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No Business Case for HDTV?
Lev13than writes "The head of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation argues that there is no business model for HDTV. Speaking at a regulatory hearing being held by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), CBC president Robert Rabinovitch noted that 'There's no evidence either in Canada or the United States that we have found for advertisers willing to pay a premium for a program that's in HD.' In order to cope with infrastructure and programming costs that are roughly 25 per cent higher, Rabinovitch proposes that the CBC start charging cable and satellite companies to carry their signal, and to limit over-the-air transmission. HDTV — good for Best Buy, bad for broadcasters?"
Or do they not matter in all this?
Not going HD would be like cable companies saying "No need for us to build high speed infrastructure - everybody likes dial-up."
My other sig is funny.
The number of people who actually watch tv is falling. Thanks to the internet, we don't need tv, so why would we need HDTV?
For some reason I have no desire for an HDTV. I don't look at my current $200 TV and think that I wish the picture were better, I don't want to spend $1000 or more on a TV, and I think a lot of the "content" I've seen on HDTV looks pixelated and that bothers me. So HDTV doesn't sell itself to me.
Um, don't you think there is an upper bound on the resolution you want on some images? When you start seeing every pimple, hair, and pore, I would think it stops being fantasy-enhancing and starts becoming a clinical rotation in urology or perhaps skin lesions.
When is our government going to figure out that what is best for big business is not necessarily best for THE PEOPLE OF THEIR COUNTRY!
If safety was left to the "market" cars would not have air-bags, seat-belts, crumple zones, and average fuel economy would be around 9 MPG.
It's time the US government started treating all communications (data, voice, broadcast) like roads. Make them a vital part of our infrastructure and let private companies compete to provide services to the public. (Just like private companies compete to build and maintain the roads).
I'm not usually an Eminent Domain supporter, but I would support taking the physical network monopoly from companies that have abandoned their stewardship of these networks.
Some people might not like the road analogy, but in a world where I have the choice of one broadband provider and one cable company (that raises its rates monthly) I'm not happy. I'm tired of the crappy customer service and price gouging.
I've been a free market guy my whole life, but what we have right now is not a free market.
-ted
Never seen a compression artifact have you?
The transmission media has nothing to do with compression artifacts.
Or higher error rates on an ethernet segment?
I've never seen any where the network was set up competently, no. A $5 HDMI cable would have to be really crappy to not have a 0% error rate between two systems that are only a few feet apart.
Show me a major network that refuses to broadcast in HD and I will show you a network that will be irrelevant in 5 years.
An improved technology isn't going to take off unless the _average_ consumer, buying _average_ equipment, and setting it up without special expertise, gets results that are so dramatic that everyone who sees it says "Wow!"
Color TV was that way, even with all the problems initially. Circa 1960, color TVs were fabulously expensive, persnickety, tricky to set up, had to be set up again if you moved them to a different location within the house, were tricky to tune, tended to shift color from one program to another, etc. But if you had a friend who was rich enough to afford one, you took one look at it and you said "Wow! I wannit I wannit I wannit!" So what if Dinah Shore's face changed from greenish to magentaish as she walked across the stage?
Of course, it didn't really take off until prices came down and they had solid-state circuits that didn't drift and could fudge the colors a bit so that anything close to flesh was displayed as flesh...
Technologies that are only impressive under good conditions usually fail. Right now, that's the state HDTV is in.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
I guess you need to shop elsewhere for your cables. Cables For Less has HDMI Cables for $12 (3 foot) and $16 (6 foot). Just because the big retailers charge tons for cables, doesn't mean you have to pay those prices.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
Agreed. when you want to run 20'-100' HDMI cable spend the big bucks on good HDMI cable. Otherwise? Save your money. If you want to spend it, buy a better receiver. Even when it comes to speaker cable, don't waste your money on monster cable. Buy generic OFC in bulk and make your own since you probably can't even measure let alone hear any difference.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
The problem is its "HD".... I am NOT GOING TO BUY a damn thing until its NO LONGER HD, but is the new standard-definition.
As long as they can keep using the two magic letters "HD", they will keep charging stupid idiots more just for those 2 letters.
When the ONLY TV's available are all HD, then I will replace my old 27"incher.
-- Given enough time and money, Microsoft will eventualy invent UNIX.
HDTV is a classic case of chicken and egg. Without an installed base, the industry has no incentive to produce and broadcast HD content. Without content, on the other hand, there will be no installed base. You can't blame the broadcasters for following their financial incentives, any more than you can blame consumers for rejecting high priced HDTV hardware on which they had nothing to watch.
Fortunately, broadcasters, unlike consumers, are beholden to federal regulators and can be coerced. The FCC saw this chicken-and-egg problem coming and mandated terrestrial broadcast of HD content in the US. The Canadians should do the same. If you broadcast SD, you have to broadcast HD as well.
Anyway, none of this matters anymore. HDTV is finally a done deal. Between the US tuner mandate, HD capable enabled game consoles, and the price trajectory of LCD flat panels, consumer adoption of HDTV is unstoppable. Advertisers and broadcasters will be dragged along soon enough.
Actually there is a business case for it.
Only it has nothing to do with television, and everything to do with the FCC being able to auction off all the old television bandwidth to wireless carriers.
And yes, I do have that in writing.
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
The CBC has been mismanaged and out of touch with Canadian's for so long that they deserve their position. However Canadian's haven't deserved what the CBC has force fed them all these years and shouldn't lose the CBC (Which was once a wonderful institution and a positive force) Rabinovitch should be fired. As for HNIC going to CTV/Bell GlobalMedia, well, The CRTC should earn its keep for once by saying NO unless CTV switches over to OTA broadcasting as well. I should not be forced to pay money to a media cartel set up in the interests of promoting Canadian entertainment when it does no such thing and does not allow ordinary Canadians access.
Cables at consumer electronics stores are like soda at fast food joints -- ridiculously high markup items, but most people will get them with their purchase anyways. On the bright side, these people keep margins down on the more, er, meaty items, for those who get their complementary goods elsewhere.
Attention zealots and haters: 00100 00100
Don't kid yourself. If the benefit gained by a legal infraction is greater than the potential fines due to being caught, then there is a business case for any crime. Hell, the fact that the RIAA suing random people from evidence which has proven unreliable is legally questionable. They've made a business case for it.
The first step in any discussion about laws with respect to corporations is learning to play by the same rules they do.
It's been a long time.
OK OK, one laaast point -- anyone who doesn't feel HD is a worthwhile upgrade SERIOUSLY needs to get their eyes checked. I recommend doing an A/B comparison between SD and HD, of the same content. HD is only truly profound when you _go back_ to SD, and you ask yourself, how the hell did I deal with this shit for so long? BRING ON MORE HD!!!
I've done just that, and I still just don't see the point. Sure you MIGHT be able to see a bit more blades of grass, but big deal. The benefit just isn't there. This IS NOT a black-and-white to color revolution like it's been made out to be. The difference between HD and SD isn't nearly as large as the HD industry, which you are a part of, would have us believe. If such a difference did exist, the why do 50% of HDTV owners think their watching HD content, when they're not? I'll tell you. Self delusion. ("I paid $8,000 for super clear tv, and by god it is!")
It's hype. Successful hype mind you, but still just hype. If was as big a deal it's being made out to be, then the corporations wouldn't of needed the power of legislation to coerce the public into an upgrade. The public would be upgrading voluntarily. The fact that HDTV conversion has been so slow, and sales of HD channels lethargic so far is indicitive that there's little to no demand. I'm sure you're seeing a ramp in sales of HD equipment, now, but it's not because of some sort of spontaneous demand. It's the fact that government is banning analog. The deadline is looming, and panic is setting in. If you didn't have Uncle Sam as your salesman, you'd still be trying to move box 1.
The way this HDTV conversion is going down smells. And as a capitalist, it's disturbing. It's command economy meets the oligarchy.
The fact that you make your living selling HD equipment and now you're telling everyone to upgrade makes you're opinion circumspect. That isn't meant to imply that you're being intensionally dishonest. Frankly, I think you merely drank your own kool-aid. Just like those HDTV owners, that can't even tell their not watch HD content.
On the other hand, you have the SRC, the french counterpart of CBC. I've been watching HD shows for a year a half now, original programming, no dubbed stuff from the United States. And quality programming. It may not rank as high as TVA 's offerings (I view TVA as Quebec's FOX), but the quality of the content and the HD picture (with 5.1 surround, something a lot of HD shows in the States seem to lack, or maybe my provider is dropping the 5.1 on Prison Break and Heroes) make SRC the best offering for a TV viewer in Quebec. I noticed recently that there are a lot of ads in HD on SRC these days. And not just promos from the network. I'm talking about car ads, bank ads, etc.
I don't know about CBC because I never watch it, but the french branch of the government owned station certainly seems to embrace HD.
I dunno, I sometimes wonder if most people even care. I've seen far too many people watch SD programming all stretched out on their new wide screen TV to believe that they actually give a shit about extra resolution. They just go to the store and buy whatever teh salesman is pushing that day. Nothing too expensive, mind you, but nothing too cheap (SD) either. They pay extra for the illusion of higher quality and then go home and set their TV to stretch an SD picture to fit the 16:9 screen... like they dont' even notice that it is distorted! WTF?
-matthew
"THERE IS NO JUSTICE, THERE IS ONLY ME." -Death
Not only that, but HD means wealthier customers, something that every advertiser craves.
I dont think he is an idiot, he is just trying to make things cheaper for his company by claiming things he knows are not entirely true.
The only people wondering that are the pasty guys glued to their TVs. Everyone else knows the difference between live and Memorex.
Yep. The difference between live and Memorex is that my HDTV costs the same as season tickets to my favorite football team, and I don't have to pay to fly all over the country to watch them every Sunday. Plus, the beer is cheaper at home, too!
Any fragment of imaginary and/or entertainement work, political, and religion in any form and media : book, music, tv show, film, games (p&p, board, computer & console) is a fragment of our culture and of the Zeit-Geist, whether of good or bad quality by your own personal feeling. This is roughly the only way you live your culture, or at least what is left of it for the next generation. How else do youn want to live it in ? Talk with friends ? That aren't culture per see. Go out of visit the world ? Ain't it either.
And like the gp said, this is where the steal of our culture kick in : all those piece of CULTURE, were supposed to come back to us the PUBLIC after we the public granted them a TEMPORARY monopoly on selling their stuff. Alas for anything done during your lifetime now, it will never come back during your life time as public domain, and maybe not even to your children, to your grand children. Thus a stealing organized by lobyying. The fact that it was m,ade into a law doesn't change the fact that only 1 stackholder was involved and the other stackholder (the public) was taken its goody gainst its will. In my culture we call that stealing.
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Ah, but the real question is... will they bump up the bitrates, or will they use the extra space they have to cram another channel or two in there? Companies are about producing products just barely above (in quality) what the market will tolerate. You make money typically on quantity, not quality.
You mean this $7.69 HDMI cable cannot exist? And that this 16 foot HDMI cable for $29.99 is a figment of my imagination??? Eghads! How in the world was I ever able to get a usable signal from my home theater?
Perhaps that's because you should have spent more time researching, or at least talking to a real expert, and not the pimply-faced sales droid at your local electronics store who will spin more lies in pursuit of that 75% premium cable profit margin than a politician chasing re-election.
And, by the way, comparing HDMI to TCP/IP is like comparing Apples to Stainless Steel Cookware. And TCP/IP does not demand error correction (UDP is best effort). But TCP/IP does run over Ethernet or Token-Ring, either of which can run over 100-Ohm UTP. In fact, TCP/IP over GB-Ethernet on 4-pair 100-Ohm UTP has sufficient bandwidth to carry multiple real-time HDTV feeds up to 100 meters.
Finally, there is nothing magical about making 100 Ohm UTP cable. It's been around for dozens of years and is the most common specification. It is certainly MUCH SUPERIOR FOR CARRYING DIGITAL SIGNALS compared to coaxial cable, which attenuates and degrades the digital waveforms over distance due to its inherent capacitance characteristics.
I will concur that HDMI cables longer than 30 feet are unheard of, and that this is because of the specification. Every network standard has distance limitations. It's a trade-off between performance, convenience and cost. In defense of the standards team I can only say that most people tend to put their TV and tuner/dvd/etc on the same side of their house. Sort of like putting the oven in the kitchen with the fridge. But I'm kind of conservative that way.
--- A man with a briefcase can steal more money, than any man with a gun. [Don Henley]
You have not lived until you've seen the early-90s copy of The Absolute Sound which explained why a copy of a music CD sounded better than the original on the same equipment.
I'm not familiar with The Absolute Sound, but it's not impossible that a copy of a music CD could sound better than the original. After playing and handling it for a while, the original may acquire minor scratches which can be overcome by multiple reads, but cause occasional skips and dropouts when playing directly on a plain audio CD player. When copying the CD, you're free to read from the disc multiple times and correct more errors, and then burn the data to a fresh medium absent of dust and scratches.
Of course, no post on this subject would be complete without the obligatory $500 potentiometer knob and concrete turntable links.
I have a fairly high end HD projection setup. I'd never want to go back. I rarely, and by that I mean maybe once a month, view anything in standard broadcast formats. No point to it. Looks like crap on toast. Cold, unbuttered, burned toast. Every time I read about someone saying that HD "isn't all that", I just laugh quietly. My system drops jaws on a regular basis when we have visitors, and it could be better yet. And... it will be. :)
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.