When will HDTV arrive in Europe?
Will Christmas finally come for Europeans? That's the question asked by BusinessWeek as they look into the state of HDTV in Europe. While Americans, many Asians, and even South Africans can watch some high-def, Europe is mostly left out of the greatness of HD. It seems that there isn't much of a demand for HDTV on the continent, as only 800,000 people are getting any type of high-definition content, and a mere two million even own HD-ready sets. The industry has been pinning its hopes time and time again on big events to generate demand and adoption of the format, first the Summer Olympics in Athens, then the World Cup in Germany. Now that push is supposed to come from the upcoming holiday season.In recent months, more content is coming over the air and via cables, and manufacturers are producing more equipment to watch HDTV on. The next generation of DVDs will also arrive soon, with Blu-ray in the UK and HD DVD launching in Europe as well. Of course, there is the age-old chicken-or-egg conundrum: Will consumers buy sets they can't watch anything on, or will all this great new programming drive them to buy sets to watch it with? Surely having pubs, sporting arenas, and friends' homes to watch the small amount of HDTV on will help spur growth as it has in other countries, but there has to be something else holding back adoption of HDTV. Perhaps it is the many languages and cultures on the continent that keep one unified strategy from working. Only time will tell if all the pieces can come together to show the whole high-def puzzle.
So what exactly is the deal -- do Europeans just not care? Are manufacturers and broadcasters not doing enough to promote HDTV in Europe? Or will we finally be able to launch our HD Beat European headquarters in time for 2007? Let us know what you think, especially if you're one of our apparently rare European readers.
Filed under: Industry
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Iain @ Jul 26th 2006 1:58PM
Are you/they classing the UK as part of europe? There are two HD services in the UK. Cable (Available to around 1|5th of the population) and Satelite (Available to all). From the statistics in the first paragraph I am assuming the UK isn't classed as continetal Europe.
P.S. If you can't tell, I'm from the UK.
Iain @ Jul 26th 2006 2:02PM
Just read the BusinessWeek article and it says 800,000 have an HD service and NOT, can get an HD service.
Erik Hanson @ Jul 26th 2006 2:09PM
Thanks Iain, I modified my wording to reflect your comment. I meant that even of those that WANT to get HD, only 800k do, but this makes it more clear. Thanks again
Steve J @ Jul 26th 2006 2:20PM
I'd say it's a cultural thing in continental Europe (i.e. excluding the UK).
The Spanish are too busy having their siestas, the Italians are too busy sitting in cafes, the Germans are still clearing up the empty beer bottles from the World Cup and, well...the French are probably on strike about something...
Andrea @ Jul 26th 2006 2:31PM
"the Italians are too busy sitting in cafes", working with their WI-FI notebooks, enjoying one of the best foods in the world (best cofee for sure), glancing at beautiful girls, happy for the results of the last world cup. And when at home, we could watch Sky HD channels if we didn't have something MUCH BETTER to do.
Rick @ Jul 26th 2006 3:50PM
Hi,
I'm one of your European readers and live in the Netherlands ;-)
I own a Toshiba 37WL58P (HDTV-ready). The reason i don't use HDTV is very simple. The Dutch-broadcasters have made a mess and it just doesn't work properly at the moment. Just before the WK (worldcup) the broadcasters started big compaigns for promoting HDTV. The few people that were willing to spend 300 euro's for a Samsung-setupbox were very dissappointed because the quality sucked and the HDMI-port just didn't work properly. Because these broadcasters make their own standards, the Samsung-box is the only choice at the moment.
A large broadcaster (UPC) has even currently stopped taking new customers for HDTV because of all the problems they're having.
JP @ Jul 26th 2006 4:22PM
The PAL 576 line system used in European TVs has IMHO many advantages over the US/Asian NTSC 480 line system. For many people in the US the upgrade to 720/1080 is a very big step indeed. Maybe there is no demand due to the fact that many view the difference between 576 and 720 as not that great an advantage.
bgdc @ Jul 26th 2006 4:49PM
Europe's lack of interest in HD isn't a shock. The whole continent's a little wonky. They exist in this weird tweener stage where they have some cool hi-tech stuff and then in other areas they're so 1920s. Go into a hotel in France and you'll get a flat screen TV quite often but ask for an iron and they look at you like you're an alien...who would want an iron in their room?!
BTW, Italy has good food? I couldn't find any. At least I can find good stuff to chow down in Spain, France, Greece and Germany. Of course, Europe's food is downright pathetic compared to Asian cuisine: thai, vietnamese, chinese, korean, india, burmese, pakistani, afghani, japanese. Thank God for Asian food...curries, spices, sushi, BBQ...yummy.
Henrik Nicolaisen @ Jul 26th 2006 5:11PM
I think a big problem is that a lot of tv stations in europe are waiting for the EBU http://www.ebu.ch/ to recommend what standard to use for production.
I live in denmark, and the only "choise" I have if I wanted hd, is to put up a sattelite dish and use the distributor canal digital, or if I live where it is possible to get the cable provider tdc kabeltv (and they only just resently introduced hd with the world cup), and another problem is that as far as i know there is only one channel that dilivers hd called C-More.
And the main reason why i think people are not buying, is that there is no local programs from any of the danish tv stations, and I think this is a common problem in all countries speaking an other language than english.
Maff Mace @ Jul 27th 2006 3:57AM
I have HD in the UK, but I can see why most people don't. (I'm basing this on DSat - SkyHD, not cable - Telewest as Telewest is only available to a small percent of the population and has even less channels than DSat)
1) it was only released in May with a very expensive box and subscription increase (meaning a LOT of people paying over £50 a month which is around $90-100US)
2) the box is still very "buggy" and wasn't really tested very well, recordings get lost, the box freezes and turns off quite often
3) There's a huge demand for boxes but not enough around so there's a large waiting time for installation
4) I think this is the main point: Content!
while the US has plenty of channels in HD, the BBC don't have any "main" channels in HD (channels 1-5) and all the shows imported from the US are spread over 10 smaller channels over here, some of which don't even broadcast in widescreen, let alone HD (we've had widescreen digital TV since the late 90's)
The original story says "Surely having pubs, sporting arenas, and friends' homes to watch the small amount of HDTV on will help spur growth as it has in other countries"
There's around 30 pubs in the whole country with HDTV (there's about that many pubs just in my village), I know of no sporting arena's that show HD on their TV's, myself and my brother have HDTV in our homes but there's so little content that there's nothing to show people, it's not like there's ANY prime time shows on, just movies and sport
@ poster #1, why do you think we're not part of Europe?
if it's the figures, then remember there's a lot less than 100,000 HDTV viewers in the UK alone.
Maff @ Jul 27th 2006 4:30AM
I didn't mean the BBC don't have any main channels, I meant the UK, don't know why I said that!"
Jagaskywalker @ Jul 27th 2006 4:42AM
In Spain we are expeting HDTV to come by Christmas, either in Digital+ (satellite) or Imagenio (ADSL).
http://www.sateliteinfos.com/actu/tema.asp/q/hdtv
It is a shame that they did not offer it on time for the WorldCup.
Here the level of information is quite poor, and many stores are offering TV sets "HD ready" with misleading information (as if we were going to see better the SD channels).
Concerning the stereotypes...here is Spain we are not haveing "siesta" everytime (neither we are bullfighters), in Italy food is as good as in many other South Europe countries (just go to Sicily), and the UK is Europe (why not?)...
cowboybebop @ Jul 27th 2006 5:47AM
I live in the netherlands as well, and I believe one of the main reasons for not having HDTV yet in 'europe' is because 'europe' doesn't exist. It's a bunch of countries close to each other who don't share anything television-wise. Germany has nothing to do with France's television stations, and vice versa. So you have to look at it at a country-level.
In the netherlands it's simple. there's no money. 16 million people live here, of which 4.5 million watch TV. The max number of viewers for a mega hyper super cool program is about 3 million. So where are the broadcasters getting there money from? It's way too expensive for them to invest money in something they'll never make profit from.
Bass
Maff Mace @ Jul 27th 2006 6:24AM
@ cowboybebop
that's why we need pan-european channels like we used to have with MTV Europe before it split into regions
bring back Ray Cokes!
but I agree, it's stupid putting all of Europe together in a story like this, it's not like they do stories about "America" (the continent, not the US) and put themselves in the same league as Brasil, Mexico etc
cowboybebop @ Jul 27th 2006 10:32AM
@maff mace
Ray cokes for president! I totally agree that we need some good pan-european channels. eurosport is IMHO a bit of a sad story not being able to broadcast any sports that matters. Formula1? nope. WorldCup? nope. reruns of matches everyone has seen live? yep.
MTV europe was a good thing, and I believe that National Geographic is getting really HD right now.
About your 'America as a continent' remark: Strong.
-Bass
Gireland @ Jul 27th 2006 11:57AM
Being from Ireland, it's incredibly frustrating not being able to get any HD content. I have a full HD setup (Philips 37PF9830, 7.1, etc...) i have an xbox360 (the main reason i bought the TV), but there is NO HD available in ireland. SkyHD hasn't launched here properly yet, and when it does, personally, i don't see the point in shelling out the expense required (initial and monthly costs) for what is basically 2-3 channels i'd watch. i'm not into Sports, so they are no good. so your talking SKYONE HD (which only has a few US shows in HD), maybe the National Geographic HD and a movie channel or 2... and thats about it(i'm not counting ArtsWorldHD?? i mean come on!!)
So the reason, i believe that there isn't a bigger uptake, is because it's not being pushed hard enough! and we don't have enough content.
Ireland has the second highest console penetration after Japan, and one of the highest, if not the highest, cinema viewerships in the world, and even, to my knowledge, every Cinema in ireland is kitted out with Digital Equipment (projectors etc... it was done by some company a year or two ago!) but they are not being use used because there is no distribution for them. Ireland is Particularly behind the times when i comes to TV (we're quiet ahead in most other areas, Mobile/Cell phones, Consoles, etc) and even Broadband, and this is generally because there are alot of monopolies here, and the government is to lazy and useless to do anything about it. For example, The national broadcaster (RTE) only switched to Widescreen about 12months ago, and even at that, it's not done it properly!.. and don't even get me started on Broadband, that's just a joke!
I feel that if the proper action was taken and it was pushed with the proper content and enough of it, then take-up would be a given!!
anyways, that's my 2 cents on the matter. as you can tell, i'm just frustrated over the whole thing, as from living in NY on and off over the past year, HD content can't be beaten, it's just great!
Harold @ Jul 27th 2006 7:05PM
I don't think anyone in Europe even cares. Most people I know in the UK have 13-21" TVs as is. Also, new technology over there is very expensive and compared to the US, the European economy is stagnant. This doesn't surprise me at all.
HD001 @ Jul 31st 2006 2:52PM
The information quality on this article is just horrible. HDBeat, I normally do like your articles cause these article most of the time very interesting and right, but you`re totally wrong here.
...and for all the UK guys reading here: You guys are so nice to hear, man. How in the whole world can you guys think you`re on the top? About two month the UK was way back in HD on the other side of the world. Just now launching the Sky services you guys are in the glory? ;)
France, Italy, Germany etc. .....all have HD up for almost a half year and running stable. They show Lost, Deadwood, Into the west etc. all in HD. Some countries do have free to air channels like Germany and those channels running movies in HD during the week and beiside all the Pay TV HD services.
How fast was the U.S into HD? How much content we got here as HD started? You still see how hard it is to get a new HD channel to Cableco or Satellite services such as Dish Network or Directv. Remember if all these companies were so nice to HD. I don`t see the point for us americans to pick on the europeans here.
They will have HD-DVD and blu-ray in the next two or three month, so they arent much behind us. They all started their services in H.264 way before some locals here aired their program in H.264.
HD001
Christophe @ Aug 8th 2006 10:20AM
The only country in Europe with a true HD infrastructure is Belgium. With Alphacam it has the only company that is an HD only broadcaster and they are the ones that provide the equipment and technicians for the Olympic games and the worldcup. They also beam their content digitally to cinema's in Europe so they can broadcast these events in HD in movie theatres. They have two sattelite channels called HD-1 and HD-2, formerly euro1080. Funny enough, in Belgium, they are not transmitted over cable and as Belgium has 99% of the country covered with cable, no one in Belgium is actually watching it!!!
Nevertheless, HD IS taking off in Europe with all big satellite packages now providing HD channels. Limited, but they are there. In scandinavia there is CMORE-HD, in Germany Premiere HD, in the UK there is SKY-HD, in France TPS-HD and Italy has SKY Italia HD.
The offering is limited, but content is slowly but surely being provided mainly over sattelite.
What strikes me is that the big retailer outlets don't push HD as they could and that you hardly find any store runnig demo's.... I really don't know why! Europe is slowly realizing HD is the next big thing, but as we are 25 different couontries, it will take time to become BIG!!!