Philips “has been in active discussions” and “fully cooperative” with the FCC about V-chip rule violations alleged by the commission (CED March 21 p1), a company spokesman said. Philips won’t comment further, because the discussions are “ongoing,” he said. Philips was among 10 DTV set makers that FCC Chairman Kevin Martin said he wants to serve with notices of apparent liability for violating V-chip rules. Martin also wants to go after a set maker, Precor, on allegations of violating the DTV tuner mandate and 14 chains accused of violating the commission’s analog labeling order.
Paul Gluckman
Paul Gluckman, Executive Senior Editor, is a 30-year Warren Communications News veteran having joined the company in May 1989 to launch its Audio Week publication. In his long career, Paul has chronicled the rise and fall of physical entertainment media like the CD, DVD and Blu-ray and the advent of ATSC 3.0 broadcast technology from its rudimentary standardization roots to its anticipated 2020 commercial launch.
NTIA hasn’t yet sought Office of Management and Budget approval of an order that would let assisted-living residents and consumers getting mail at post-office boxes obtain DTV converter box coupons (CED March 20 p1), an agency spokesman told us Thursday. When NTIA will file with the OMB “still is to be determined,” and so is whether the agency will seek fast-track emergency approval, said the spokesman. Normal OMB handling would mean five months or more to clear and enact an order. In its coupon-program rules, NTIA said it decided to offer coupons only to “individual U.S. households,” and not “businesses, schools or other entities,” including assisted-living facilities. “There is nothing in the legislative history or the [rulemaking] comments that suggests that Congress intended to extend eligibility beyond households,” NTIA said then. NTIA first proposed disqualifying anyone who getting mail at a post office box from getting a coupon. But “given the sensitivity of commenters to the prevalence of post office boxes in rural America, NTIA will make allowances for households on Indian reservations, Alaskan native villages and other rural areas where post office boxes are the only means of mail delivery,” the rules said.
Panasonic joined CEA, the CE Retailers Coalition, Sony and Pioneer in lobbying the FCC to change its DTV consumer education order (CED March 5 p1). They're urging the FCC to give CE makers 30 days to comply with rules ordering them to stuff a wide range of CE gear with printed advisories on the DTV transition. The order says CE makers must comply the day the rules take effect, on publication in the Federal Register. The order gives cable, satellite and IPTV providers 30 days to begin stuffing printed advisories in their monthly bills. Panasonic worries that the order “appears to apply the notice requirement to devices already in transit or warehoused, or in transit to dealers within the United States,” the company said in an ex parte. “It would be expected to provide labeling at the point of manufacture, where we commonly pack products with literature and apply labeling. One would not expect that the Commission would require notices to be applied at secondary logistics centers, which would require opening or repackaging, or to products staged in containers for delivery to dealers after such products had already been imported or shipped from the point of manufacture.” Panasonic, like other CE groups and companies, worries about the order’s “expansive scope,” it said. Panasonic makes and sells “many devices which have the capability of connecting to television receivers only for display of content,” it said. “None of these devices will experience any limitations or new requirements for their use after the DTV transition, whether connecting to an analog or a digital television receiver or to a display monitor without over-the-air reception capability.” Left as is, the order “will create substantial financial and unnecessary logistics burdens on Panasonic to comply, yet the required notice is not relevant to so many of the covered products,” Panasonic said. “Providing notices with products that will not be affected by the DTV transition will also cause unnecessary confusion in the marketplace.” The company agreed with the others that the order should be “clarified” to apply only to devices with DTV tuners.
Just over 10,700 NTIA-certified stores were activated as participants in the DTV converter-box coupon program as of Friday, NTIA data show. Many more storefronts are certified, but those deemed “participating” are stocking converters, have trained staff and are ready to redeem coupons, said an NTIA spokesman. “'Certified’ means they have not gone through the process yet to become a participating retailer,” he said. Best Buy, Circuit City, RadioShack and Wal-Mart are among the largest certified chains activated to participate, NTIA data show. Kmart, Sam’s Club, Sears and Target, though certified, haven’t been activated, the data show. Best Buy and Circuit City are using the “sales data reporting” method of coupon redemption, the data show. That means the retailer swipes the coupon at checkout and verifies box eligibility using barcode information in daily reports to NTIA’s vendor, NTIA said. The retailer must verify barcode information independently at point of sale, it said. RadioShack and Wal- Mart are using the alternative “UPC@Auth” method, the data show. Under that method, the retailer enters the coupon number at the point of sale using standard credit card messaging, NTIA said. A box’s barcode is included in the credit card message, it said. The retailer then receives “real-time verification” of a box’s eligibility, it said. TigerDirect won NTIA certification Monday, but hasn’t decided whether it will carry the boxes, Rob Lathers, senior product manager, told us. TigerDirect may sell the DTV converter boxes through its 27 CompUSA and TigerDirect retail stores as well as online, Lathers said. Its goal is to sell boxes virtually free, except for sales tax, with redemption of the $40 coupon, he said. EchoStar at CES introduced a $40 box, but supplies aren’t expected to reach retail shelves until June. Wal-Mart also has priced Magnavox and RCA boxes to sell for $49.87, or only $9.87 with the coupon, plus tax. TigerDirect has met with several box suppliers, but hasn’t signed an agreement, Lathers said. Though TigerDirect knows coupon-eligible converter boxes won’t be a “huge money maker,” the chain thinks they'll drive store traffic, he said. “People may come in looking for a quick fix and eventually they may want to buy a new TV,” Lathers said.
Product choice “is an important factor in consumer adoption,” the Blu-ray Disc Association said in reaction to our report that the group has yet to license any Chinese or Taiwanese suppliers (CED March 14 p4). It’s one of the reasons the BDA “has worked diligently to attract the support of the best and biggest brand names in the consumer electronics, personal computing, gaming and content provider industries,” a spokeswoman said. “Because we believe offering consumers a broad range of hardware and software products will be critical for consumer adoption, in addition to the current and future products from BDA member companies, we anticipate products will be offered by manufacturers in China and throughout the world. To facilitate a broad format launch, Blu-ray is, and will remain, an open format with manufacturing licenses available to those companies interested in making Blu-ray products.”
Rules in the FCC DTV consumer education order requiring CE makers to pack consumer advisories on the transition with a broad range of CE gear they import or ship interstate caught CEA off guard, a spokesman said Thursday. CEA expected every industry to come under some requirements, but wasn’t ready for the advisories order, he said. “We expected the FCC to merely supplement our extensive education efforts,” he said. “We also expected the requirements to be within the scope of the FCC’s jurisdiction. Our simple request to the Commission is to clarify what it meant in the order, which we believe they can easily do on their own motion.” He didn’t address our query on whether CEA regrets not having more aggressively lobbied the agency before its Feb. 19 adoption of the order, released March 3 (CED March 5 p1).
Consumer electronics makers have stepped up lobbying as they try to persuade the FCC to give them more time to comply with new rules on analog cutoff advisories packaged with products. The DTV consumer-education order, released March 3, takes effect when published in the Federal Register.
Active-matrix OLEDs afford “new opportunities” for 3-D TVs, Ho Kyoon Chung, Samsung SDI’s chief technology officer, told the DisplaySearch Flat-Panel Display Conference Tuesday in La Jolla, Calif. A conventional LCD TV would use “spatial division” to achieve 3-D effects, Chung said. AMOLED’s high- speed response -- faster than the 120 Hz of today’s high-end LCD TVs -- allows use of a preferable “time division” method that avoids sacrificing the display’s high resolution and promotes better images even at wide viewing angles, he said. As a way to build cost-efficient large-screen AMOLED displays, Samsung SDI has developed a silicone-free oxide thin-film transistor, Chung said. Based on a “five-mask” process, the oxide TFT achieves “high enough mobility,” he said. Samsung SDI hasn’t done a public oxide TFT demonstration, but has done internal demos of a prototype of a 12.1-inch oxide TFT, he said. It took Samsung SDI nine months to achieve “competitive yield” rates on AMOLED, but a threshold that conventional low-temperature low-temperature polysilicon LCD took 254 months to reach, Chung said. AMOLED production yields, though below those of LTPS LCD, are “still quite sufficient to generate production quantities,” he said. AMOLED’s development cycle promises to be 10 times faster than LTPS LCD’s, he said. Samsung SDI’s product roadmap is to have AMOLED panels ready for commercialization in 42W flat-panel TVs with full 1080p by 2010, Chung said.
LA QUINTA, Calif. -- The recording industry is “coming to terms with the post-DRM consumer model,” said Jonathan Bender, Concord Music Group’s senior vice president of operations and digital media. Bender spoke Saturday at the Content Delivery and Storage Association conference on a panel about security risks facing the content industry.
Consumers ordered more than 493,000 DTV converter box coupons in the week ended Friday, raising coupons requested since Jan. 1 to 7.12 million, NTIA reported Monday. That’s just under a third of the 22.25 million paid for under the “base” phase of the program, when all households can request coupons. If needed, a “contingency” phase would offer an additional 11.25 million coupons, but only to households certifying that they rely on over-the-air TV alone. Residents of ZIP codes Caguas (00725, 6,730 coupons) and Mayaguez (00680, 5,996 coupons), Puerto Rico, ordered more coupons those of any other ZIP. Chicagoans also flocked to get coupons, NTIA data show. Other top ZIP codes: (3) Quincy, Ill. (62301, 4,927 coupons); (4) Chicago (60634, 4,872 coupons); (5) Chicago (60629, 4,412 coupons); (7) Chicago (60639, 4,317 coupons); (8) Chicago (60632, 4,244 coupons); (9) Santa Ana, Calif. (92706, 4,126 coupons); (10) St. Louis (63123, 4,107 coupons).