Dumb Display is Analogy to Dumb Pipe

Can a home be a TV household without owning a TV? Nielsen now says that is the case. Henceforth, Nielsen will measure TV viewing on a "TV" as well as video viewing on other screens, such as smart phones, tablets and PCs. 

Of course, one might also say there are other potential ramifications. Way back in the old days when there were not PCs or smart phones or tablets, some technologists suggested that the best way to handle the matter of displays was to produce "dumb screens" driven by cable or other boxes that provided the channel tuning.

The reason is that, even today, the actual tuner in a TV becomes redundant, if the user is connected to a decoder supplied by the video entertainment service provider, and that is more than 85 percent of U.S. homes.

So the "obvious" solution was to create simple, cheaper, dumb monitors without the cost and overhead of "tuning" functions, on the assumption that the tuning would be supplied by a cable, satellite or now telco TV provider.

That never happened, and one reason is that TV manufacturers hate the notion that they make dumb terminals as much as service providers hate the idea that they sell dumb pipe access. 

One might suggest that the debate will arise again, now that any number of screens and CPUs are used to drive viewing. At least in principle, consumers might want flexible large screens that simply take inputs from any number of other CPUs, ranging from game players to tablets, smart phones, PCs or decoders of various types. 

TV set manufacturers typically will resist. So we are likely to see multiple, redundant CPUs used in the home, even when they might not strictly be necessary. The issue will be most relevant for decoders and game players, since all other CPUs have built-in smaller screens. 

Still, there is logic to big, dumb terminals outfitted to take CPU inputs of many types, with Internet access and other functions provided by the outboard devices, not the TV set. But don't hold your breath. TV manufacturers will not do so.