Manfredi, Albert E wrote: > Once people start buying integrated sets, demand for > STBs will drop. But if integrated sets come with the > cheapest possible 8-VSB tuners, then demand for the > really good tuners in STBs should remain. > My own guess is that after a shutoff we will find that, no the integrated tuners are NOT good enough but will then find someone successfully marketing STB's that work to supplement the cheap integrated tuners. Demand for the 'good' tuners should rise (emerge?). Of course this assumes it is possible to build and market an STB as good as the 5th gen Shubin test box. But hopefully it is. At the least I'd assume someone would at least try to build some OTA PVR's that work once analog is shut off. In spite of my avowed skepticism about the tuners I'm still in favor of shutting off analog as soon as possible. I think the resulting hoopla will probably start a debate and terminate a stalling process that might otherwise take another dozen years. - Tom > Tom Barry wrote: > > >>Answering that question was the main reason I started >>my AVS Forum hardware poll 4 years ago. The most >>recent answer from my poll of January 2005 says that >>15.02% of the 233 AVS respondents primarily used an STB >>that did not also get either cable or satellite. > > > And that's with nothing particularly different about the > DTT stream compared with the NTSC stream, other than > image quality. > > The point we seem to forget is that with a date certain > set by the FCC, *whether or not* the broadcasters do > anything different, the number of stand-alone STBs will > increase quite a bit, for at least some time to come. > This is when OTA users, that 15-20 percent overall at > least (without counting 2nd and 3rd sets) will have to > buy the STB or toss out their old sets, or become > dependent on an umbillical service. That last option > will soon cost a lot more than the STB. > > Once people start buying integrated sets, demand for > STBs will drop. But if integrated sets come with the > cheapest possible 8-VSB tuners, then demand for the > really good tuners in STBs should remain. > > If 8-VSB STBs available to the public are not good, > then OTA viewership will drop with any sort of date > certain. That seems obvious. > > Bert > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > 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. > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 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.