103 Million HDTV Households

Analysts at Pike & Fischer predict that up to 103 million U.S. households will be paying their multichannel video provider for some form of HD service or rental equipment by the end of 2012. And while most analyst forecasts wind up being overly-aggressive, this projection is about as grounded as a forecast could be. Since more than 90 percent of U.S. households subscribe to cable, telco or satellite-delivered television service, and since the U.S. broadcasting system is moving to an all-HDTV format in 2009, it only makes sense that most people are going to be watching at least some HDTV from the moment of transition.

And while analog tiers of service will be offered for several years after the broadcast transition, most viewers are going to switch, fairly quickly. Cable operators, of course, now are saying they will voluntarily continue to simulcast analog local station feeds until 2012.

Keep in mind that the total number of television households in the U.S. market, including Alaska and Hawaii, is 111.4 million, according to Nielsen Media Research. So in predicting that 103 million U.S. homes will be paying for some form of HDTV, three years after the transition date, Pike & Fischer is making a simple observation that 93 percent of households will be on an HDTV-capable tier of some sort by the time U.S. cable operators will have switched off their off-air analog feeds in favor of the HDTV feeds provided by local broadcasters.

So there may still be some hold-outs in 2012. But, by and large, Pike & Fischer simply makes the point that most people will continue to buy a multichannel video service, and that by 2012, virtually all those providers will be selling HDTV programming widely available on the basic service tier.

Again, most analyst projections err on the side of excessive optimism. This isn't one of those cases.

DirecTV Awaits Satellite Launch

Satellite launches always are dangerous things. But, should the DirecTV 11 broadcast satellite be launched successfully on March 12, DirecTV will be able to provide 150 national high-definition channels and will be capable of supporting spot beams carrying 1,500 local high-definition channels, typically useful for beaming retransmitted local broadcast station signals back into the local markets.

In February 2007 a Zenit-3SL rocket on the Sea Launch platform, the same one DirecTV is using, exploded on the platform. It happens from time to time.

The odds of a Sea Launch satellite launch will fail are about one in 8.5. Of roughly 25 attempts to date, the company has experienced a failure rate of 12 percent. That's no particular slam on Sea Launch. Launch failures have been part of the industry's reality since the beginning.

Dish Network Reports Slower Growth

Dish Network experienced slower subscriber growth during 2007, though it is hard to separate out the impact of better performance on this score by competitors, internal issues, slower housing starts and macro economic factors. “During 2007, our subscriber base continued to grow, but at a slower pace than in previous periods,” the company says.

“We believe that our slower subscriber growth was driven in part by competitive factors including the effectiveness of certain competitors’ promotional offers, the number of markets in which competitors offer local HD channels, and their aggressive marketing of such advantages," the company says.

In part, Dish Network was hampered by a delay in the launch of new satellites to support high-definition services. The company argues that the delay lead to gains by competitors better equipped to deliver lots of HDTV signals.

Dish executives also say subscriber growth was affected by worsening economic conditions which included a slowdown in new housing starts.

But there also were "operational inefficiencies" as well, and piracy and other forms of fraud seem to have been issues as well. All of those developments "affected both the growth of new subscribers and the churn of existing customers," Dish says.

Although video entertainment traditionally has been viewed as "recession proof," that thesis might be tested this year if there in fact is an economic slowdown underway, or starting. The problem is that economists need six months worth of data to declare that a recession started, six months earlier. We might not know for sure until the summer or fall whether that is the case.

Any one of the aforementioned developments could lead to slower growth. The problem is that it isn't clear how important each of the factors was. Given the number of new HDTVs being sold, it is conceivable that relative lack of HDTV programming alone could account for slowing growth, even if the other forces were not at work.

To some extent, the satellite delay is simply bad luck. But the fraud issues ought to be largely under Dish Network's control.

Neither are housing starts under company control. The issue is that more weakness likely will follow, not because of housing starts, but because in many markets owners seem to be selling second homes bought largely as investments. In the interim, it is likely many of those locations will be disconnecting some services.

If a slowdown in growth continues, it will be tough to figure out, in retrospect, what actually caused the slowdown, as several forces are operating at once, at least at Dish Network.

Has Blu-Ray Won the Format War?

The format war between Blu-ray and HD DVD might be over. Warner Bros. Entertainment had decided to back the Blu-ray standard exclusively, beginning June 1. That means roughly 70 percent of available content will be in that format.

HDTV Slingbox: More Stress on Upstream Bandwidth

Sling Media has announced a new version of its Slingbox Pro set-top box that has its own HD TV tuner and can send out a 1080i HD picture over the network. The Slingbox Pro-HD will be initially aimed at the U.S. market.

So forget about what P2P is doing to the backbone and access networks. Now users will be streaming HDTV from their homes, stressing the entire network at its biggest chokepoint: the upstream. Ouch!

Blu-ray for Macs?

Apple Inc. is expected soon to announce concrete support for Sony Corp's Blu-ray DVD format as opposed to Toshiba's HD-DVD, according to AppleInsider.

American Technology Research analyst Shaw Wu says his sources say Apple will start shipping Blu-ray-equipped Macintosh computers. At some point, every PC manufacturer shipping DVD drives will have to make similar choices.

Disney, for which Apple chief executive Steve Jobs is a Director, is a firm supporter of Blu-ray, while rival Microsoft Corp. has placed most of its eggs in the HD-DVD basket.

Still, there is "a smaller chance Apple may use a combo Blu-ray/HD-DVD drive to ensure full compatibility and not get involved in the format wars, AppleInsider notes.

DTV Campaign Starts

The digital TV transition campaign has begun. With a Feb. 18, 2009 deadline for complete transition to digital over-the-air broadcasting, Comcast has begun advertising around the subject, with a "we'll take care of" message.

Also,$40 government coupons will be available starting Jan. 2, 2008, to defray the cost of decoders that convert over-the-air digital signals back to analog television for display on analog-only TVs.

The decoder boxes are expected to cost between $50 and $70 and will be available at most major electronics retail stores. Starting Jan. 2, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration will begin accepting requests for two $40 coupons per household to be used toward the purchase of the boxes.

To request a coupon, consumers can apply online at http://www.dtv2009.gov. The government also has set up a 24-hour phone line to take requests, 1-888-DTV-2009 (1-888-388-2009).

HDTV Transition Issues: How Big?

This summer, the Consumer Electronics Association estimated mid-year 2007 that 16 million high-definition televisions would be sold during the year, bringing the total number of HDTVs sold in the U.S. to 52.5 million.

Thirty percent of U.S. households had an HDTV in the early summer of 2007, likely rising to 36 percent by the end of this year. Among these HDTV households, almost a third own more than one high-definition set.

The issue is what happens as the analog TV broadcast shut off occurs in February 2009. Most surveys show a fairly high degree of consumer confusion about the coming change. That, in turn, has some observers calling for more vigorous programs to prepare the market.

The problem might not be as big as most people assume, irrespective of "awareness." For starters, most TV watchers in the U.S. market get their video from a cable or satellite provider.

Estimates of overall cable penetration range from 67 to 70 percent. Satellite providers have 25 percent penetration or more. Telcos aren't much of a factor yet, but the salient point is that these providers have a vested interest in making sure their customers remain customers, and will undertake most of the actual customer notification and equipment upgrade tasks when the time comes.

Some of those customers already get 100-percent digital signals using a decoder already in the home. Others already are outfitted with HDTV decoders as part of the upgrade process cable operators actively are pushing for "digital TV" tiers of service.

True, there are some viewers who get their signals over the air, and who will not own HDTV tuners by the analog shut off date. That's an issue, but affects a sub-set of over-the-air TV viewers.

HD-DVD Format Wars Continue, Prices Drop

The good news for consumers is that high-definition DVD prices are falling. The bad news is that the format war still isn't over. As was the case with BetaMax and VHS in videotape recorders, consumers now have to choose between incompatible formats. Personally, I'm just going to wait until the war is over. I've been through enough of these technology standard battles to instinctively avoid buying "eight track," "BetaMax," or just about anything proprietary in the consumer electronics space. Of course, I don't care enough about video to adopt early, in any case, so I might be odd in that regard.

Sony's "Blue-ray" players are selling for under $300, while Toshiba's "HD-DVD" player is available for $200.

The edge right now seems to be on Blu-ray's side. since Thanksgiving in the U.S., Blu-ray discs account for 72 percent of the high-definition discs sold, while HD-DVD has 27.4percent of the share over that same time period. So maybe Sony can win a major format war for once.

Right now, Walt Disney, 20th Century Fox and Metro Goldwyn Mayer support Blu-ray DVDs, while Universal (GE) has sided with HD-DVD. Warner Bros. supports both players.

Studios obviously hope the new format will spark higher DVD sales, which are highly profitable, but whose sales have started to slide.

We shall see. The download market and on-demand video streaming have to be taken into account, this time around. And with users opting for increased mobile or PC screen video, it isn't an absolute certainty how big the market might be for high-definition DVDs. It's great for big screen displays. But lots of viewing now takes place on all sorts of screens where the advantage is small, if much of an advantage at all. For downloaded video, in fact, less information, which means faster downloads, probably is more important.