[opendtv] Re: US DTV Patent Royalties Range From $24 to $40
- From: Craig Birkmaier <craig@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 7 Jun 2009 09:24:35 -0400
At 5:40 PM -0400 6/6/09, Albert Manfredi wrote:
Craig, that response makes seriously no sense.
Why am I NOT surprised...
If there's anything "unfortunate" going on here, it's that cable/DBS
boxes not only have to pay the royalties too, but that there are a
heap of suckers out there perfectly willing to rent them monthly IN
ADDITION.
No Bert. What is unfortunate is that everyone is forced to buy TVs
with integrated tuners that most people WILL NOT use.
People rent cable boxes because they support services that the
consumer is willing to pay for. These include a seven day EPG,
support for two way services and most important these days, a DVR
that leverages the EPG.
The truth is that there is a hefty amount of the total that goes to
non-ATSC-specific royalties, and everyone has to pay those. And even
if you have a dumb display, say with HDMI inputs, you still have to
pay royalties on that interface, as well as on the IP residing in
the STB(s) that feed(s) it.
Yes, the royalties go to a variety of companies for a variety of
features. If, however, consumers were not required to buy an
integrated tuner, almost ALL of these features would not be present,
except for the interfaces that are used on "monitors." And there
would be no concern about the integrated tuner becoming outdated, as
an external box would be used to support the services that the
consumer DESIRES.
The truth is that a bunch of companies are dividing up a "pot of
gold" created by a government mandate for an expensive feature that
the majority of consumers DO NOT use.
But I thank you for the explanation of the H.264 royalties applying
to content providers mostly. Of course, the consumer does have to
pay that one way or the other, eventually.
Yup. Consumers pay ALL taxes and royalties.
But the terms for h.264 make it relatively painless for large
companies to include desirable features in their products. For
example, Apple added support for h.264 because the cost per user is
negligible.
We would not be having this discussion if the same were true for the
royalties associated with the purchase of a new TV today. The royalty
for NTSC was rumored to be about $1.
Regards
Craig
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