[Ken H]

Excerpted from Broadcasting & Cable, by By Paige Albiniak


A private agreement between TV set manufacturers and cable operators to build cable-ready DTV sets contains no language that would require those sets to include digital TV tuners, broadcasters say.


Last week the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) and the Association of Maximum Service Television (MSTV) filed comments with the Federal Communications Commission expressing concern that FCC ratification of the agreement would allow TV set makers and cable operators to build proprietary cable set-top boxes with monitors that would freeze out broadcasters altogether.


Last August, the FCC required TV set makers to include by 2007 digital TV tuners in all devices that now include analog tuners.


Set makers are unlikely to build sets without tuners, sources say, because the cost of adding tuners is incremental and adds to the functionality of a TV set.


But as it stands, the agreement would allow cable operators to build their own cable-ready monitors that would pass through only the cable signal, bypassing broadcasters completely. A comment from the NAB illistrates the issue: "You don’t want a consumer to buy a digital TV, suddenly decide he doesn’t want his cable service any longer, and find out he can’t get over-the-air television."

 

[rogo]

The cable sharks know no bounds... Grrrrr...


Broadcast digital scares them because millions pay for cable just to get broadcast channels cleanly. And those millions eventually won't need cable.


Grrrrr........

 

[Rich Peterson]

Broadcast digital scares the CEA, too, because more and more of their revenues come from media (DVDs, CDs, etc). The CEA is proving time and again that they have no interests in free OTA broadcasts of any high-quality content. Why? If all content is pay-only they can sell more DVDs. I think broadcasters and us viewers have every right to be really steamed at both sides of this deal.


Thanks for the heads-up, Ken.

 

[Kipp Jones]

I agree Rich.

 

[rogo]

Well, I can tolerate pay-only viewing so long as it comes without advetising, without promos for other shows, without bugs and station logos, etc.


But how they are ever going to promote new content in this environment is unclear to me.

 

[gmclaughlin]

Geez, what is this, Conspiracy Theory II?


It's referencing an agreement between Cable Operators and the CEA regarding including cable QAM decoders in new TVs. The CEA wants them, but it wouldn't work if the Cable Operators didn't support the decryption scheme. Cable wants it so it doesn't have to drop billions in capital buying settop boxes for you to lease (a money loser, BTW). And the agreement is an opportunity to standardize the encryption scheme, the inputs (1394, DVI, etc) and outputs. It's a good thing to enhance compatibility. Oh, and this agreement is months old.


The agreement doesn't prevent the CEA from including OTA tuners, because it's a totally separate subject. Didn't the FCC just mandate digital OTA tuners in new sets? Didn't the majority of posters here complain about forcing customers to buy capability they didn't want?


Yet now its a cable conspiracy...

 

[bfdtv]

Quote:

Broadcast digital scares the CEA, too, because more and more of their revenues come from media (DVDs, CDs, etc). The CEA is proving time and again that they have no interests in free OTA broadcasts of any high-quality content. Why? If all content is pay-only they can sell more DVDs.

That makes no sense. Don't confuse the MPAA with the CEA. The vast majority of the CEA members (99.9%) don't make one cent from DVD sales. Certainly, many do make DVD players, and I am sure many are looking forward to selling HD-DVD players. But that has absolutely nothing to do with the issue of DTV tuners in televisions.


The real issue here is incremental cost. Somewhere in the range of 70% to 80% of U.S. consumers receive their television signals from satellite and cable, and CE vendors don't want to pay the costs (when it must be passed on to all customers) just to service those 20% that do use OTA. CE vendors don't want to incur these costs without some guarantee from broadcasters as to the future availability of free, compelling (i.e. HDTV) content over the airwaves.


For those displays that actually offer cable DTV support, the incremental cost of 8-VSB should be minimal, as a high percentage of the 256QAM tuners / chipsets also support 8-VSB. I do agree that any set with cable DTV should also support OTA DTV. But there does need to be a limit on the level of OTA DTV support that CE vendors must provide; some broadcasters want OTA DTV support to include full conditional access for pay-TV broadcast television / services, while other broadcasters want DTV televisions to support other broadcast standards, including COFDM.

 

[Thomas Desmond]

> Somewhere in the range of 70% to 80% of U.S. consumers receive their television signals from satellite and cable, and CE vendors don't want to pay the costs (when it must be passed on to all customers) just to service those 20% that do use OTA.


I'm not sure that I really think that this is the reason -- it seems to me that "cable ready" tuners started showing up in televisions and VCRs back when cable penetration was in the 20% range. But they were able to sell it as part of a package of upgrades and charge a premium for it -- and I think that the CE companies haven't really figured out how to market the value of an OTA digital tuner.

 

[Nitewatchman]

Quote:

Originally posted by rogo The cable sharks know no bounds... Grrrrr...

Well said .... I agree completely.


There is no way I'm paying $400~800+++ per year for XXX(or whatever) number of channels only to get the 7-10 or so I want that I can't get OTA ....


Still, pardon my foolishness, but, am I missing something here? Doesn't the FCC tuner mandate require OTA DTV receivers in all sets/VCR's etc, of the future, based on their timetable of screensize? If so, How on Earth can there be a "Cable DTV only" set of the future?