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Thomson ‘intends to fully meet’ the FCC’s mandate that at least 5...

Thomson “intends to fully meet” the FCC’s mandate that at least 50% of the 36” or larger TV sets sold be equipped with ATSC tuners by July 1 next year, David Arland, dir. of public & trade relations, told…

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the Commission Fri. Thomson also urged Commission to set same July 1, 2004, deadline requiring DTV stations to transmit at full power. In response to a request by FCC Media Bureau Chief Kenneth Ferree for progress reports on key points of the DTV transition, Arland said his company also was developing products “that will ensure that we meet the other requirements of the digital tuner/decoder mandate from 2004 through 2007.” However, he said Thomson believed “a critical element of meeting this mandate” was rapid FCC approval of the cable-consumer electronics “plug-and-play” agreement: “We anticipate that the majority of consumers who will be shopping for HDTV sets will be expecting ‘cable-ready’ products that work seamlessly with existing cable networks.” Arland told us that Thomson and other CE makers were “disturbed” to learn at the recent NCTA show that the FCC planned no action on plug-and-play before Sept. Given that timetable, Arland said, “the window is closing fast” on makers’ ability to provide a comprehensive cable-ready solution in time for the July 2004 tuner deadline. Arland said Thomson “is just not willing to take the risk” of building full cable functionality into DTV decoders mandated for July 2004 on chance that negotiated agreement on plug- and-play will be changed. Arland’s letter said “successive generations of DTV products are improving” as makers gain more and more “real world experience with DTV transmissions and the various factors required to adequately receive, process and display digital audio and video signals… Those improvements come without govt. intervention but rather in the presence of a much more powerful motivation -- competitive pressure.” But Arland said such advances in receiver performance could go only so far: “Regrettably, most local broadcasters are NOT transmitting their digital TV signals at full power.” He said the Commission’s most recent figures indicated only 25% of commercial broadcast stations were on the air with DTV transmission signal “that covers their analog station service areas. This raises the prospect that a very significant number of homes that receive a station’s analog signal cannot receive that station’s digital signal.” Arland said “the suggestion by many broadcasters that ‘insensitive receivers’ are somehow to blame for poor consumer reception of digital TV signals misses the real problem, which, Thomson respectfully suggests lies not with receiver sensitivity but rather by a lack of commitment of the broadcasting community to transmit their digital TV signals at full power.”