[opendtv] Re: 20060807 Mark's Monday Memo
- From: "Manfredi, Albert E" <albert.e.manfredi@xxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 8 Aug 2006 15:46:42 -0400
Tom Barry wrote:
>> - Time Warner Cable of Raleigh reportedly refused
>>to supply a CableCARD for a TiVo PVR, saying they will
>>supply them only for TV sets. This story is from
>>Gizmodo.com, but I've seen it elsewhere, too:
>><http://tinyurl.com/ls69l>
>
> Does this mean the final nail in the cable card(1)
> coffin. Or the beginning of a bunch of new TV's with
> builtin cable card Tivo? Or some FCC sabre rattling?
All of the above?
Last weekend, I noticed several LCD TVs with built-in ATSC and built-in
DVD player, at Target. Reasonably priced, too. Perhaps this sort of
combo set are going to become more commonplace. If you think of the
built-in PVR as a built-in HDD, as you have in PCs, suddenly it doesn't
seem so strange.
But really, the only way to kill these anti-competitive trends is to
have consumers revolt, instead of taking it like a bunch of spineless
wimps. When Time-Warner says "No cable company is required to provide
technical support or updates for equipment that they do not provide,"
consumers should show them that they ARE required to send a compatible
signal. Never mind "updates," whatever that refers to.
Those words from Time-Warner can be interpreted to mean that everything,
including your monitor, can be proprietary to the cable company.
Also this, from Mark's Memo
> I found the information on the following page to be
> most interesting. It says that in 2005 the
> widescreen proportion of "DTV" sales was 79%; that's
> significantly lower than the previous 85%, and the
> proportion is likely to fall even more this year as
> smaller sets join CEA's "DTV" numbers.
The reason for this is not hard to find, if one goes to mass-market
stores. CRT TVs are giving way to LCD TVs very fast. By definition, that
means EDTVs and HDTVs. And any LCD set of 20" or less, except a 17"
model here and there, are 4:3 sets.
This is the wonderful result of not having standardized DTV sets to
16:9. So now, as analog TV goes off the air, we will be saddled with
continued narrow screen productions, and those with small EDTV sets will
be watching their prime time fare as even smaller, letterboxed HDTV.
Wha'happened?
Bert
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