadcasters were doing?) that HDTV/wide-screen displays would have continued to dribble in growth for a decade (or more) longer. It was the availability of HQ content, largely driven through availability made possible by the Network/Affiliate model (now somewhat more broken), that drove consumer adoption.
Yes, the networks and affiliates did their part, but DVD was the primary source of widescreen content for years. IMHO it was the availability of HD sports that really drove adoption once HD got rolling. And, unfortunately for broadcasters, much of the best stuff was gobbled up by ESPN.
HDMI was not even around 15 years ago, but I think I get (and have expounded) your point...make it easy!
Yup. The CE industry proved that consumers will add boxes to their TVs if the value equation is compelling. Free View proved that people would buy a STB for a compelling broadcast service.
Unfortunately, other than the improved picture, broadcasters in the U.S. have done little to improve the value equation for FOTA broadcasting. 




Interoperable, scalable, extensible.
This time broadcasters need to plan for evolutionary change, and create a business model that is compelling enough to get consumers to support the standard.
Our view of the world has actually always been rather simple. Make our product readily available (with minimum of fuss), ensure that it is compelling (subjective for sure), and make it affordable (part of that says "FREE" is a pretty good price point). From the article, I extracted the following...
"We need more bit capacity, we need more reliable service and we need the ability to seamlessly stitch together markets with a quality service that would support virtually any business model." 

Delivering bits reliably to things that move is a great starting point.

The rest is really just Apps that allow people to make those bits useful.
Of course, the ability to offer compelling content is critical. Being a middleman for media conglomerates is not likely to be a very profitable business. Providing targeted advertising vehicles for local markets and location based services could save the day. In the end the transmission component is easy. 

Getting broadcasters to embrace new business models is the tough part.

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.

Other related posts: