[opendtv] Re: News: The Real Fight Over Fake News

  • From: Craig Birkmaier <craig@xxxxxxxxx>
  • To: opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Wed, 4 Jun 2008 12:06:43 -0400

At 10:31 AM -0400 6/4/08, Allen Le Roy Limberg wrote:
Cable will have to switch to all digital plants as the analog TV receivers
currently in service are retired.  Only DTV receivers are being sold
anymore.

And every one is still being shipped with an analog (cable ready) tuner. The ONLY boxes that do not include analog tuners are the NTIA CECBs.

That being said, this is an economic decision for the cable companies; it is not an issue for DBS which is already digital.

It boils down to opportunity costs for the spectrum currently dedicated to the analog tiers. IF they can make enough ADDITIONAL money re-assigning that spectrum to digital cable and broadband services, THEN they will shut down the analog tiers and deploy various solutions for those who do not have digital tuners:

1. Low cost D/A devices like the "dongle" that Pace is building;
2. SD quality STBs with and without DVRs
3. HD quality STBs with and without DVRs.

Keep in minds that hardly ANY of the HD capable TVs shipped to date have digital cable tuners in them. Only a tiny percentage have one-way cable cards, and virtually none have two-way cable cards.

It's hard to tell how much longer the CE guys will keep shipping new TVs in the U.S. with NTSC/analog cable ready tuners. My guess is that they will continue to do so until a significant percentage of cable systems turn off those analog tiers.

Regards
Craig



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