Confusion reigns among growing HDTV install base
Another day, another analyst report. We like this one from the Leichtman Research Group because it addresses the topic of in-home HD as a whole. Skipping past the format war, display technologies and content providers, we get a picture of how well HD is doing in the marketplace. The result is a mixed bag. First, the good news: about 25% of U.S. households have a least one TV capable of receiving HD (we assume to most respondents that equates to "displaying HD"), doubling the percentage from a year ago. Now, the bad news: 1) 20% of HDTV owners who think they are watching HD broadcasts are actually not; 2) only 41% of HDTV owners were told how to receive HD broadcasts when they purchased their set; and 3) about 40% of HDTV owners believe they have an HDM player, which is larger than the number of HDM players sold to date. So it would seem CE manufacturers, content distributors, publishers and retailers all have some consumer education to do. Once the "early-ish" adopters have made the jump to HD, the reasons to switch to HD have to be clear, and the path to HD has to be nice-and-easy; otherwise consumer satisfaction sinks, and we all know where that can lead!
Filed under: Industry
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Kevin Murphy @ Nov 11th 2007 1:35PM
Apparently people believe that "wide-screen" and "HDTV" are the same thing.
Not helped by any number of industry players who feed into that mistake. Stretch-o-vision, upconverting DVDs, Fox Widescreen, HD channels that are innocent of HD content, etc.
Alex @ Nov 11th 2007 2:07PM
I can attest to this. My buddy got a 50" HDTV for football season but didn't get a HD cable box. I went over at week 5 and noticed he was watching stuff in SD-stretched. He didn't know to switch over to the digital tuner and pick up the HD simulcast Fox/CBS/etc... He was quite happier once he saw it in real HD.
It isn't easy for anyone that doesn't spend time on AVS or reading tech websites!
tbville @ Nov 11th 2007 2:51PM
Two years ago my mother in law bought an HDTV from a big box store and had comcast come out to hook up her new HD box. I would have done that but living an hour away I figured comcast would come out and do it correctly. Well to make a long story short after not making it to her house for over 6 months I found myself looking at 480 output to her 1080 tv.
I knew that the cable box was the fault so I got online and found how to get into the setup on the box and switch over to 1080.
I blame comcast for this issue, their techs should know how to switch to box over durning hookup. But I guess both parties are at blame.
Chemosh013 @ Nov 11th 2007 3:52PM
no no... remember it's ALWAYS comcast's fault.
EJNelly @ Nov 11th 2007 4:28PM
This makes me sad, but in my experience is very true. Things I have noticed from customers at my work:
They think the tuner in their HDTV makes everything HD.
There seems to be confusion over HDMI, they see that a DVD player has an HDMI out and automatically think it's an HD player.
As posted above they think Widescreen = HD.
A seemingly huge chunk of them either think all flat panel tv's are plasma or don;t know the difference between plasma and LCD. While that isn't much of an issue, it shows lack of understanding by consumers. This is why I feel HDM is failing. I made a comment to the lady that stocks our dvd section about how I thought it was funny that on the cases of the Blu-Ray discs they have a label stating that you need a PS3 or a Blu-Ray player to play them, turns out she didn't know what Blu-Ray was. Both HDM camps have really failed at educating consumers on their products, and really it's a CE wide thing.
longhairbilly @ Nov 11th 2007 4:32PM
I would have thought a bigger percentage of people spending a few thousand on a new HD TV would have spend ten minutes researching them and realizing how to get HD content.
Or, after seeing how shitty regular TV looked blown up and stretched on their new TV might look for answers.
Alex @ Nov 11th 2007 6:10PM
bad assumption Billy, most people buying HD sets are getting them cheap at places like WalMart, BestBuy, and Costco, for $1000 or less. Big difference between that and someone buying a $3500 42" plasma.
Robert McCarty @ Nov 11th 2007 7:46PM
The problem is not consumer education. The problem is that technology must return to the days of the "plug it in and it works" model.
You could send my 80 year old mother to school for a month and I would still get a call from her asking how to play a dvd on her tv. She's not dumb, she just has better things to do and no interest in technology.
She called and asked me about switching her phone service to Vonage. It took me 15 minutes to explain to her what that entailed. She still didn't have a complete grasp of the concept.
Until manufacturers and service providers realize that we must create technology that is as simple as plug it in and it works this sort of marketplace confusion will continue to impact adoption of newer formats.
Kevin Murphy @ Nov 12th 2007 2:33AM
"plug it in and it works"
To a degree. There will always be a need for components, but the model ought to be as simple as possible, especially at the low- to mid-range.
Look at the progression of Stereo. You had (still have) people who buy preamps and amps, tuners, CD players, equalizers, etc. They spend a lot of money and are picky about their sound. Most people just by an integrated set, and couldn't care less about most of the specs. They shove a CD in and the box figures it out and plays. One remote.
We need that. Perhaps the display is still separate, but it needs to be connected with one calbe to an integrated box that has all the other electronics. One remote. This means that a bunch of companies are going to have to cooperate (cable, sat, DVD, audio, display, etc). I'm not holding my breath
Galley @ Nov 12th 2007 10:27AM
My Dad swears you can't get HDTV on a 19" set, even after I told my 19-incher has higher resolution than my 32-incher. Why? Because a Best Buy sales dude told him you had to have a 32" screen or larger to have HD.
RogueAgent @ Nov 12th 2007 12:07PM
One thing that certainly must add to the confusion regarding whether their player is HD capaple or not, is all the (SD DVD) recorders with built-in harddrive out there. These harddrives are often called HDD or even HD in add.
Also as mentioned above, upscaling SD DVD players create further confusion - I recently bought an upscaling Pioneer player (knowing well that it was "only" an upscaling model, not HDM compatible), and one thing I noticed was that the sticker on the front of the player had "1080p" in larger letters than anything else on the facia.
Can you blame "so-called regular people" for being confused, then..?