robmx
06-03-2003, 01:00 PM
AVSFORUM on cost of receivers
Originally posted by Thomas Desmond
The reason they're so expensive is basically because not enough people buy them. The reason not enough people buy them is because they're so expensive AND not enough people have both HDTV monitors AND the ability to receive good DTV signals. A lot of both urban and suburban areas cannot get good reception.
There's also a huge marketing factor involved -- pick up a Sunday insert from one of the big consumer electronics store, and you find a couple of pages of HD-ready sets, but usually no mention of the tuners to receive the HD signals. Go into the store, and the televisions are prominently displayed -- usually in a separate location from the tuners, which are tucked away in a corner.
If Best Buy (or whoever) suggested at the time of sale that the buyer of a $2,000 HD-ready set also spend another $300 or so for a tuner to go with it, they'd probably sell more tuners. They could also provide referrals for antenna installations for those who need one.
While I know that a strategy like that wouldn't be effective everywhere, it would certainly work well in most mid-American cities, and probably in suburban locations (where people have houses instead of condos) pretty much anywhere.
Of course the reason that this doesn't happen is that the store would rather sell you a satellite system or (in some locations) a digital cable subscription where they get a kick back from the resultant subscription. Free OTA DTV doesn't provide that second revenue stream -- and I think that is really a major factor in why the marketing has been so poor and the consumer uptake has been hindered as a result.
GEAR
Agree on all counts. Dealers in a city like New York also have a problem with customers who can't get reception and want to return the receiver. To much hassle and not enough profit.
Then you have the size of the market. While the US is big the world is bigger and most receiver manufacturers have passed on making recievers for the US 8-VSB modulation since it is not standard. They can make receivers that will sell in many countries where the growth in digital TV is growing rapidly and where reception is not the problem it is here and where a simple SDTV receiver is all that is required.
Pace offered to make HDTV receivers for the US but was ignored by Congress and our FCC back in 2000. Pace only competes for cable and satellite receivers in the US as a result. They are making millions of receivers for the UK and other countries and compete with a myraid of competitors who introduce new receivers every week.
Here is a letter to the FCC from Pace. They mention $300 to $400 receivers in the letter dated January 2000 but by June were suggesting $200 before Billy Tauzin in Congressional testimony.
PACE/FCC letter (http://web-star.com/hdtv/pace.html)
SDTV receivers are under $100 in the UK now and it is suggested that they will drop to $80 by Christmas.
You would think by now we would have SDTV receivers that would work with analog sets in this price range in the US so that the digital transition can get going.
Instead we need a mandate? No one else seems to. In European countries that are transitioning receivers are in short supply as demand outstrips supply in the UK, Germany and the Netherlands at numbers per population that are impressive.
If the US were selling DTV over the air receivers at the UK rate we would sell 15 million recievers this year. Check out
Freeview (http://www.freeview.co.uk/)
In Berlin they are selling 200,000 receivers in just one city in the last 5 months and the cable companies are complaining of unfair competition. Hows them apples for turning the tables.
In the Netherlands they introduced a new digital service just a few weeks ago and already they are short on receivers. Take a look at this antenna.
Netherlands (http://www.digitenne.nl/watheeftunodig/antenne.asp)
Over the air free TV is making a comeback where it is making sense.
Originally posted by Thomas Desmond
The reason they're so expensive is basically because not enough people buy them. The reason not enough people buy them is because they're so expensive AND not enough people have both HDTV monitors AND the ability to receive good DTV signals. A lot of both urban and suburban areas cannot get good reception.
There's also a huge marketing factor involved -- pick up a Sunday insert from one of the big consumer electronics store, and you find a couple of pages of HD-ready sets, but usually no mention of the tuners to receive the HD signals. Go into the store, and the televisions are prominently displayed -- usually in a separate location from the tuners, which are tucked away in a corner.
If Best Buy (or whoever) suggested at the time of sale that the buyer of a $2,000 HD-ready set also spend another $300 or so for a tuner to go with it, they'd probably sell more tuners. They could also provide referrals for antenna installations for those who need one.
While I know that a strategy like that wouldn't be effective everywhere, it would certainly work well in most mid-American cities, and probably in suburban locations (where people have houses instead of condos) pretty much anywhere.
Of course the reason that this doesn't happen is that the store would rather sell you a satellite system or (in some locations) a digital cable subscription where they get a kick back from the resultant subscription. Free OTA DTV doesn't provide that second revenue stream -- and I think that is really a major factor in why the marketing has been so poor and the consumer uptake has been hindered as a result.
GEAR
Agree on all counts. Dealers in a city like New York also have a problem with customers who can't get reception and want to return the receiver. To much hassle and not enough profit.
Then you have the size of the market. While the US is big the world is bigger and most receiver manufacturers have passed on making recievers for the US 8-VSB modulation since it is not standard. They can make receivers that will sell in many countries where the growth in digital TV is growing rapidly and where reception is not the problem it is here and where a simple SDTV receiver is all that is required.
Pace offered to make HDTV receivers for the US but was ignored by Congress and our FCC back in 2000. Pace only competes for cable and satellite receivers in the US as a result. They are making millions of receivers for the UK and other countries and compete with a myraid of competitors who introduce new receivers every week.
Here is a letter to the FCC from Pace. They mention $300 to $400 receivers in the letter dated January 2000 but by June were suggesting $200 before Billy Tauzin in Congressional testimony.
PACE/FCC letter (http://web-star.com/hdtv/pace.html)
SDTV receivers are under $100 in the UK now and it is suggested that they will drop to $80 by Christmas.
You would think by now we would have SDTV receivers that would work with analog sets in this price range in the US so that the digital transition can get going.
Instead we need a mandate? No one else seems to. In European countries that are transitioning receivers are in short supply as demand outstrips supply in the UK, Germany and the Netherlands at numbers per population that are impressive.
If the US were selling DTV over the air receivers at the UK rate we would sell 15 million recievers this year. Check out
Freeview (http://www.freeview.co.uk/)
In Berlin they are selling 200,000 receivers in just one city in the last 5 months and the cable companies are complaining of unfair competition. Hows them apples for turning the tables.
In the Netherlands they introduced a new digital service just a few weeks ago and already they are short on receivers. Take a look at this antenna.
Netherlands (http://www.digitenne.nl/watheeftunodig/antenne.asp)
Over the air free TV is making a comeback where it is making sense.
