Bert, I think you misunderstood me. The secondary TV sets will no longer be able to receive free OTA signals after NTSC shut-off because those sets only contain NTSC tuners. These are the sets that potentially could benefit from an ATSC STB. That assumes, of course that (a) those sets are now actually being used to watch NTSC OTA broadcasts and (b) the owners of those sets would rather spend another $50 and accomodate another appliance just to maintain the privelege of watching free OTA broadcasts on those sets rather than connecting the old set to satellite or cable or some other in-home distribution network, or rather than just buying a new DTV set for the bedroom, kitchen or wherever. I'm not talking about 8-VSB reception, I'm talking about economics and consumer behavior and wondering what really is the TAM for ATSC STBs after NTSC shut-off.No one knows exactly how American consumers will respond to the reality that a secondary TV set in the bedroom or kitchen will no longer be able to receive free OTA signals after NTSC shut-off.We have seen many reports of the LG 5th gen-based ASTC receivers for PCs doing quite well with indoor antennas, even for reception from 50 miles away or more or reception in congested RF environments. If 3rd gen STBs such as mine are less than bulletproof at indoor reception, this is not the case for newer receivers. Which means, if the "reality" you mention is reality, it will be only due to deliberate sabotage of DTT by whatever dark forces in the US. My contention is that most of those sets are not used for watching free OTA NTSC broadcasts today, and that among those that are, many consumers will not even spend $50 (if that is in fact the price in 2009) for the ATSC STB. Mark Schubin wrote: I understand Mark's math that says it will take 10+ years to replace all the analog sets, but I contend that all the analog sets don't need to be replaced! Consumers won't necessarily run out and buy a new DTV set to replace every bedroom or kitchen TV set they own, but that doesn't mean they're going to buy ATSC STBs either. If you are a real optimist, the TAM for those STBs might be in the 10's of millions of units. But it might be much much lower than that. The fact that all new TV sets have (or will by then have) DTT tuners is a factor. The fact that most consumers will never use those DTT tuners is an even bigger factor.Nielsen just reported 2.73 TV sets per U.S. TV household and 111,400,000 U.S. TV households. That's about 304 million U.S. TV sets, the vast majority of them without DTT-reception capability. CEA reported sales of ALL types of TVs in 2005 as 29,881,000 units. So, assuming that number holds (it has been falling), and every owner of a non-DTT-capable TV buys one that's capable, it will take more than ten years to replace all the analog sets. February 18, 2009, if it remains the first U.S. day without analog TV broadcasts, will be very interesting. -- Frank ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 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. |
