You have to imagine every vendor wants the cost of manufacturing their product as low as possible. If they can either install an HDMI port for oh-so-many dollars or build this into it for even 3x oh-so-many dollars, I would imagine they'll go with HDMI only and just leave it on the consumer to buy the "sub $50 cost per device" units if they want them. Speaking of which, "cost" isn't the word usually used for the price to consumers so depending on where that picture is from and who the audience was, this could be an expensive addition to a CE device.
It'd be great to see this sort of thing catch on just because but you'll see more competitors before you see many major CE manufacturers building them into things. And if only one or two build them in, their products are now more expensive. The silly part? I would think the part that plugs into the television takes up a video plug anyway so it's only valuable if you really want that device somewhere other than beside your television. It's great tech though but better as standalone. (Or be sure it's built into TVs first...?)
And for anyone who might want to hit me with "economies of scale" and how this won't be that pricey if enough CE manufacturers use them, just remember that no matter how low the price is, it's still cheaper not to use them and, so far, not having these has worked out just fine.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
FreeRange @ Dec 3rd 2008 11:35AM
You have to imagine every vendor wants the cost of manufacturing their product as low as possible. If they can either install an HDMI port for oh-so-many dollars or build this into it for even 3x oh-so-many dollars, I would imagine they'll go with HDMI only and just leave it on the consumer to buy the "sub $50 cost per device" units if they want them. Speaking of which, "cost" isn't the word usually used for the price to consumers so depending on where that picture is from and who the audience was, this could be an expensive addition to a CE device.
It'd be great to see this sort of thing catch on just because but you'll see more competitors before you see many major CE manufacturers building them into things. And if only one or two build them in, their products are now more expensive. The silly part? I would think the part that plugs into the television takes up a video plug anyway so it's only valuable if you really want that device somewhere other than beside your television. It's great tech though but better as standalone. (Or be sure it's built into TVs first...?)
And for anyone who might want to hit me with "economies of scale" and how this won't be that pricey if enough CE manufacturers use them, just remember that no matter how low the price is, it's still cheaper not to use them and, so far, not having these has worked out just fine.