[mythtv-users] FW:HD TV's Slow Addoption

Brian J. Murrell brian at interlinx.bc.ca
Wed Jun 27 13:14:52 UTC 2007


On Wed, 2007-06-27 at 09:00 -0400, Dean Collins wrote:

> Wow that figure blows me away it's so low.

Why?  I imagine a lot of people are like me: not interested.  For a
number of reasons:
     1. The sets are too expensive.  What I have (SDTV) works perfectly
        fine.  Why would I spend (a lot of) money to replace it?  Even
        if I did have to replace it, why would I spend the extra to get
        that HD?  I can get an SDTV for less.
     2. SDTV seems to satisfy my requirements in picture quality just
        fine.
     3. I don't want to get on the STB treadmill, having to invest in
        hardware (i.e. more expense) just to get HD which I would then
        have to throw away when either:
             A. My provider obsoletes my equipment with their next
                whiz-bang viewer experience.
             B. I'm sick of the crap my provider is giving me and I want
                to change providers.
     4. I tend to be skeptical about how much true HD I can get from my
        provider.
     5. I don't want to have to completely "class-upgrade" all of my
        Myth hardware to capture, store and display that HD content.

Granted that last one probably is not a factor for most people.  (Some
of) the other three probably are.

> Basically if people replace their tv's every 5 years (eg 20% a year)
> then their is no 'rapid' deployment of HD sets,

That's even assuming they pay the extra cost for HD.  Maybe those doing
replacements will opt for the lower cost SDTVs still.

> I mean I have been dissapointed that out of the 400 or so channels
> here on Time Warner NY we only have about 20 or so in HD,

Yeah, my #4 above.

> but based on those figures I can see why networks aren't exactly
> rushing out to replace everything in HD.

Somebody's gotta bite the bullet.  If networks don't provide HD content,
consumers are not going to pay the extra for an HD set to receive SD.
Consumers should not be the ones expected to take the gamble on the
other side coming to the party.  That is usually the job of the producer
in a producer-consumer relationship seeing as the producer is usually
the one making the money out of their relationships.

b.

-- 
My other computer is your Microsoft Windows server.

Brian J. Murrell
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