HDTeleVision Review

No surprise here, really. InStat reported this week that 17 million of the more than 39 million U.S. households with at least one HDTV set do not have an HDTV signal source. That’s a little more than two out of every five. Now the good news is, I suppose, that a couple of years ago the estimate was that only half of the HDTV households had HDTV, so this does indicate a small gain.

But what’s going on here? The answer is that these new flat screen televisions look so much better than old picture tube TVs — especially with a digital signal from cable, satellite, or a DVD player — that it’s good enough for the average viewer. Most people think that watching a DVD on an HDTV is HDTV image because it looks so good. (And besides, they spent the extra for the 1080p upconverting DVD player, so it has to make it HD, right? Nope; standard DVDs are standard definition, no matter what you do to them.)

It’s really a shame that so many people aren’t taking advantage of the extra resolution that they paid for in their new HDTV sets. The fact is that HD programming does not have to cost more; it’s free with over-the-air broadcasts from all full-power television stations (at least, for those shows that are broadcast in HD). And if you have a digital cable service, you should be able to connect your TV directly to the cable without a settop box and get some HD channels. (You need the set top box for the scrambled premium channels, but you should be able to access the basic channels this way.)

There’s one more implication in this news, and that’s bad news for Blu-ray. If HDTV owners don’t care about whether they have an HD signal for their sets, they are not going to be rushing out to buy the HD Blu-ray players. And I don’t see this situation changing any time soon.

The decision has made to take the plunge into the world of High Definition Television or HDTV but where do you begin? The continuous advancement in technology on a seemingly daily basis can make your next television purchase a daunting task. In order to help you muddle your way through the technology jargon here are some buying tips to help guide you through the world of HDTV.
The prices between LCD and Plasma televisions has begun to level out, so now consumer can now make the decision based on the product quality rather than cost. There are several benefits to purchasing a plasma television, like a wider viewing angle for your audience, improved color reproduction and a brighter image. A LCD television is an improvement over a plasma television when it comes to longer life span, increased sharpness of native resolution resulting in a more life like picture, along with being lightweight compared to the heavier plasma television. Also with an LCD, there is no chance of experiencing the burn-in effect on the television screen. Make the decision for your new HDTV based on your personal preferences and you will be satisfied.

November retail sales figures are coming in for the discount chains, and according to a report by TWICE, the news is a bit grim. WalMart posted a 6.5 percent gain over last year, with consumer electronics, clothing, and home goods doing well.

So much for the good news. Costco was down 3 percent, and sales were down 6.1 percent at Target. The report also cites data from MasterCard for the first two weeks of November, in which consumer electronics and major appliances were down 22.1 percent over last year, following a 19.9 percent drop in October.

Now, these statistics are based on total dollars, which changes the picture a little. With prices for some electronics falling 10 to 20 percent this year, the same level of unit sales will produce a smaller total revenue. We’ve also seen evidence of buyers scaling down their expectations, and choosing to purchase smaller TV sets than in prior years.

But I think that the fact that WalMart posted the gains is a telling detail. People are looking to stretch their dollars as far as possible, and that means leaving the specialty stores behind. WalMart provides one-stop-shopping for deeply-discounted products in just about all categories, including top brand flat panel HDTVs. Everyone has been tightening their belts – including the retailers — which means that the bargains are going to stick around for a while.

Now comes news from Sharp that the company plans to build in DVD players into some larger screens offered for sale in the United States. And these are not small sets; the new models are 42″ and 32″ according to a report in TWICE. What sets these apart from other combo models is that the DVD players will be high-def Blu-ray.

It’s an intriguing move on Sharp’s part. American consumers still view Blu-ray as too expensive and not enough better than standard DVD to be worth three or four times the cost. So maybe this is a strategy to try to get more Blu-ray players installed by bundling them with the TV. The fact that the sets are 32″ and 42″ are not surprising. Adding a standard DVD player only adds a small cost to the total for the set, so it makes sense to add one to an inexpensive set that only costs a few hundred dollars. A Blu-ray drive could double the cost of a small set, however, so the only way to make it a reasonable step up is to add it to a more expensive larger display. The TWICE article says that no pricing was announced, but that the 42″ model is expected to cost “less than $2,000“. That would have been an attractive price point for a 42″ LCD HDTV a couple of years ago, but not today. If Sharp hopes to sell many of these combo sets, they’ll have to be closer to $1,000.