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?"

Comments

It's just the beginning...

[grogdamighty]

At this point HDTV's development, it's still a costly technology. It's not an early adopter device any more, but it hasn't even come close to reaching critical mass in the general populace yet. Despite this, it's very clear where the future of technology is, and any television station that waits till HDTV is the standard will pay for that in lost revenue in the future.

Not going HD would be like cable companies saying "No need for us to build high speed infrastructure - everybody likes dial-up."

Re:And what about for the consumer?

[Salvance]

That's exactly the problem ... nobody realizes that the consumer is who needs to make the decision

Another problem is that the television networks are looking for traditional ways to exploit HDTV rather than innovate. It should come as no surprise that advertisers wouldn't pay more for regular commercials during HDTV broadcasts ... a viewer can change the channel in the middle of an HDTV commercial just as easily as any other.

Broadcasters fail to willingly recognize two driving factors for HDTV:

• The public now demands it, so they don't really have a choice (other than beg the government to force carriers to give the networks kickbacks)
• The technology and vastly improved resolution will allow greater integration of programs with the internet. This would allow viewers to seamlessly interact with game shows via a remote, or to purchase clothing that their favorite soap stars might be wearing. Advertisers are willing to pay HUGE sums of money for interactive content and online purchasing.

Where I do agree with the networks is their argument for dropping traditional HDTV radio wave broadcasts. It's ridiculous for the government to mandate that HDTV be receivable via antenna, let the networks use public demand as a gauge for where and how to best deliver hi-def.

Chicken and egg

[Sparohok]

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.

Re:no common sense case

[timeOday]

'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.'...

My biggest problem with HDTV is that it just means my cable bill is bigger at the end of every month.

I say we will have HDTV, and we will not pay extra for it, any more than we pay a premium for color or stereo. The HD premium will become small enough that competion alone will push it forward. I already have my Cable company calling trying to switch me over to digital but I won't, not if it costs extra. Eventually they'll get sick of paying to maintain the analog system and move me over with little or no premium. That's if I even want cable TV by then. Years ago I never thought I'd escape the phone company, but I switched to VOIP about two years ago and have no intentions of going back.

Re:There are NO 5$ HDMI cables due to bad HDMI spe

[EtherMonkey]

I recently bought a projector that took HDMI, that is when I startedlooking for HDMI cables. Turns out the cheapest HDMI cable 3ft is for 30$-40$. if u want anything longer, your are looking at 100$ plus. Researching more I discovered that reason for this is the specs, strangly yes, the specs. An article I read says the HDMI spec (an off shoot of DVI) was designed by computer engnineers and not video engineers. HDMI uses 4 twisted pair with no error correction (unlike TCP/IP) to send real time data and has a huge bandwidth requirements (HDTV). if they were video engineers they would have choosen coaxial. Anyhow, due to this, there are complications in the manufacturing of HDMI cables and achieving 100 ohm impedence is a big issue on these twisted pair cables.

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.