A story from the AP says that cable and satellite companies may benefit when the digital transition happens next February. That’s because one of the easiest ways to get a digital TV signal is to get digital TV service.

Also benefiting will be retailers and TV manufacturers since consumers will likely buy DTV and HDTV sets as the February 17, 2009 date approaches.

A post from a few days estimates that there are still 13 million Americans that have analog sets and are not ready for the digital transition.

From the AP story:

All new TVs made or shipped after March 1, 2007, contain digital tuners, which are sometimes called ATSC tuners, after the technical standard used to make them (the analog standard was known as NTSC.) U.S. retailers, however, can still sell analog TVs from existing inventory if they are labeled as analog-only.

A report by Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. said that about 1.4 million U.S. households will probably switch to pay TV service as a result of the digital TV transition. This can be enough to boost the cable industry growth rate. However, it could also help out IPTV providers, like AT&T and Verizon.

The market for the converter boxes is likely to be about $1.4 billion (?0.95 billion), and for new TVs about $1.7 billion (?1.16 billion), for a total of $3.1 billion (?2.11 billion) ? still a relatively tiny part of the $150 billion (?102.22 billion) U.S. consumer electronics market.

Technorati Tags: Digital TV, DTV, Digital TV Transition, analog switch off, DTV Transition

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On February 15th, TVCatchup.com, a website that recorded TV shows from U.K. broadcasters to allow viewers to watch them online, was shut down by its hosting provider.
A message on the website was posted saying in part:

“On 15th February, our hosting was terminated without warning and we presume this was at the request of such Broadcasters. Given that this will no doubt happen again, TVCatchup has therefore voluntarily suspended its services whilst the concerns of the Broadcasters are addressed.”

The website recorded the TV shows from the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Five and posted them on the Internet so anyone could catch up and watch shows whenever they’d like.  The BBC was onto them in December 2007, calling it a “personal online VCR”. (VCR, how quaint!)

Sounds like an, um, interesting–and ill-fated–business model.  TVCatchup supposedly had 5,000 test users and some advertisers on the website before it was forced to shut down.  Before the company fully launched, the CEO of TVCatchup, Adam Smith, said that they were acting within UK laws. Guess that’s not true.

Broadcasters saw this as a violation of their rights since they hadn’t give TVCatchup permission to record and stream their shows online. Plus, the BBC has been putting its shows online via its BBC iPlayer to let viewers catch up to shows they may have missed.

Finally, the broadcasters complaint was enough to have the hosting provider shut down the web site.

Fortunately, many of these shows (and lots more) are likely available for free anyway on BitTorrent.

Technorati Tags: BBC, TVCatchup, TVCatchup.com, BitTorrent, iPlayer, BBC iPlayer

I always warn my friends: Don’t buy a DVR! Especially if you’re addicted to TV. Because you’ll never want to leave the house.

That’s my warning to people because I’m addicted to TV. I can watch pretty much anything like random home decorating shows, any given episode of Mythbusters, UFC fights that I know I’ve already watched years ago, countdown shows on VH1 or E! Plus I closely follow lots of prime time shows like American Idol, Dancing with the Stars, 24, The Sarah Connor Chronicles, Lost, or Heroes. I barely have time to do anything else.

I bought my first DVR, a Panasonic ShowStopper ReplayTV, around 2002. Immediately, my addiction to TV grew even scarier. I watched shows I never could before. Plus I watched any random show suggested by my DVR. I didn’t care.

So I scoffed when I saw this story saying that DVRs increase prime-time TV viewing by 3%. My viewing overall, has increased, oh, 100% probably.
This data is from Nielsen Media Research, who also found that those that use DVRs the most are middle-income women aged 18 to 49, who record and watch 26 hours of TV a week. The demographic with the fewest uses of DVRs are men 18 to 34.

Other factoids:

• Mid-range users of DVRs watch more TV overall than the average person; about one-third of their TV viewing being time-shifted.
• Light DVR (70 percent of all DVR households) watch less TV than the average viewer. Most in this group have higher incomes (over $100,000 a year) are are likely to own an HDTV set.
• Most recorded shows are top-rated scripted dramas, as well as high profile reality shows
• Heavily recorded daytimes shows are soap operas and talk shows like Oprah.

Other than the 3% increase finding, the second most interesting result from this study is that women use DVRs as much as they do. This is s somewhat surprising since DVRs were initially only for the tech-savvy geeks, which were usually men or those in the tech field. Now, I think this shift in demographics means that DVRs are finally hitting the mainstream. They’re getting easier to use and are more popular, perhaps as more people shift to HDTV.

What do think?

Technorati Tags: DVR, Nielsen, Tivo, HDTV, HD, HD DVR

Nielsen released some data on the readiness of U.S. consumers for the digital TV transition (happening on February 18, 2009) and found that over 13 million households are not ready. (Come on people, it’s less than a year away now!)

Last month, I wrote a post about some anxiety about the public’s readiness for the transition. This study is very interesting because it breaks down information on readiness by age, race, ethnicity and geography. For example, Nielsen found out that NY was the most prepared state: just 3.5 percent of TV sets are still not equipped for digital broadcasts. The least prepared? Portland, Oregon where 22.4% of households still are using analog TV sets.

Some other nuggets:

• Whites and Asians are more ready than Blacks and Hispanics. When multiple TV sets are factored in, 26.2 percent of Hispanics have one more unready sets.
• 16.8% of all households have at least one analog television set that would not work after the switch.
• Adults over 55 are better prepared than younger households (Say what?)
• Overall, if the digital turnoff happened today, 10.1% of households would find themselves without a TV.

So are you still confused about the switchover? Worried about losing your TV? There are really three choices:

1. Buy a brand new DTV
2. Buy a converter box for your old TV
3. Subscribe to a digital TV service through your cable, satellite or IPTV provider and keep your old TV.

Now, you don’t need to buy a big-screen LCD or Plamsa HDTV set. Just make sure it’s digital ready sets. But at this point, if you don’t have an HDTV, this year will be a great time to get one. Prices for HDTVs are down tremendously from just a few months ago (like when I bought my HDTV). In fact, prices are probably as low as they’ve ever been.

Want proof? Ok, I did a quick search on some of the big online retailers and found some excellent bargains for HDTV sets.

Target.com: 32″ Westinghouse HDTV with DVD-$749

Target.com: 19″ Magnavox LCD HDTV for $329

Target.com: 37″ Olevia LCD HDTV for $949

Walmart.com: 26″ Vizio LCD HDTV for $464.

Walmart.com: 19″ Polaroid LCD HDTV for $277.54.

Not all are big brand names, nor are they huge, but they’re enough to get you HD, digital broadcasts and a flat screen. Perhaps people will spend their tax rebates on getting new TVs this year.

Bonus: PDF of Nielsen’s Press release that has some tables.

Bonus #2: Go to TechBargains to see daily deals on everything including cheap HDTV sets.

Technorati Tags: Digital TV transition, DTV transition, DTV switch over, HDTV, TV

According to a study conducted by Ericsson and CNN, 34% of respondents ranked TV as the most in-demand application for their phones. About 44% said they are ready to adopt mobile TV in the next two years. I guess it’s time mobile operators start giving consumers what they want. Some of the current mobile TV applications out now–MobiTV, Sprint and Verizon’s VCast–leave a lot to be desired.

On my Sprint Mogul phone, I can’t receive Sprint TV at all, which is a crying shame. The Mogul is a Windows Mobile-based smartphone with EVDO and Wi-Fi connectivity. It’s an expensive phone with lots of advanced features. Yet I can’t get Sprint TV on it. Can someone please explain why this is the case? Fortunately, I can tune into videos on the mobile version of YouTube. But even then, I can’t watch just any video–they have to be popular, featured YouTube videos since they have to be converted from YouTube’s Flash-based video into something that can be viewed on my mobile phone.

I would definitely watch more TV on my phone if it was offered. Right now, my best bet is to download video onto my phone manually, store it on my phone and watch it later. That’s a slow, tedious process, when I should be able to watch streaming mobile TV right now.

Anyway, the report also said that 24% of current mobile TV users watch content daily with around half (52%) tuning in on a weekly basis. The most popular type of video was news (77%) followed by scheduled television at 48%. Among other findings were that 57% of consumers use mobile photo to send and receive images on a monthly basis, making it the most popular activity.

Technorati Tags: Ericsson, CNN, mobile TV, mobile video, Sprint TV, Sprint, Sprint Mogul, EVDO, MobiTV, YouTube, VCast