HDTV Almanac

The LCD HDTV business is highly competitive, and profit margins are razor thin for the manufacturers. They keep looking for ways to increase margins with new features, but the competition rapidly beats back any attempts at getting more money for differentiation. A case in point is the efforts to reduce blurring of moving images on LCD sets. One effective approach has been to increase the refresh rate from 60 times a second (60 Hz) to 120 times (120 Hz). This is done by taking the existing images and creating an intermediate image between each pair. This just requires some additional hardware in the controller, more or less, so it really doesn’t add much to the bill of materials for the set. Some manufacturers have gone a step further; if 120 Hz is good, then 240 Hz must be better. There are sets that do a “true” 240 Hz, inventing three intermediate frames for each pair of original images, but some are merely 120 Hz sets that then “strobe” the backlight at 240 Hz.

Worldwide LCD TV Revenue Share by Frame Rate (DisplaySearch)

The problem for manufacturers is that just about everyone now offers 120 Hz sets, and competition is driving down the price differential between the 60 Hz and 120 Hz models. As a result, we can expect to see 120 Hz become a standard feature on all but the smaller sets (where blur is less of a problem) and the lowest-priced large screens. DisplaySearch estimates that about 31% of the LCD HDTV revenues worldwide went to 120 Hz or 240 Hz sets. By 2013, 120 Hz sets will acount for 31% and 240 Hz will capture 20% of the worldwide revenues, combining for just more than half of the total.

Manufacturers are also using LED backlights as a differentiating feature, and next year we will see many 3D-capable sets designed for stereoscopic viewing at home. At this point, there is no reason to expect that these features won’t follow a similar price trajectory. Early models will carry a premium, but competition will rapidly beat these down to where you will not have to pay much more to get these features.

My friend and touch-screen technology expert Geoff Walker sent me a link to an interesting site. Price Spider scours the Web for prices on popular product categories such as HDTVs. It then can present you with a list of sites and their prices for a specific product. Nothing special so far. But the site also gives you a graph of the product’s price over the past year. For example, here’s the graph for the LG 47LG50DC 47″ LCD TV:

The blue line is the average price, and the green line is the lowest advertised price on the Web that they found. In this case, the price has settled on three different levels: a higher price into last spring, a lower price through the summer and early fall, and then dropping to its current low price in the late fall. It’s interesting to see how the average price has taken some time to settle closer to the current lowest price.

Like any spider-bot-based system on the Web, the results from Price Spider are not infallible. It may miss some deals, for example. But it does give a good overall view of the prices you can expect to find for a given product. And it also provides some good illustrations of how prices have changed over time.

I’m an unabashed fan of the Philadelphia Eagles NFL football team. Once again, the final game of the season is against the Dallas Cowboys, and the outcome will have a major impact on the playoffs leading to the SuperBowl. And the way things are headed, Time Warner cable subscribers may not get to see the game.

No, the impending blackout is not the result of any NFL rule or FCC decision. A conflict between Fox Broadcasting (owned by News Corp.) and Time Warner could result in the Fox Channel’s content being pulled from the cable system. (Full disclosure: I currently write a weekly column for FOX News Online’s Science and Technology section, so I have a freelance relationship with a different part of News Corp.) There are many different views of how this spat came about and what it means, but here’s the short version: ad revenues are down for the Fox television broadcast network, and cable companies collect subscription fees for content that includes that programming. Some of the content is among the most popular, including American Idol, 24, The Simpsons, and Fox Sports (including NFL game coverage). Fox argues that it should receive a share of the revenues produced by this popular content and is asking for $1 per subscriber per month. Time Warner says that this content is provided by Fox broadcast stations for free over the air, so why should cable companies have to pay for it? The truth is that cable companies do pay some broadcast networks a “retransmission fee”, but it’s a lot less than $1. Analysts seem to think that the two companies will play chicken right up to the January 1st deadline, and then compromise for something around $.50 to $.60 per subscriber per month.

All this had broader implications, and at the root of the problem lies the question of who will pay to produce and distribute video content. Consumers are already angry with cable companies for the steady increase in subscription fees. And consumers don’t want to watch the commercials that pay for the free broadcast television, so they get TiVo and other DVR devices so that they can skip them. Cable companies have a complex network of physical infrastructure that needs expensive maintenance and upgrades, and they need to defend against competition from phone companies and satellite television services. For the network, it’s expensive to put these shows together, and with falling ad revenue (who wants to pay for ads that get skipped?) it becomes more difficult to make money on that investment. But the bottom line is that the money has to come from somewhere.

The two sides will resolve this fight, because the alternative will hasten the advent of changes that neither side really wants: more people taking advantage of free local broadcasts, or the “a la carte” pricing that consumers want for cable service so that they only have to pay for the stations that they watch. But this won’t be the last fight between broadcast network and subscription television service, and eventually we will see more fee-based options as the industry struggles to figure out who will pay. And it’s a dangerous question to ask; some large newspapers have discovered that the answer is “nobody.”

If Santa didn’t put a flat screen in your stocking, you don’t need to cry or pout, as the good prices on LCD and plasma HDTVs seem to be hanging around like the extra pounds gained from holiday cheer. I’ve checked a couple price watch sites, and conducted my own unscientific scan of a stack of sales flyers I have here that date back to early November. The bottom line is that it appears that stores have held the advertised prices steady for the past couple of months. The fact that they have not gone down indicates that they may not be too desperate to move merchandise, but the fact that they haven’t gone up would suggest that they are still looking to make a couple sales.

This week should be a good time to try and make a deal. I expect that your local WalMart may not have a lot of leeway to bargain with you, but it’s worth a shot at the electronics and big box stores. They’ll be trying to round out the end of year sales totals, and you may be able to end the year with a little extra savings.

P.S. You would have to have been particularly naughty this year if you hope to have Santa still pay for your new TV. At about $50 a ton on the spot market, you’d need to have earned at least 20,000 pounds of coal to have enough to trade for a 42″ LCD.

As you read this, I may be curled up with a cup of cocoa and a grandchild in my lap. It’s a safe bet that I won’t be at my computer, however. I wrote this holiday greeting beforehand and set it on autopilot to be delivered to you today.

If you celebrate Christmas, I hope that yours is a merry one. If you celebrate some other holiday at this time of year, I wish you all the best. May all of you have a wonderful, relaxing, and renewing holiday season. And thank you for your support of the HDTV Almanac; it’s my gift to you and I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoy bringing it to you.

All best wishes,

Alfred

You can’t see them. You can’t hear them. You can’t touch them. Yet they are responsible for an enormous amount of our communication and entertainment. Most people would use the general term “radio waves” to refer to that part of the electromagnetic spectrum with wavelengths longer than visible light, but these are also used for cell phones, television stations, cordless phones, wireless networks, and an enormous range of other functions. Part of the reason to switch from analog to digital television was so that large sections of these frequencies could be put to other uses.

The FCC has been charged by Congress to come up with a plan for a nationwide wireless mobile broadband system, and industry groups are weighing in on the subject with extensive comments. Some sources claim that broadcast television is not using all of its assigned spectrum efficiently, and that some could be reassigned for broadband Internet services. Understandably, the TV broadcasters are asking the FCC to keep their hands off the TV frequencies.

The cell phone system has transformed both personal and business lifestyles. The Internet has also had a similar impact. A system that would give us broadband access to Internet content wherever we are would no doubt have a similar transformational effect. It could move us from the one-to-many model of radio and television broadcasts, and replace it with an on-demand system where individual consumers could choose what information they wanted, any time, anywhere. And just as people are giving up their landlines for cell phones, a wireless broadband system might eventually mean the end of broadcast television, cable service, and wired Internet access; the only wire coming to your home or office might be the power line.

The stakes are high in this debate about how we can best use the finite set of frequencies, so you can expect some strong statements coming from all the camps who might have an interest in the outcome. It’s not something that will be settled overnight, but it’s a major project with significant implications for how we get our information and entertainment in the future.

I’ve mentioned several times that I view James Cameron’s blockbuster “Avatar” as a key factor in determining the fate of 3DTV in the home. It could help launch stereoscopic technology as a central part of the maintstream media, or it could leave the effect in the pile of “gimmicks” used to attract audiences.

It’s still too early to weigh its impact on 3DTV, but it’s clear that all the trailers and extended previews did the job of revving up consumer interest in the movie. According to Variety, it took in more than $236 million worldwide in its premiere weekend. Of that, about $77 million came in from cinemas in the U.S. And keep in mind that the weekend also featured a significant blizzard throughout the northeast, which undoubtedly put a damper on attendence in that area, so the numbers could have been even higher. The movie debuted in 3,452 theaters in the U.S., of which 2,032 showed it in stereoscopic 3D.

So the bottom line at this point is that “Avatar” has been well-received by the audiences. And if it proves out that skillful use of the 3D technology enhanced the experience, then I expect a boost for the 3DTV products we will be seeing at CES in two weeks.

One of the reasons everyone wants OLED TVs is because they can be so incredibly thin. But LCD panels are getting remarkably thin in spite of the need for a bright backlight to make them work. High brightness LEDs arranged along the edge of the panel with complex light guides do a great job of delivering lots of light where it’s needed. Last summer, I reported the Samsung demonstration at the Society for Information Display conference, where they showed a 24″ panel just 3.8 mm thick.

Well, get out your razors because LG has now sliced the salami even thinner. The company has demonstrated a 42″ panel that is just 2.6 mm thick. That is just over one-tenth of an inch thick. Even for a jaded display industry watcher like me, that’s impressive.

Now the bad news. It’s a prototype. There are no announced plans to put it into production. At this point, it’s just a development exercise designed to grab a superlative in the LCD panel market, though I expect that it will lead to improvements in production panels as well. And note that this is just the panel; additional electronics required to turn it into a TV set, which will have to add some thickness.

Also, I don’t completely get the fascination with thin for big TVs. Yes, it makes them lighter and easier to move around, but how often do you do that? And when you’re watching it from straight on, you can’t tell if it’s 0ne-tenth of an inch thick, or 10 inches. Still, they do look sleek and sexy, and I get that. And with some luck, I’ll get to see one of these new LG panels at CES in two weeks.

A research report by Magid Media Labs released earlier this month by the Open Mobile Video Coalition (OMVC) shows that consumers are interested in receiving television programming on their cell phones and other mobile devices. The cosumers who have particularly strong interest in this type of service are the 18 to 29 year old “Milennials”.

Two of the interesting details of the survey results are that consumers are most interested in getting local news and weather, and that they want live content in addition to on-demand programming.

These findings are important, because there are different forms of mobile TV broadcasting under development. Flo TV is the service currently behind Verizon’s VCast and AT&T’s Mobile TV offerings. The service broadcasts short format programming from major networks that has been edited specially for mobile display. But it’s the same content nationwide. Apparently Flo TV has provisions for “narrowcasting” local programming, but that is a feature that is not offered yet.

It will be complicated for local TV stations to broadcast content to mobile devices. While there is not yet a single accepted standard for how this should be done, some progress is being made. OMVC is backing the Mobile DTV standard, which has been approved by the Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC). The system relies on bandwidth available to local television broadcasters are part of the frequencies assigned to their channels. At least 30 stations have started to introduce the service, and a trial is scheduled for the Washington DC market in 2010, with at least seven local stations participating.

Mobile television on portable devices is likely to be a hot topic at CES 2010 next month in Las Vegas, and I expect to see a number of new products demonstrated and announced there. I’ll let you know what I find out.

Don’t we all just live for those moments? Your favorite show or movie has a tender, emotional scene, the screen fades to black, and then you get blasted out of your chair by “HEADON!! Apply directly to the forehead!“. The jarring differences between the volume levels of the programming content and advertisements has been a problem for almost as long as there has been broadcast commercial television. We drew a step — albeit a baby step – closer to a solution this week.

The U.S. House of Representatives passed HR 1084, the “Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation Act“, which is also known by its acronym, the “CALM Act”. (Washington sure does love a good acronym. And apparently they also love some terrible ones, too.) I already covered the details of the act back in October, but it basically requires that commercials be no louder than the average volume of the programming content with which they appear. The bill had 90 co-sponsors signed up, and passed by a voice vote.

It’s a step in the right direction, but we’ve still got a long way to go. A companion bill — S 2847 — has been introduced in the Senate, and has been referred to the Senate Commerce Committee. At present, it appears that the committee has not yet scheduled any action on the bill. It is possible that the bill will not even get to the Senate for a vote this year; this is just one of more than 100 bills before the committee.