HD DVD won the CES price and publicity war over Blu- ray with Toshiba’s plan to offer a $499 entry-level player and Thomson’s to source $499 decks from Toshiba, both for spring delivery. But with fewer model numbers and prices than expected quoted by either side at CES, the show shed little additional light on which format might emerge the victor in a format war and when.
The Digital Entertainment Group (DEG) will begin serving as a “clearinghouse” for consumer and industry education on HDTV and next-generation optical disc formats, Panasonic Vp Reid Sullivan, of the DEG board, told the group’s annual CES reception in Las Vegas Thurs. He said information on Blu-ray and HD DVD would be disseminated in a “nonpartisan” way. The DEG membership represents a cross-section of companies supporting one or both new format camps.
LAS VEGAS -- Talks to unify Blu-ray and HD DVD “broke down a very long time ago, but I believe they got very, very close” to reaching a compromise, Sony Chmn. Howard Stringer told reporters here Thurs. in a Q&A immediately after his opening-morning CES keynote.
LAS VEGAS -- CES showgoers too young to remember the Beta-VHS battles of the 1980s will get a first-hand view here of what a real format war is all about, judging from the outcome of pre-show news conferences Wed. by companies from both the Blu-ray and HD DVD camps.
With just over 3 years remaining before an anticipated Feb. 2009 analog cutoff, DTV set ownership this month is expected to surpass 20% U.S. household penetration, spurred by a 49% rise last year in factory unit shipments to 12.3 million DTV sets, CEA said in its annual consensus forecast survey report being released at this week’s Las Vegas CES.
The FCC was “arbitrary and capricious” last March when it reaffirmed a ban on cable deployment of integrated set-top-boxes without putting similar burdens on cable’s DBS rivals (CED March 18 p1), Advance/Newhouse and Charter Communications said last week in a brief with the U.S. Appeals Court, D.C. The MSOs’ petition seeks to have the Commission’s integration ban order vacated.
No subsidies or other deals on the forthcoming Vista OS were offered to PC makers in exchange for supporting HD DVD, Microsoft told Consumer Electronics Daily Fri. The subject arose in an interview with Maureen Weber, Hewlett- Packard (HP) gen. mgr.-personal storage business, who denied unattributed assertions that HP withdrew its exclusive support of Blu-ray because of financial incentives from Microsoft (CED Dec 20 p1). HD DVD’s codecs and iHD interactivity will be supported in Vista, which is expected late next year. “It’s important to clarify that we have in no way offered special financial terms related to Windows Vista in exchange for adoption of HD DVD technology to any OEM,” said Amir Majidimehr, Microsoft corporate vp-Windows digital media. “You should speak with companies like HP who have made their views clearly known regarding the benefits of supporting HD DVD at this time.” HP said it took a neutral position on the formats over uncertainties about Blu-ray’s royalty costs and software manufacturing viability, and the format’s refusal to add HD DVD’s iHD interactivity to its own BD-J system.
CEA Pres. Gary Shapiro Tues. hailed a House-Senate DTV conference report, saying it vindicates CEA’s position that a hard 2009 analog cutoff would black out fewer households than predicted, since not many rely exclusively on over-the-air reception. “It’s nice to see that policy was based on facts,” Shapiro told Consumer Electronics Daily. CEA didn’t push for or against a DTV converter subsidy, “but we advocated strongly that a hard deadline be set and the facts on TV set usage be considered,” Shapiro told us. Citing FCC data, the report said a Feb. 17, 2009, deadline would have “little impact” on most TV households. Cable and DBS households have “slowly but generally increased in recent years,” pointing toward an “even higher” proportion in 3 years, when analog service goes dark, the report said. A 2004 NAB prediction that many more blacked-out households was flawed, apparently because it failed to weigh projections on future DTV sales, or cable and DBS growth, the report said. The report faulted the Govt. Accountability Office (GAO) for endorsing NAB’s data without doing its own survey. Even so, an NAB spokesman said: “Regardless of the misinformation and bogus numbers provided by CEA during the entire DTV transition, the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office has testified that more than 20% of all homes are exclusively reliant on over the air television signals.” After analyzing the data, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) told conference committee members the legislation’s converter-box program “is adequately funded to meet the projected demand for coupons, which CBO estimates to be approximately 20 million,” the report said. Even if NTIA -- charged with running the converter box program -- takes from the subsidy fund all administrative costs anticipated in the bill, the remainder still would cover more than 20 million $40 coupons good toward converter box purchases, the report said. And each $40 of the fund the NTIA doesn’t spend on administration “is another coupon it can make available to consumers,” it said.
Thomson’s search for a partner in or outright buyer of its AV and accessories businesses (CED Dec 13 p1) will be global and not confined to markets like China, as when it made the TV production deal with TCL Electronics that led to joint venture TTE. So said Michael O'Hara, exec. vp of Thomson’s Connectivity sector, which includes the AV and accessories assets Thomson is seeking to shop.
Gateway “stands behind the quality and reliability of all our products,” the company said Wed. in response to a suit alleging it knowingly marketed and sold plasma TVs that are defective and prone to failure.