ABI Research released some highlights of its recent research on HDTV adoption and the viewing habits of Americans. While 41% of Americans have HDTV’s, only about half of those HDTV receive any sort of an HD signal. While it might not be too surprising that only one out of Americans can view HDTV in all its glory, it’s shocking that another one out of five think they are watching HD when they are just watching a blown up SD image.
Lay the blame at the feet of the cable companies. I’ve been to several living rooms where what’s sold as HD looks indistinguishable from an up-converted standard definition DVD. This isn’t something I want to be pondering at 2:00 AM as we’re perfecting the look of my next HD production.
Other interesting findings
- DVRs are in a “significant minority” of households… but it’s still a minority. That’s surprising. TiVo became a verb three years ago. It took DVD players less time to supplant the VCR than it will take for the DVR to find its way into the majority of American living rooms. It’s like the electric garage door opener. Use a DVR once and you wonder how you ever lived without it. Does any other technology have such an evangelical following?
- 45% of households use pay per view have used pay per view services. Yet most are unimpressed. The majority of pay per view customers use the services about once a month.
The pay per view trend will have the bigger impact on future television models than either the DVR or HDTV. Once again Americans show their preference for the all you can eat model over the a la carte approach. That means that ad-supported and subscription-based programming will be the dominant models well into the future. It’s no surprise to hear Apple, the king of pay per download, is exploring alternative business models for iTunes in the aftermath of Nokia’s “Comes with Music” campaign.
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>It’s like the electric garage door opener. Use a DVR once and you wonder how you ever lived without it. <
Same with the smart key on my Prius. My wife is so smitten she actually gets confused on how to shut our minivan off, and we’ve only had the Prius for about three months!
HD over-the-air: The next big thing, and the ONLY way to watch TV. You heard it here first.
BAJ
Posted by on 03/25 at 08:16 PM
Amen on the Prius smart key system. Walk up to your locked car, pull the door handle and enter, as if the car hadn’t been locked.
Press a button to turn on the power, and put the joystick, er, shifter in Drive, and step on the right pedal to feel the same torque as a 350 V8 pressing your kidneys against the driver’s seat and compressing the 12 C-stands, 25lb. sand bags, a bunch of Arri fresnels, and a 9-foot surf board, while still having room inside for one passenger behind the driver :O).
I just love this grip truck that gets 52 mpg (without trying!) on the freeway without being passed by anybody, or 50mpg around town while embarrassing others at redlights.
But the best thing is the smart key, because it is 100% out-of-mind as long as you have a pocket for it.
I also agree on watching OTA HD. As far as picture quality, there is no comparison with HD cable or satellite. Feed a 1920x1080 screen via HDMI, lean back, and be awed.
Now if somebody could point me to some computer DVR hardware/software for recording at this same quality. I got an EyeTV USB stick that records HDTV at the same quality as HD cable/satellite, so it doesn’t have quite the same punch as OTA.
Posted by on 03/26 at 09:58 AM
True, I agree many people “think” they are watching HD. However, I bet, in their mind, a lot of those HDTV owners didn’t buy an HDTV, they bought a thin wide-screen TV they can hang on their wall and watch DVDs on.
I walk in to a lot of houses where the brightness is cranked, the colour is blooming and people are happy while I sit and cringe. I try not to think about but I think a lot of the effort we go to to make great looking pictures is lost on a good portion of the audience. I manage to go on knowing that some of us care, and we watch too.
Posted by on 03/31 at 07:18 PM