50% of HDTV Owners Don't Use HD

Ant writes "Broadband Reports and Techdirt posted The Technology Liberation Front's article that said apparently half of all High Definition Television (HDTV) owners don't actually use the HD capabilities of their set, and nearly a quarter think they are watching high definition video when they actually haven't set it up correctly. Set-top box maker, Scientific Atlanta's survey, noted that HDTV sets will be in approximately 16 million homes across the country by the end of the year."

Comments

I believe it

[lewp]

I haven't RTFA (I really should be asleep...), but my experience with my parents backs up the headline. They recently bought one of the new Dell 50" Plasmas and had HD service installed. Their cable system places SD channels in their "normal" slots, and gives them HD versions of the same channels in the 600 range. My parents, being creatures of habit, and not traditionally technology-savvy pretty much can't tell the difference and seem to watch the SD versions of these channels 99% of the time.

It almost makes me want to cry, but I'm still glad they have it, if only for the week or two a year I visit them :). HD sporting events and Discovery HD Theater are so nice as to be almost completely different experiences from regular television.

Re:I believe it

[TerminalInsanity]

If he didn't want to pay for it, he shouldn't have poked it.

Re:I believe it

[Golias]

Wide-screen HD just might save televised hockey.

Hockey and soccer are, by far, the worst sports to watch on TV, especially hockey.

In hockey, all the action you really need to see to follow the game is happening away from the puck. If you can't see pretty much the whole rink at once, it just looks like a bunch of guys randomly skating into each other. On a 4:3 standard def broadcast, they need to stay zoomed in relatively close, or the puck simply disapears from view. (They experimented with digitally highlighting it a few years ago, but most people agreed that it looks pretty stupid.) Once you are zoomed in on two or three players, you can't see much of anything else, even where they are relative to the goal.

On HD, you can back up. This, along with the wider screen shape, allows you to show about 2/3 of the rink most of the time. It makes a huge difference. It's still not as good as being at the game (unlike football, where watching the TV broadcast can actually be a better experience than being there), but it's a big step up from what it used to be like.

Not set up properly

[ReformedExCon]

This is one of those areas where OEMs and service providers are incredibly stupid.

The high definition should be enabled by default. The broadcasts should be in high definition by default.

It's not the customers' fault that they don't use these features, it's the technology and content providers' fault for not making those features seamless.

I've always felt the goal of technology was to become as unintrusive as possible. Making things that "just work" without fiddling or even minimal setup is one way to make technology invisible.

Re:Not set up properly

[drsquare]

They are too dumb to realize that in order to get HDTV you need to get digital cable and watch certain channels. A lot of them also fuck up their AV wiring and don't use the component or HDMI cables necessary to get things really working properly.

I don't know what the fuck any of that means, this whole article is a mystery to me. HDMI? DVI? WTF? No wonder no-one can set it up properly. I thought the whole point of technology was that it made things easier? All you TV geeks should learn some things about user friendliness from Apple/Google.

There's nothing easy about learning ten thousand acronyms and five hundred cables. If the people who made TVs made kettles you'd need twelve different cables and a degree in water-boiling technology just to make a cup of tea.

Seriously, this is the kind of shit we need to teach in schools that we aren't. Setting up standard A/V equipment is a skill people need to have, and only geeky people ever learn it properly.

Standard? I thought we were talking about HDTV? That's not standard by any stretch of the imagination. I don't see why you can't just plug the TV into the power socket, plug in the aerial and switch on. That should be it. It's not the users fault that the manufacturers insist in making things as convoluted as possible.

If you need schools to teach people how to set up TVs then they're clearly too complicated.

There was actually another study recently, don't know how good it was, that showed that people couldn't tell which TVs were HD and which ones were not. Someone should test that a bit more and see if it's because of bad eyesight or whatever.

Or maybe HDTV is just overrated by TV manufacturers who want to scam people out of thousands of pounds for unwanted technologies. My TV is 14", I doubt I'd get much of a better viewing experience with a slightly higher resolution. We're not all dot-com millionaires with 50" plasma screens on the walls of our penthouse apartments.

Re:Not set up properly

[bigman2003]

As a middle-aged geek (37) and programmer, I just have too much stuff in my head to pay attention to EVERYTHING that I come across.

My wife is in charge of switching all of the clocks in the house and car during daylight savings changes. "Is this the one where you hold the button for 5 seconds, or do I have to hit it twice real fast?" that's my question. Honestly, if it were up to me, I would just wait 6 months until the clock was right again- or I would just unplug it at exactly midnight.

The REAL geek solution is to have clocks that synchonize themselves. (Computers/cell phones)

On the other hand, my cable TV system is just too damn complicated. I've got a Moxie system (don't know who makes it...don't care it's a cable box and DVR in High-Def). It works well, but there are a lot of things that take too long to do. Not that it was designed poorly, but it just does A LOT of stuff. I let my daughter take care of that. She cares enough about it to actually make it work, so does my wife.

I'm the idiot who has to give up the remote control, because I fuck it up each time. There are so damn many buttons, that I can never find things like 'info' or 'back'. So I end up watching a lot of fashion, and decorating shows, or whatever my wife or daughter want to watch.

Oh well...if I really cared enough, I could figure this stuff out. But I spend my whole work day figuring technical stuff out, and by the time I come home I don't want to do it anymore.

And no, I NEVER read the manual, or any on-screen instructions. Not because I feel I am too smart, or just above such things. Just because I really don't care if I get to use every feature...

On the other hand though- I've got a fairly complex camera, and I know how to use every feature of that. I've memorized just about every menu. Because I want to use it. I've made my choices on what I find important, and what I'm willing to ignore. You have to do that in today's world when we are surrounded by so much tech.

So I can understand people who just don't want to learn new things. It isn't always stupidity...maybe they just have other stuff going on in their head.

It's because there's nothing on!

[pair-a-noyd]

There are not many channels either on satellite or cable that have TRUE HD content.

MOST of it is just stretched to fit and looks like crap.
I have a friend that has a HDTV and satellite and there's a demo channel that plays some very impressive demos, they blow your mind. When you switch from that to other "HD" channels you can tell that the content was not filmed in HD..

What's the point of having an HDTV?? There's just not enough content out there to warrant dropping the bucks on the bling. It's status and ego. As for usability, it's not very usable. Not yet anyway..

I plan to wait a few years and use what I have until it breaks beyond my ability to repair it. By then HD content may have taken off and the price of the sets will be much more affordable.

But for now, I can go to Wally World and pick up a nice 27" CRT set with multiple inputs for $150 that will last me 10 years or more.

My recommendation is to wait a while before jumping onboard the HDTV bandwagon.
Save your bucks and let the tech improve and prices to come down.

Re:Do many people *really* care about HDTV

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

I'm not trolling , but does anyone really care enough about HDTV to
fork out huge wads of cash on a new set?

Personally, I would have to say no. I really don't care about HDTV.

Now I'm a classic geek. I like my tech. I like what works. I like what's practical. I don't like chrome and cruft, and I'm generally able to tell an overpriced, overhyped product from a reasonable, practical one.

This isn't an innate talent or state of being. I've been burned by the gaming industry too many times in my youth and as a result have developed a healty skepticism when it comes to flashy new tech.

I've seen HDTV. It looks better, but I really don't care very much. I might like the view better, but I'm not paying current prices for it. I'm still quite happy with my old CRT's resolution. That is, when I'm even watching it anymore.

For me, HDTV is a solution looking for a problem. A very expensive one at that.

I'm suprised 50% actually have HD

[pavera]

I own 2 HDTV sets, and I don't have HD programming at all. I use them to watch movies (for the 16x9 more than the high def, as dvd's aren't high def). My parents have an HDTV and they have the HD package from DirecTV, my friend has the HD package from Comcast, and another friend has dish networks HD package... In short they all suck. I refuse to pay an extra $20-50/mo for 10 extra channels that say they are "HD" channels and only actually broadcast HD maybe 20% of the time.

The worst is ESPN HD, 90% of the stuff they show on that channel is standard def, and just to rub it in your face the fill up the rest of the 16x9 screen with banners proclaiming ESPN HD! It's such a rip off. On the DirecTV HD package only 2 channels broadcast in HD more than half the time, Discovery HD and HDNET, Unfortunately, I'd say 50% of Discovery HD's programming from what I've seen is pictures of birds and flowers, no actual content, just a glorified screen saver.

In short, I'm suprised 50% of HDTV owners are actually wasting their money for a few channels that once in a while broadcast HD shows. Bring the content to HD, and more people will subscribe... Of course the networks won't have that, cause they're afraid of piracy, so until all the TVs are locked down there won't be any content....

I still feel my TVs were worth the money just for watching movies, with a good DVD player, good surround sound, good cables everywhere, watching a movie in my basement is just as engaging as watching it at the theater.. and I don't have to worry about gum stuck to my shoes or the inevitable jerk in the row behind me that refuses to shut up (or that brought his 1 year old to a 10pm showing, and wonders why the kid won't stop screaming).

Re:See how wide it is? That's the HDTV working

[thrillseeker]

My girlfriend's (no kidding) father ... is the very definition of more money than sense.

Marry her!