[mythtv-users] MythTV and HDTV future

[Brian Wood]

On Mar 3, 2007, at 6:24 PM, David Brodbeck wrote:

> Brian Wood wrote:
>> On Mar 3, 2007, at 6:06 PM, David Brodbeck wrote:
>>
>>
>>> Just read recently that a requirement for all TVs sold in the  
>>> U.S. to
>>> have digital tuners is going to take effect soon.  I imagine the  
>>> price
>>> of small TV sets will increase significantly.
>>>
>>
>> They really shouldn't, as those devices are really nothing once you
>> are tuning the VHF/UHF bands anyway. The main cost of a standalone
>> card is the board itself and the power regulators, capacitors etc,
>> all of which is already there on a TV receiver main board. Really all
>> they have to do is add a chip, the real cost is probably the design
>> and documentation, as well as the FCC certification.
>>
>
> I'm not sure it's that simple.  I mean, whereas the signal chain was
> all-analog before, they now need an MPEG2 decoder and frame buffer as
> well.  This seems like a significant increase in complexity to me.

Hmmm... I was only think of the "tuner" you mentioned, not the  
decoder chain.

But think about it, a PVR card in quantity, minus the cost of the  
board, power components, connectors, IR interface, packaging,  
marketing, included software and documentation starts to get close to  
nothing. Granted the TV set might need something better than SD they  
may only do 720P, and if enough of those chips are made they should  
get pretty cheap.

But there would also be an "MPEG Tax" associated with anything using  
those patents I would suspect, that may turn out to be the largest  
part of the cost. I've read that the license fees for a consumer DVD  
player to use MPEG are around $20 per unit, and the cost might go  
higher for anything beyond 740x480.

I guess only time will tell in the end.