Why I think HDTV is right around the corner
 

The signs are on the wall:

XBox 360
Cheaper HDTV Production Tools
HDTV Players are on the horizon
HDTV sets can be bought as low as 500 bucks
&
DVDs will be published on the back of HD Disc (I think this is a Toshiba thing)

Define "right around the corner". When do you think HD tv sets will reach a 75% market share for the home viewer. On year? Five?

I agree, I think it all depends on what you mean by "right around the corner"

I mean heck, I've been watching HDTV in my home (via Digital Cable) for going on a year now. In that respect, HDTV is way past the corner. LOL!

I'd say within 2 to 3 years.

Glenn,

I'm putting you down for projecting that 75% of all home television sets will be HD in 2008.

(No prizes... just satisfaction!)

lol It can happen...but the HDTV sets and players have to go down dramtically in price...that can happen in 2008. I'm telling you, these next generation video game systems will mostly be on HDTV sets.

2 to 3 years?

No way. And as far as Video Game systems determining that? I can't see families forking over the extra duckets because Billy want's his X-Box game to look better.

You have to remember, this is a consumer society. If people do not buy new things, the economy will go bust. HDTV prevalence is not tied to whether or not the things that people have right now work for them, it is tied to our economies need to sell things. If it is the latest and greatest, and if people can afford it, they will buy it, PERIOD.

And little Johny is not the primary buyer of the Xbox 360, it's the 26 year old guy who reads Maxim magazine. Little Johny is just NOW getting an XBox, but that doesn't mean that the XBox is JUST now gaining prevalence.

3 years is my bet, and I definately wouldn't be shooting a digital movie in SD at this point.

Recently I read a statistic that 40% of US homes had a widescreen TV. That surprised me, I didn't think there were so many...

I've been digging through some magazines, I think Adam Wilt did an article and if I recall correctly, he said it wasn't yet ten percent...

It'd be nice to know what the current level is noted at.

Remember what Mark Twain said? "There are three kinds of lies: Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics."

So one statistic would be the total percentage of TV's in the US that are widescreen (note that widescreen doesn't necessarily mean HD either). And another would be the total percentage of US households with at least one widescreen TV.

The next step in consumer HD signals is 1080p (currently it's 720p) that may come around in the next 2-3 years in HDTVs. of course you need broadcasters that can broadcast 1080p with new tape technology (my guess is HDCAM SR then HDCAM SX(1080p60 compatible)) of course, by Sony or Panasonic. but equiptment for the pros and the consumers would be very, very expensive! But within 1 year, prices will dip and percentages will rise.

That great expert on TV technology, Conan O'Brien, recently said that only 8% of U.S. homes had HDTV. No need to look further for the facts.

Also of note about HDTV, is that the highest number of scanning lines that are actually resolved on monitors available to consumers, is 720. The CRT monitors currently on the market, have the ability to resolve only about 670 scanning lines. Some of them can display only 600 or less. The reason is that the dot-pitch of the phosphors on their screens is much larger than those on a computer screen. Some of the better CRT HDTV monitors have a .64mm dot pitch, compared with .22 to .28mm on typical computer monitors. One wonders why computer CRT monitors have such fine-pitch screens and HDTV monitors do not. After all, most computer monitors are considerably less expensive than HDTV sets. The computer monitors generally have a higher refresh rate, as well. Is it just a matter of the relative sizes of the two types of screens?