[opendtv] Re: Bob, where are the tunerless monitors?

  • From: Tom Barry <trbarry@xxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Sun, 15 Jul 2007 19:15:42 -0400



Albert Manfredi wrote:
My take on this is that
> almost half of viewers with HDTV sets, which are just about the only
> ones selling anymore, have wised up to what HDTV is. Again, without
> being spoonfed by broadcasters at all. The only conclusion you can
> possibly draw is that as HDTV sets continue to sell, a huge percentage
> of viewers will be watching HDTV.
Agreed. OTA does not really have to work well for consumers to discover HD on integrated sets. Even if many channels are not available eventually anyone with an integrated HD set and a whip antenna will likely stumble onto at least one prime time HD show or sporting event that looks substantially better, at least intermittently. And they will learn to tell the difference. Some won't care much but most will at least see it. 

- Tom





Craig Birkmaier wrote:


Me thinks Bert is confusing the percentage of homes that may
occasionally use NTSC with the number of home that now
occasionally use ATSC.
I made a point of saying OTA households. These include households that supplement DBS with DTT, etc. And I made a point of asking how many of the *analog* OTA households have migrated, and will migrate, to DTT, given that we're past 1 March 2007.
If you have numbers, rather than the often repeated opinions, please share them. It seems drop-dead obvious that an OTA household, exclusively OTA or just partially OTA, will try out DTT if it's readily available in the new sets they buy.
Furthermore, the DTT homes in countries like Germany and the Netherlands, which are heavy users of cable, are also homes that use OTA TV "occasionally," as you put it. So the hype about German use of DTT has to be couched in these terms as well.
If you remember, in the mabb reports we discussed on here, a fair percentage of homes trying out DVB-T were also connected to other TV distro media. (I couldn't find that report any longer on their site.) 


Perhaps Bert is confused by the CEA Press releaseI posted on
July 2nd. The one that stated that 30% of U.S. homes now have
an HD capable display.

In that release they also gave stats on how these sets are getting
their content.

"Sixty-six percent of owners who receive HD programming get their
programming through a cable company. Of the remaining
households receiving HD programming, 27 percent are satellite, 8
percent are over-the-air, 3 percent fiber optic service and 3
percent from the Internet. This profile mirrors the U.S. television
reception profile, indicating that HD content is not resulting in a
migration to or from any one television-programming provider.
Which, of course, I never said was the case. Again, an NTSC OTA user who buys an HDTV set will have an incentive to at least try out his ATSC receiver, to get images in his set that are equivalent to those he saw in the store. So THIS is what will cause a migration to DTT, *from* OTA analog.
This was in response to Bob's consistently pessimistic assessment that no one is watching DTT. In spite of broadcasters best efforts not to promote their new medium, the pathologically negative assessments do bear constant review, given the enormous sales of HDTVs and the fact that they now have DTT reception capability out of the box. 


But this is not the whole picture. Only 44% of the homes that have
an HD capable display are watching HD content. This would lead one
to assume that the other 56% either do not have an ATSC tuner or
are not using it. Thus the actual number of -Off-air users is probably
closer to 3.5%.
Note carefully: this statistic above involves HD specifically, not the use of DTT. For example, the combined use of DBS and DTT will frequently still involve SDTV.
So, another example of pathological negativism. My take on this is that almost half of viewers with HDTV sets, which are just about the only ones selling anymore, have wised up to what HDTV is. Again, without being spoonfed by broadcasters at all. The only conclusion you can possibly draw is that as HDTV sets continue to sell, a huge percentage of viewers will be watching HDTV.
Or are you still going to pretend that 44 percent constitutes a "niche" audience?
Another point is this: one of my friends fits in this category. He bought an HDTV set, but not the HD tier from his cable company. So does that mean he doesn't watch HDTV? Nope. He also bought an OTA antenna. Question is, how do your stats cover these cases?
By the way, Target is selling a 13" TrueTech (house brand) CRT SDTV for $99. 4:3 aspect ratio. One of the very few CRT TVs left on its shelves. This also sports an SDTV logo, same as the one I first saw last weekend. It's the same as the HDTV logo, with S replacing H. 

Bert

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http://liveearth.msn.com



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Tom Barry                  trbarry@xxxxxxxxxxx  



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