[opendtv] Re: 3D TV market to grow 500% in 2011
- From: Craig Birkmaier <craig@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 23 May 2011 07:59:20 -0400
At 6:07 PM -0500 5/22/11, Manfredi, Albert E wrote:
I'll bet you a ton of money that the clueless were saying the same
thing about UHF receivers in TV sets.
Perhaps.
It was a bit of a chicken and egg situation when UHF broadcasts
started. The biggest problem was that most people had a TV with a VHF
tuner but no UHF tuner. It is quite possible that the marketplace
would have provided the UHF tuners without a mandate...
It is also important to remember that UHF was added BEFORE TVs went
"Solid State." Adding tuners with tubes was a non trivial exercise.
While I was in college my dad gave me an old audio receiver with an
add on stereo tuner. That add on was about ten times the size of my
first iPod.
> No Bert, consumers would have had A CHOICE.
No, Craig, consumers did not have a choice. That's the whole point.
Their choice was, either you buy these obsolete ATSC STBs that
barely worked, or let me show you a premium package on cable or DBS.
You still don't get it. Or in GM cars, either you pay the monthly
fee for XM radio, or you listen to analog radio, and by the way you
get to pay for the XM radio hardware anyway.
Sorry Bert, but you will never change my mind on this one. The
marketplace would most likely have offered products voluntarily, but
we will never know, as the FCC forced the issue near the beginning of
the transition.
What we do know is that the TV broadcasters did NOTHING to promote
the transition. They did as little as possible for as long as
possible, begrudgingly running a few MANDATED announcements only
after Congress imposed a hard date to end the transition. It is
absurd to think that the CE industry was responsible for the lack of
interest in ATSC, when the broadcasters were the ones who were
dragging their feet.
And remember, it is the broadcasters who were encouraging people to
move to the MVPDs so they could get that second revenues stream...
The Europeans never really embraced capitalism. They traveled the
road to socialism in the last
century,
There is some truth to that, granted, but it's not what we are
talking about here. Capitalism does NOT mean that consumers should
allow themselves to be yanked around by the nose by any greedy
industry that feels so inclined. To work well, capitalism requires
consumers to educate themselves, not to be complacent and clueless
lemmings.
I would only remind you that the cable industry got where it is was
in the early '90s thanks to COMPETITION. It was only after they
grabbed a huge percentage of U.S. homes that the media conglomerates
caught on and THEN quickly moved to take over the content side of the
MVPD equation.
But the part about "educated consumers" is something we can agree about!
Reminds me of the "second" Mac commercial with the lemmings walking
off the cliff.
I guess we cannot blame the politicians for their herding instincts...
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:
