Once again, the 17th has come and gone, and it's now less than 13 months until the current "hard" date (2/17/09) on which analog broadcasting is supposed to cease. This is the 22nd of 35 planned monthly recaps of developments affecting the various players (laid out in my first few posts) in this story, meaning that we have gone well over half the distance that remained when we started this blog in March of 2006. Despite the name of this blog I do cover some stories (like the growth of HD) that are not directly transition-related (but strike me as being of interest to transition-watchers). That said, here's some of what happened (or was commented on) between 12/18 and 1/17 (with one exceptions - see the MANUFACTURERS section below). If this seems even later than usual, blame
my new Kindle - just can't stop downloading those free sample chapters. As is usual, major news sources for this update include
Multichannel News,
Engadget HD,
TV Week,
TWICE and
TVPredictions.com.
THE PUBLIC - No surveys on the transition per se this time. But it is interesting that the
Consumer Electronics Association is now telling us that
over half of American households now have at least one digital TV set. Considering that
Forrester Research estimates that as many as 20 percent of high-def sets bought during the 2006 holiday season
were later returned (often because the new owners didn't understand how to get HD programming), it's surprising that it's gotten that far. Perhaps consumer awareness has improved a bit in the past year. As for those sets that haven't been returned and are hooked up to a program source, DirecTV recently conducted a
viewing-habits survey of their HD customers. Not much in the way of dramatic differences from the general population, but it's nice to know that
HD Theatre is doing well.
GOVERNMENT - A crucial part of the government's plan to manage the transition
is now underway, and
demand is brisk. To meet the demand, the
National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) is
busy approving converter boxes. One box of particular interest will be
offered by Echostar (guess I was wrong last time about not seeing that name again) at $39.95, the value of one converter box coupon, meaning that every household that is aware of the program can get two free boxes (as long as Echostar can keep up with the demand). However,
a cautionary note comes from top retailers, who are worried about whether they can supply the estimated 15 million homes who are going to need these products between now and February '09.
One way of dealing with the uncertainties involved with turning off all the analog signals at once would be to test the process in some areas first - that way we'd get a better picture of what might be likely to happen nationwide on The Day. This is why FCC Commissioner Michael Copps is now
advocating just that, though he has so far not gotten the support of FCC Chairman Kevin Martin. I'm not surprised by that lack of support - bad results from the test could strengthen the case of those wanting to push back the date, which is clearly not something Martin is willing to consider, as you can see from
his comments at the recent
International Consumer Electronics Show (CES). Equally unenthusiastic about any delay are the companies (like
Google) that have ponied up serious money for the spectrum auction that commenced on 1/24 (more about that next time).
Following up on earlier stories, House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman John Dingell has scheduled
another transition-related hearing, this time for 2/13. He was busy in other areas as well -
raising objections to
Comcast's plans to require many Michigan subscribers to use a set-top box to view local PEG (public/educational/government) channels, and
pressing on with his investigation of Chairman Martin's management of the
FCC. The ownership cap that prevents any cable company (e.g. Comcast) from serving more than 30% of paying customers nationwide seems likely to
face a court challenge from the cable industry, which is
also challenging a recent lawsuit designed to force program providers to offer a la carte selection of channels.
BROADCASTING - Not much of note this time around. There was the
usual handful of
new local HD newscasts, bringing the total close to 70 (I'm still waiting for a second station to do this in Boston). Broadcast football got a boost when the NFL Network allowed
a CBS/NBC simulcast of its feed of the much-anticipated Patriots season final. The only other new HD of note came after the 17th - more on
the WWE's transition next time. Lastly, I'm still waiting for some sign of
The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer on my local PBS HD station - if I can find some time in the next month or two, I'll update
my December survey of PBS HD station schedules to see whether this situation (of 50 stations surveyed, 34 ran the "PBS HD" feed, but of those only
five included the NewsHour HD in their schedules) has improved significantly.
PROGRAM PROVIDERS - The biggest story of the past few months (other providers' attempts to catch up with
DirecTV's expanded HD offerings) continued to generate news. DirecTV itself made a couple of additions,
adding Tennis Channel nationally as well as agreeing to add local PBS HD feeds sometime this year. In response, Comcast added new channels (including
CNN, SciFi, USA and some of the
Discovery Networks lineup) to the
DC metro area,
Charleston, SC and
other areas in the Southeast (adds vary by area). Other providers were busy as well - examples include
Time Warner (adding a wide variety of channels to
various parts of NY as well as
Raleigh, NC,
Augusta, ME and
San Diego, CA),
Cox, (adding CNN,
TBS, Discovery Channel and
TLC in Kansas),
Charter (adding
Weather Channel, Discovery Channel, TLC and
FSN in Yakima, WA)
Wide Open West (
National Geographic and three Discovery Networks channels
in the Metro Detroit area) and
Cablevision (
adding ESPN2). But while adding channels where it could (we're still waiting for SciFi and some of those Discovery channels here in Boston), Comcast also is attempting to reframe the whole debate by
focusing on "choices" (which includes their expanding HD VOD menu as well as linear channels) as opposed to linear channels alone. They have ambitious plans in this regard, expanding to 1000 choices this year, and planning to offer
more than half of a projected 6000 total VOD movies in HD by 2009.
One of the other ways to catch up is to expand capacity, and this effort continued as well.
Dish plans to
launch new satellites to bring them up to 100 national channels plus HD locals in 100 markets. Others are looking to the more-efficient MPEG-4 video format, and this is being pushed forward by the
Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers (SCTE), who
approved a related technical standard. Support also came from Motorola, who
announced a new line of set top boxes that support both the new format and the existing MPEG-2, and who
predicted widespread cable deployment of these boxes by the end of 2009. A method we've discussed before is the accelerated movement of analog channels to digital-only tiers, but you've got to be careful in implementing that - when Comcast in Detroit tried to do that with the PEG (public/educational/government) channels, a federal judge
sided with local officials and issued a temporary restraining order forbidding the move. IPTV (the IP standing for Internet Protocol, which theoretically should make it possible to access channels more like we access websites today, which means potentially unlimited channel selection) is also in the mix, and
this effort to implement global standards should help speed its implementation.
There were other technological developments affecting multiple providers.
CableLabs has renamed its OpenCable platform as "tru2way", and says that it will be supported by most cable companies (Comcast will be using it to help develop interactive serivices
without the use of set-top boxes). To help explain this technology, here's
this clip of a
Panasonic marketing person shot at CES (includes a demo). Freed from its marriage to Dish Networks, Echostar Holdings will be
marketing its Sling Media products (best known for the
Slingbox, which lets you watch your recorded TV shows on any Internet-connected device) to cable operators and telcos.
Another ongoing story we cover in this section is legal matters concerning the various providers, and this month saw both a settlement of differences (Comcast and DirecTV
settled the suit over Comcast's picture-quality survey) and a new suit (the Wealth TV network
suing Time Warner over a perceived bias towards carrying
MOJO (co-owned by Time Warner and Comcast) over their network, which they feel MOJO copied when it transitioned from the old
INHD network.
As always, we have news relating to specific providers. Comcast has
launched the TiVo service (
TiVo software running on Comcast's existing
Motorola set-tops). I'd have it right now if not for all the bugs reported at
this AVS thread. I'm really hoping this all gets sorted out soon, as I've waited a long time for this. Looking ahead, Comcast has
plans to deploy its "Start Over" service, which lets you see go back to the beginning of in-progress program. My question - will I have to choose between this and TiVo? Comcast CEO Brian Roberts
gave the keynote at CES, detailing both their HD "choices" strategy and their tru2way plans. Looking even further ahead, Comcast and
Panasonic will be
debuting a portable DVR next year (with built-in screen and DVD player) that you can unplug from your system and take your recorded shows (SD, alas) with you.
Liberty Media's pending acquisition of DirecTV is
being held up by the Department of Justice and the FCC over ownership issues. As always, the news at
Verizon FiOS concerns expansion - as in these notes from
New York,
Virginia and
Rhode Island (and, I'm sure, a bunch of other places as well). And a new, HD-only satellite provider
made its debut at CES.
When talking about providers, we need to remember that one of the big ways TV is changing is in the many new ways we have to get our content. This time around we have news relating to
Apple's new
HD movie rental plans,
NetFlix's in-development
movie set-top box, TiVo's
indie film program and new content from
XBox Liveand
Vudu.
HD NETWORKS - Other than the continuing addition of various existing channels to various lineups (as detailed above), there wasn't too much happening this time out - no blizzard of new channel launches or announcements - but here's what we have.
Travel Channel HD launched on Cox and RCN. I agree with a point made in the linked article - this is definitely the kind of thing HD was made for.
Tennis Channel HD also launched, on DirecTV. As for announcements, we can look forward
to ESPNews on March 30,
and The Oprah Winfrey Network sometime next year.
As I said, not a lot. With so many of the big brands already having gone HD in the wake of DirecTV's expansion, it might be an interesting exercise (maybe for next time) to survey the channels that
haven't come over yet.
MANUFACTURERS - When it's time for something to happen, it can happen with head-spinning speed. At the end of December, many analysts were still
talking about a stalemate in the NextGen DVD format war, which is perhaps why
only 11% of HDTV owners were planning to buy a player in the next few months. Meanwhile, the speculation continued over
Warner's stance (format-neutral at the time), and we waited with anticipation to hear what they would have to say at
the HD DVD promotional press conference at CES. As it turned out, they didn't actually have anything at all to say there, having announced before the show that they would be
ending support for HD DVD at the end of May, and as a result the entire press conference
was cancelled, leaving poor
Toshiba with only their
"HD DVD Concierge" service to tout.
That cancellation was only the first bit of fallout. Fellow Time Warner companies
New Line Cinema and
HBO quickly followed Warner out the door, followed in turn by German producers
Constantin Film AG and Senator Home Entertainment. Another major HD DVD supporter (they provide an HD DVD add-on drive for the XBox 360) began to waver, as
Microsoft's Bill Gates
made no mention of the format war in his CES keynote, and later stated that the company was ""actually neutral" in the struggle. On top of that, another Microsoft official signaled their
willingness to support Blu-ray "if that's the way [the consumers] vote". Even the adult film world was affected, with
Digital Playground (which had
just gone neutral in December)
going Blu-exclusive in January.
As you might, it didn't take retailers long to put their two cents in. Right now it appears that while the biggest retailers are
unwilling to declare a winner (to the extent of stocking only Blu-ray), a number of others are definitely
adjusting the balanceof their product mix. Of course, the main thing retailers have to think about is what's selling, and
post-announcement sales figures strongly indicate that that the customers have been paying attention, with HD DVD disk sales plummeting to below 20% of the total. Figures released after the 17th show that things are
even worse on the stand-alone player front (the one area where HD DVD had historically been ahead). How retailers will react to those figures should become clearer in the next few weeks.
Speaking of the future, where does all this leave us? There are three major players left in the HD DVD camp -Toshiba,
Paramount and
Universal. For the moment, Toshiba has
taken the offensive, slashing prices and putting renewed emphasis on their players' upconverting abilities (though they also quote old sales figures that may no longer be that relevant). The main question at the moment is whether this strategy is designed to keep the format going or just to clear out their inventory of the A3/A30/A35 generation. I've not seen any reports so far relating to an upcoming A4/A40/A45, so keep an eye open for that. Concerning Paramount, there have been reports that their exclusivity contract has an out clause specifically tied to a defection by Warner (which has now happened, so they should be free to go if those reports are true). Last time, I pointed out (in reference to Warner denials) that there is a type of corporate denial that translates as "we're not ready to tell you that just yet", and
this statement from Paramount has some of that feeling to it. So that brings us to Universal (the company whose extensive back-catalog releases are a big reason that the available title figures are still
somewhat competitive), who have been subject to the
same kind of speculation as Paramount, and its been pointed out that
their exclusivity contract has expired. But they still seem to be on board,
promoting the benefits of the format in conjunction with their release of
American Gangster. And there's another factor not often mentioned - the head of the
HD DVD Promotional Group is Ken Graffeo, an executive vice president at Universal! So don't be surprised if Universal stays in the game longer than sales figures might lead you to expect.
Still, many say now that the meaning of the phrase "format war" has now changed, and that the real war is now between Blu-ray and both regular DVDs and
other forms of HD distribution such as pay-per-view and downloads. Pricing will be a part of that equation - without another HD format to compete against, will prices stay high enough to make Blu-ray a laserdisc-like niche market product geared to videophiles, or will they take prices low enough to become the true successor to DVD?
This is the place every month where I mention that actually are other hardware stories taking place, and that's doubly true this time, as CES occurred recently (from Jan 7-10). In fact, there's
too much news, in view of the fact that this recap is seriously late (the SuperBowl is just a few hours away as I type this). The major news sources I list (now with links) in the first paragraph all covered the show, so check out their news archives from around that time for more hardware news than I would ever have time to tell you about. You might also want to check out
the CES site itself, paying special attention to the "Post-Show Highlights" section on the main page.
And that will wrap it up - hope it was worth the longer wait. The next recap covers the period leading up to the one-year-away mark - things should
really start to get interesting after that point.
