Ebay may be where you want to buy your integrated HDTV

Public evading 8-VSB mandate in droves. Funny the opposite is happening
in Japan where they are selling integrated HDTV sets like crazy even
though they only have three cities broadcasting OTA HDTV. Who wouda thought?

This will turn around once integrated 8-VSB units have 5th gen receivers.

Bob Miller

BTW I told ya so. As the article says the FCC can mandate to
manufacturers but not to retailers and so far not to the public. You
can't force the public to buy. Just when you need Ascroft he goes and
resigns. What you goin to do???

From TVTechnology:

Date posted: 2004-11-12

Tuner Mandate Loses Steam in the Real World

In yet another splendid example of how government policy reflects actual
human behavior, the FCC's tuner mandate is causing tuner-integrated sets
to not sell like hotcakes. Consequently, the consumer electronics
lobbies asked the FCC if it could please make the phase-in part of the
mandate go away.


In a cleverly worded statement that makes it appear as if they want a
faster digital transition, the Consumer Electronics Association and the
Consumer Electronics Retailers Coalition asked the FCC to ditch the
half-way point for phasing digital tuners into mid-sized TV sets.


"CEA and CERC requested that the 100-percent deadline for DTV tuners in
television screen sizes 25 to 36 inches be accelerated to March 1, 2006,
thereby speeding the consumer migration to DTV," stated a release from
the two groups.


The current deadline is July 1, 2006, but the half-way point--when 50
percent of sets that size have to have DTV tuners--is a year earlier.
Less than five months into the 50-percent phase-in for big-screen TVs,
the CEA is having nightmares about what the same process will do to the
category of sets that comprise the bulk of all TV sales.


As of last July 1, half of all 36-inch and larger TV sets with
over-the-air analog reception and/or CableCARD slots also had to have
over-the-air digital reception, aka ATSC capability. The CableCARD/ATSC
combo added $300 premium to the price of those sets, so guess what the
big retailers ordered by the truckload for the holidays?


Retailers appear to favor the cheaper non-ATSC sets by about
three-to-one over those mandated by the DTV tuner phase-in, based on
highly scientific numbers derived from Mark's Monday Memo. The Memo,
compiled by New York-based television expert Mark Schubin, tracks ads
for TV sales across the country. Since July, about 24 percent of the
so-sized sets in stores have included ATSC reception. (The average
number of ads for 36-inch and larger sets was 86; an average of 21 of
them had ATSC reception.)


Part of the problem is that the FCC is not the boss of Circuit City or
Wal-Mart. It can only strong-arm manufacturers into turning out
ATSC-capable sets; it can't force anyone to buy them. And retailers buy
what consumers buy, and consumers unfailingly buy the A) biggest thing,
at B) the lowest price.


It's one thing to stack up a 50-inch Hitachi widescreen LCD projection
set at $3299.97 against the very same set, only sans an ATSC tuner, for
$2999.97. It's another thing to tack $300 onto sets that retail in the
$500 neighborhood.


"CERC believes the proposed modification will eliminate the unintended
consequences of the Commission's 50 percent requirements that became
apparent only recently, but threaten to impede the DTV transition," said
CERC Executive Director Marc Pearl. "In practice, the 50-percent
requirement has proven to be unduly disruptive. It creates an artificial
scarcity of products without tuners, providing an incentive for
retailers to assure their supplies of these non-tuner products. This is
the opposite result from the one sought by the commission, and by
retailers, as a matter of public policy. Accelerating the100 percent
obligation would eliminate that situation."


Translation: getting rid of the 50-percent obligation would help
retailers and manufacturers unload their current inventory somewhere
besides eBay.

Bob Miller wrote:

All of bob's blather is:

based on
highly scientific numbers derived from Mark's Monday Memo.

So there is no reason to read it.

Matthew

"Bob Miller" obsessed in message
ink.net...
Public evading...



http://www.websters-online-dictionar...tion/monomania

"Matthew L. Martin" wrote in message ...
Bob Miller wrote:

All of bob's blather is:

based on
highly scientific numbers derived from Mark's Monday Memo.

So there is no reason to read it.

Matthew


You may consider it all blather and not want to read it, but I found
it quite interesting. Many of us thought the FCC's mandate to force
ATSC tuners into sets, where most of them will never be used, was
foolish and wasteful. Now, it appears the chickens have come home to
roost.

The FCC should never have mandated ATSC tuners in the set to begin
with. This did little to make HD happen for most people, and put an
unwarranted burden on financial consumers. So, is it any wonder
consumers are buying the cheaper, non ATSC sets? This is like the
govt telling Dell that they must ship PCs with DVD drives when they
cost $300 bucks, instead of when it made economic and business sense.

And perhaps that is a poor analogy, because the DVD drive is more
useful to more people than the ATSC tuner ever will be. The vast
majority who will be viewing HD already have either cable or sat, both
of which render the built-in ATSC tuner useless.

Chet Hayes wrote:

The FCC should never have mandated ATSC tuners in the set to begin
with.

Quite the opposite. The FCC should have mandated cable ready ATSC tuners
day one.

Matthew

--
Thermodynamics and/or Golf for dummies: There is a game
You can't win
You can't break even
You can't get out of the game

Chet Hayes gave some good reasons why ATSC tuners should not be mandated
in every TV set as did the TVTechnology article.

It is so refreshing to see Matthews reasoned response. You get to see
the gears working.

Matthew thinks that everyone should have to buy something they don't
want and will never use so that 15% don't have to think when they make a
purchase.

He believes that is the purpose of government to force purchases of junk
technology by the public at the request of special interest.

I personally believe in less government, less intrusion into what I buy
not more. In the case of the ATSC tuner mandate it is bad policy as well
as a rip off of the public. It doesn't and obviously from the article
isn't helping the digital TV transition.

But maybe Matthews reasoned arguments will win the day.

Bob Miller

Matthew L. Martin wrote:
Chet Hayes wrote:

The FCC should never have mandated ATSC tuners in the set to begin
with.


Quite the opposite. The FCC should have mandated cable ready ATSC tuners
day one.

Matthew

Chet Hayes ) wrote in alt.tv.tech.hdtv:
You may consider it all blather and not want to read it, but I found
it quite interesting.

The quotes contained nothing of actual substance, so I guess a blank screen
would be "quite interesting" to you.

Since *only* 36" TVs with NTSC tuners are required to have ATSC tuners,
it's no surprise that they don't sell well, since those sets are by far
in the minority.

Above 36", the market is dominated by displays with *no* tuner at all, like
plasma (and this is especially true in the retail world, because of the
high margins on these displays). There are almost *no* displays of *any*
kind at 36", because manufacturers have decided that the 16:9 CRT size is
34". There are only a few 36" 4:3 HDTVs of any kind.

So, is it any wonder
consumers are buying the cheaper, non ATSC sets?

In reality, consumers are buying the more expensive no tuner displays. If
the 16:9 world was dominated by 36" sets instead of 34" sets, displays
with tuners would be flying off the shelves.

--
Jeff Rife |
SPAM bait: | http://www.nabs.net/Cartoons/Dilbert/Understaffed.gif
|
|

Bob Miller wrote:
Chet Hayes gave some good reasons why ATSC tuners should not be
mandated in every TV set as did the TVTechnology article.

It is so refreshing to see Matthews reasoned response. You get to see
the gears working.

Matthew thinks that everyone should have to buy something they don't
want and will never use so that 15% don't have to think when they
make a purchase.

He believes that is the purpose of government to force purchases of
junk technology by the public at the request of special interest.

I personally believe in less government, less intrusion into what I
buy not more. In the case of the ATSC tuner mandate it is bad policy
as well as a rip off of the public. It doesn't and obviously from the
article isn't helping the digital TV transition.

But maybe Matthews reasoned arguments will win the day.

In that sense, there should be no mandates about any tuners in TV's at all.
Not a bad idea, actually. Many people never use them.


Bob Miller

Matthew L. Martin wrote:
Chet Hayes wrote:

The FCC should never have mandated ATSC tuners in the set to begin
with.


Quite the opposite. The FCC should have mandated cable ready ATSC
tuners day one.

Matthew

Jeff Rife wrote in message ...
Chet Hayes ) wrote in alt.tv.tech.hdtv:
You may consider it all blather and not want to read it, but I found
it quite interesting.

The quotes contained nothing of actual substance, so I guess a blank screen
would be "quite interesting" to you.

Since *only* 36" TVs with NTSC tuners are required to have ATSC tuners,
it's no surprise that they don't sell well, since those sets are by far
in the minority.



If you followed Bob's post, the comparison was made for the same size
sets sold with and without the built in tuner. Everyone knows that
smaller sets outsell larger ones, that isn't the issue. The issue is
it appears consumers are doing the logical thing and avoiding same
sized sets with built-in tuners because they cost $300 more. That's
$300 for a tuner the vast majority of consumers will never need or use
because they have cable or sat.

This is exactly what many of us expected to happen. And it appears
the manufacturer's clever solution, which appears to have gone by some
of you, is to pull in the 100% phase in dates so that consumers will
have to eat the higher cost without recourse. BTW, what ever happened
to the notion that this wasn't going to happen, that the tuners would
roll in at no noticeable cost?



Above 36", the market is dominated by displays with *no* tuner at
all, like
plasma (and this is especially true in the retail world, because of the
high margins on these displays). There are almost *no* displays of *any*
kind at 36", because manufacturers have decided that the 16:9 CRT size is
34". There are only a few 36" 4:3 HDTVs of any kind.

So, is it any wonder
consumers are buying the cheaper, non ATSC sets?

In reality, consumers are buying the more expensive no tuner displays. If
the 16:9 world was dominated by 36" sets instead of 34" sets, displays
with tuners would be flying off the shelves.

Chet Hayes wrote:

BTW, what ever happened
to the notion that this wasn't going to happen, that the tuners would
roll in at no noticeable cost?

If you did some research you would find that many integrated HDTVs have
an MSRP less than the HD monitors that they are replacing. WalMart has a
direct view HDTV for under $800.

Matthew

--
Thermodynamics and/or Golf for dummies: There is a game
You can't win
You can't break even
You can't get out of the game