From High Hopes to High Deficit and Back - EuroITV2009
1. From High Hopes to High Deficit and Back: Europe’s HDTV Past, Present and Future Nils Walravens & prof. dr. Caroline Pauwels IBBT-SMIT Free University Brussels
11. Today HDTV take off 2001: 720p 2005: 1080i & 1080p US: +/- 35% HDTV owners Between 20-40% HD broadcasts Europe: +/- 20% HDTV owners Around 5% HD broadcasts Growing adoption of digital television, HD channels, Blu Ray, HD gaming Consumer confusion gradually disolving?
14. Super Hi-Vision (SHV) Or Ultra HDTV (UHDTV) 7680x4320 pixels NHK First experiments in Japan Audience reception? The future
15. Technological advances depend on unpredictable external factors and are not planned in the marketing department, nor by engineers The future: Lessons from the past
16. Do not only serve the interests of large, dominant players: a broad consultation of the field is essential in successful adoption The future: Lessons from the past
17. Do not crack the egg or fry the chicken: hardware is useless without software, HDTV is not attractive (read: ugly) without HD content The future: Lessons from the past
18. Take you consumer seriously: do not use consumer research as an excuse, technical solutions are not always answers The future: Lessons from the past
19. Technological determinism: question on transparency and control remain, in-house development, but more room for international cooperation The future: Lessons for SHV Top down vs bottom up: consumer demand for SHV? Again, more international cooperation, and strong industrial stimulus Chicken and egg: current cooperation with BBC and RAI laudable, but needs to more than technical cooperation. Content and hardware and king and queen The consumer: due to specific SHV traits, consumer research has an important role in development
20. Unexpected contextual factors are what they are Remaining questions Still quite early in development, several technical hurdles remain Consumer response?
21. Your questions? Nils Walravens & prof. dr. Caroline Pauwels Interdisciplinary Institute for Broadband Technology (IBBT) Studies on Media, Information and Technology (SMIT) Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) nils.walravens@vub.ac.be & caroline.pauwels@vub.ac.be T: +32 2 629 16 21 F: +32 2 629 17 00
Editor's Notes
How many here have an HD-Ready TV?
In Europe, numbers not very clear, estimates around 20%
How many here actually watch HD-quality television?
Estimations in Europe that of the 20% that have an HDTV about 5 watch actual HD content. Who didn’t understand the question?
HDTV standardisation goes back a while, with research dating back to the sixties.
HDTV standardisation goes back a while: Sixties, research started in Japan, first standard HiVision in 1986, Nippon Hoso Kyoka. BUT all tv systems in the world need to be replaced
Europe in trouble, more competition from Japanese and US consumer electronics, VCR effect wearing off. Become aware of HDTV which could be lifeline the industry need. Europe opposes Japanese standard and starts several R&D projects.
While the European plan certainly was ambitious , several crucial errors were made in the development of the standard. No coherence in policy. HDTV came to stand for high deficit television
US starts HDTV standardisation programs, issueing funding for the best standard, several proposals come in and are eventually combined, choosing a standard that was compatible with NTSC and completely digital in the early nineties. Major firms abandoned the analogue standard and switched to the digital development of the HD standards. With the cooperation of international standardisation bodies the current HDTV standards were described in 2001
Current standards, won’t spend too much time on them. Not easy to understand for an uninformed consumer.