Price erosion in LCD TVs likely will top out at 25-30% this holiday selling season vs. Sony projections of 20-25%, Sony Electronics Pres. Stan Glasgow told reporters in a N.Y. briefing Mon.
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.
“Oversights” mar a Nov. 7 CEA proposal at the FCC aimed at speeding deployment of 2-way plug & play products and making OCAP an option (CED Nov 9 p1), Harmonic said Thurs. The company’s observation came in comments filed at the FCC endorsing NCTA’s CableCARD waiver bid. Set-tops made under the CEA’s proposed terms could lack OCAP, which would “constrain them from supporting some of the newer capabilities” of OCAP being developed by CableLabs, such as enhanced TV (ETV), said Harmonic, a digital video compression systems supplier. A “subset” of ETV can be had without OCAP, but “the full set requires OCAP,” Harmonic said: “As a result, there is little economic incentive for MSOs to push these low-cost set-tops over their more expensive, full- featured cousins available with OCAP, digital outputs and HDTV outputs. These are the units which compete against the CEA’s CableCARD-equipped devices.” CEA claims “to want open standards in this area,” but has submitted no draft specifications to the Society of Cable Telecom Engineers (SCTE), cable’s standards development group, Harmonic said. The company said it’s active in SCTE’s Digital Video Subcommittee, which met Fri. For that body to take up CEA’s proposal, CEA would have had to file a draft by Nov. 17; it didn’t, Harmonic said: “The lack of such proposals seems odd in the face of the various claims and requests from the consumer electronics companies.” CEA appreciates that Harmonic, a cable industry vendor, is “calling for an industry standard that promotes competitive cable equipment, and we share that goal,” a spokesman told us Fri. “But the cable lobby’s recent advocacy at the FCC demonstrates an unwillingness to comply with the law ending the cable equipment monopoly,” the spokesman said. CEA is an active participant in standards venues, including SCTE, he said. But when the Nov. 17 deadline came for the Dec. 1 meeting, “it was premature for us to make a formal submission,” he said. “We will certainly propose changes to existing standards that will promote competitive cable equipment, hopefully with cable’s future cooperation and guidance from the FCC,” he said. In comments opposing BendBroadband’s CableCARD waiver request, CEA said it’s “sympathetic” to the “plight” facing the small cable operator now that Motorola has decided “unilaterally” that it won’t make a CableCARD version of the DCT-700 set-top Bend wants to buy. But a waiver won’t mean relief for Bend and other small cable operators from the set-top “duopoly” of Motorola and Scientific-Atlanta, CEA said: “Rather the answer lies in, finally, empowering competitive entry into this device marketplace, via the cable industry’s finally providing specifications and licensing for a range of competitive navigation devices, including those that would address the needs of customers for all digital services, as Bend plans.” CEA’s “detailed proposal” at the FCC would provide for that kind of set-up, it said. The group “stands ready” to discuss the proposal “expeditiously” with the Commission “and any and all interested parties, including Bend,” CEA said.
Lifting NDA curbs on downloadable security would ensure that “an open and transparent discussion may ensue among all parties,” CEA Pres. Gary Shapiro said Thurs. in a reply letter to top House and Senate Commerce Committee Republicans. If cable won’t remove the restrictions on its own, the FCC should do it, Shapiro said. Senate Commerce Committee Chmn. Stevens (R-Alaska), House Commerce Committee Chmn. Barton (R-Tex.) and House Telecom Subcommittee Chmn. Upton (R-Mich.) wrote FCC Chmn. Martin Tues. to decry forcing costly deployment of “outdated” CableCARDs, with superior downloadable security technology impending (CED Nov 29 p5). They urged “timely” deployment of downloadable security. Shapiro said cable’s downloadable security spec “is fatally lacking in transparency and interoperability, ensuring no progress toward actual deployment of this technology can be made. The secret environment under which downloadable security exists makes future support for it even more speculative and uncertain than for the CableCARD.” But NCTA thinks NDA restrictions “protect the valuable content that cable operators provide consumers,” a spokesman said. Removing them “would violate the specific direction that Congress provided to the FCC to not ‘jeopardize security of multichannel video programming,'” he said. “Almost every consumer electronics product is developed using a non- disclosure environment, including devices that format security for the same high-end content.” Waiving such protections for downloadable conditional access would “compromise the security elements” used by other commercially successful pay-TV security systems that have been deployed, he said.
CEA put a positive spin on a Nov. 27 letter sent to FCC Chmn. Martin by House and Senate Commerce Committee Republican leaders that said forcing costly deployment of “outdated technology” in CableCARDs is “not good public policy” (CED Nov 29 p5). The letter -- signed by Senate Commerce Committee Chmn. Stevens (R-Alaska), House Commerce Committee Chmn. Barton (R-Tex.) and House Telecom Subcommittee Chmn. Upton (R-Mich.) -- backs “a solution that we proposed to the FCC and cable several weeks ago” to hasten 2-way plug & play to market with OCAP as an option, not a requirement (CED Nov 9 p1), CEA said. Stevens, Barton and Upton wrote: “Rather than require universal use of CableCARDs by July 1, 2007, the Commission would better serve consumers if the agency would focus the industry’s efforts on: (1) Deploying downloadable security in a timely fashion; and (2) Ensuring that subscribers who do not wish to rely on set-top boxes provided by their cable operators can access two-way, as well as one-way cable services.” CEA said that’s “a fine idea.” It again urged cable to remove NDA curbs from downloadable security “so that we all can have a thorough and open discussion about this in plain public view… We are pleased to see that Chairmen Stevens, Barton, and Upton agree with us.”
Blu-ray soon will have “the broadest range” of hardware and software, plus “market dynamics” to trump HD DVD, Pioneer Senior Vp Andy Parsons, chmn. of the Blu-ray Disc Assn. U.S. promotion committee, told us Wed. in a N.Y. briefing.
There’s an audience measurement function built into Sirius’s new Wi-Fi-enabled Stiletto handheld, Paul Blalock, Sirius senior vp-investor relations, told the ISCe Satellite Investment Symposium in N.Y. Tues. Whenever the Stiletto is within range of a wireless network, Sirius “can check to see what kind of channel listening habits you've had,” Blalock said in reply to a question whether Sirius uses Nielsen-like listener tracking services. Sirius does not, Blalock said. “From an advertising standpoint, we have a more important, more interesting, more available tool at our disposal” in Howard Stern, Blalock said. “When Howard Stern mentions an advertised product, an 800 number flashes up on your screen. We know exactly how many people call that 800 number. That’s a very, very powerful tool -- in some ways better than traditional” methods like Nielsen, he said.
The FCC should “have better things to do than micromanage the market for cable boxes,” the Wall Street Journal said in a Sat. editorial backing cable in the integration ban debate. Open competition in cable set-tops hasn’t happened in part because Sec. 304 of the 1996 Communications Act “has never been enforced and in part because it’s unclear just how big a market there is for consumer-purchased set-top boxes when the boxes can be leased from the cable company at regulated rates for a couple of dollars a month,” the editorial said. “The regulatory machine nonetheless marches on. And unless the FCC takes action on a number of waivers requested by the cable companies, the industry faces a $600 million annual bill to comply with a regulation with no real purpose. That’s right: $600 million, which will of course be passed along in higher rates for consumers.” To promote competition, the FCC wants cable companies to use set-tops requiring a CableCARD, it said: “Never mind that the cost is high and the benefits to anyone are dubious.” Cable has had run-ins with FCC Chmn. Martin over a la carte pricing and extension of obscenity rules to cable channels, the editorial said: “This lends the CableCARD shakedown a flavor of political payback -- especially coming from what is supposed to be a deregulatory, free-market-oriented FCC.” The FCC and Martin “could do the economy a favor by worrying less about political gamesmanship and more about getting on with the deregulation the telecom industry needs,” it said. In a rebuttal letter, CEA told the Journal its editorial “argues for reversing Congress’ effort to liberate consumers forced to lease cable boxes, but it ignores the consumer benefits such competition would bring. Cable has won 2 delays from the FCC to enforce the integration ban and now wants a 3rd, CEA said. “The perverse theory -- consumers will pay more and innovation will suffer if cable can no longer maintain its set-top box monopoly -- is unworthy of your endorsement,” it told the paper. Cable wants to “preserve the lucrative income stream from renting consumers set top boxes,” CEA said: “Congress wanted consumers to have choice so it mandated a competitive cable box market. Cable proposed CableCARD as a solution. But through litigation and waiver requests, cable has tried to kill its stalking horse. The FCC correctly concluded that requiring cable companies to put CableCARDs in their own set- top boxes guarantees that cable will finally make the cards work. Like the child killing its parents and claiming special favors as an orphan, the cable industry obtained repeated delays with false promises and now criticizes the very solution it proposed simply because their efforts to delay were successful.” Cable claims that enforcing the CableCARD rule will amount to a $600 million tax on consumers are “wildly exaggerated,” CEA said. A competitive market “will lower, not raise, equipment prices, and only a monopoly would argue the reverse,” it said: “The incredible after- Thanksgiving sales on consumer electronics (with the notable exception of cable boxes) proves the efficacy of such competition. Indeed, consider the competition from the analogous standards set for home telephone interconnection which freed us from high prices and boring black phones.”
Allowing circumvention of CSS encryption to let Linux PC users view DVD movies was among proposed exemptions rejected in a Copyright Office triennial rulemaking last week (CED Nov 24 p8). The Office also denied an anticircumvention exemption on DVD regional coding, saying it serves “legitimate purposes” as a Hollywood “access control.”
Unlike the video broadcast flag, which concerns only indiscriminate redistribution of DTV content, and doesn’t thwart home recording or playback, RIAA’s audio flag proposals “would interfere with private consumer behavior.” That’s how CEA Pres. Gary Shapiro responded Wed. in a letter to RIAA Chmn. Bainwol in the latest war of words in the audio flag debate.
Kenneth Lowe, Sigma Designs vp-business development & strategic mktg., says he “misspoke” in claiming Microsoft subsidizes HD DVD so entry-level Toshiba decks can be priced as low as $499 (CED Nov 22 p4). “We tried to indicate that Microsoft and Toshiba are the primary proponents behind HD DVD at this point, and that the $499 players are being subsidized by Toshiba to establish a higher level of initial demand,” Lowe said: “We have no information that Microsoft is also subsidizing the cost of the players.” Lowe spoke after Microsoft executive Christopher Carper, of the company’s Consumer Media Technology Group, contacted him to say Microsoft doesn’t subsidize HD DVD and asked him to set the record straight with Consumer Electronics Daily. Microsoft and Toshiba haven’t responded to our inquiries.