USA DTV Transition News

Archived from groups: alt.video.digital-tv (More info?)

K. B. wrote:
> <http://www.northjersey.com/page.php?qstr=eXJpcnk3ZjczN2Y3dnFlZUVFeXkyOSZmZ2JlbDdmN3ZxZWVFRXl5NjY0NTg3MyZ5cmlyeTdmNzE3Zjd2cWVlRUV5eTI=>
>
> "The transition to DTV is going extraordinarily well," said
> Jeff Joseph, vice president of the Consumer Electronics
> Association, the Arlington, Va., trade group for makers and
> sellers of consumer electronics products.
>
> It took 27 years - from 1954 to 1981 - for color TVs to be
> in 50 percent of U.S. households, said Jim Sanduski, vice
> president of marketing at Samsung Electronics Inc.'s visual
> display products group in Ridgefield Park. By comparison, it
> will have taken only 10 years, to the end of 2008, for DTV
> to reach 50 percent household penetration in the United
> States, Sanduski said.
>
>
> 50% DTV by 2008-12-31 ??

Does that include Digital Cable, Digital Satellite and ADSL Digital TV as
well as OTA 8VSB?

(UK Digital TV figures usually include all digital platforms - though
separate figures for each platform are also usually available)

Steve

Archived from groups: alt.video.digital-tv (More info?)

K. B. wrote:
> On Sat, 19 Feb 2005 10:51:01 -0000, "Stephen Neal"
> <stephen.neal@nospam.please.as-directed.com> posted:
>
>> Does that include Digital Cable, Digital Satellite and ADSL Digital
>> TV as well as OTA 8VSB?
>
> Looks like they are calling a regular TV being fed a
> converted Digital TV signal (from cable or satellite) a DTV
> since they use the term "fully-integrated DTV" to describe a
> DTV/HDTV with a built in ATSC/8VSB receiver.

Thanks for that.

I guess the other "smoke and mirrors" issue is whether they talk in terms of
"households" or "receivers". In the UK it is common for a "digital
household" to have one digital TV, but a couple of others in bedrooms,
kitchens etc. which are still analogue only.

In terms of households they are included as "digital" - but that doesn't
mean they are "entirely digital"... Their analogue sets will still go blank
when the OTA analogue service is closed down, unless they buy further DVB-T
or DVB-S set top boxes, or subscribe to more cable feeds.

The "second TV" market is a significant one for OTA Freeview DVB-T in the
UK - even in households which have digital satellite (usually pay TV) as
their main digital source in the primary viewing room.

>
> I don't think DSL Digital TV is much of a factor in the USA
> yet.

Nope - it is not really significant in the UK yet - though both the UK and
France have DSL TV systems running. (The French DSL TV operators seem to
have shipped receivers with integrated DVB-T capabilities for the French FTA
MPEG2 video as well - so will be able to offer these as soon as DVB-T stuff
kicks off in April? It looks like they will need an upgrade for DVB-T Pay
TV MPEG4 stuff though)

Interesting that recent research on TV downloading (via Bit Torrent etc.)
shows that the UK is the "worst offender" in the downloading stakes. I
guess it is because the UK is English-speaking, and a number of US shows are
shown significantly later than they are in the US (where the shows are
downloaded from). Desperate Housewives and 24 were both extremely popular -
and downloads for some episodes are numbering the 100,000s mark - which is
more than a lot of digital TV channels in the UK. I think broadcasters are
beginning to see the problem with this in terms of lost viewers and lost
advertising revenue. Whilst this isn't the same as ADSL broadcast TV - it
is an interesting side-effect of widespread broadband availability (often
uncapped), and the proliferation of PCs with video capture cards.

(The BBC, being advertising free, is actually piloting a "legal" download TV
service, which will allow UK viewers to download selected shows previously
shown in the last 7 days or so - realising that the more people who view
their content the better value the licence fee looks. It is in their
interest to make it as easy as possible for people to view their shows!)

Steve

Archived from groups: alt.video.digital-tv (More info?)

K. B. wrote:
> On Sun, 20 Feb 2005 14:22:37 -0000, "Stephen Neal"
> <stephen.neal@nospam.please.as-directed.com> posted:
>
>> I guess the other "smoke and mirrors" issue is whether they talk in
>> terms of "households" or "receivers". In the UK it is common for a
>> "digital household" to have one digital TV, but a couple of others
>> in bedrooms, kitchens etc. which are still analogue only.
>
> Seems like the idea of converting ATSC OTA DTV/HDTV signals
> to NTSC at the cable headend as a scheme to get analog cable
> viewers counted as ATSC DTV/HDTV viewers (in an effort to
> get to the 85% value needed for the shutdown of all the
> local NTSC broadcasts) is no longer considered viable.

Understandably so - I think to be realistically counted as a DTV household
you surely have to have at least one DTV receiver IN the household?!

Steve