Paul Gluckman

BERLIN -- As Europe sets its eyes toward next year’s World Cup football to at long last get the ball rolling on HDTV, industry executives at last week’s Internationale Funkausstellung (IFA) trade fair here looked wistfully at the U.S. as having experienced the “reality” of HDTV the past 7 years.

CEA “would like to see the deployment rate higher for CableCARDs” than the 50,000 estimated recently by the cable industry to have been installed (CD Aug 30 p12), CEA Pres. Gary Shapiro told us. But CableCard is “a new technology and new capability that consumers will need time to grasp,” Shapiro said. Cable operators “have stuck to their promise to support” CableCARD, but they're not actively promoting it, Shapiro said. He recalled the statement of a Cox executive at an HDTV conference last summer who, when asked if the MSO was promoting CableCARD, said its policy was “don’t ask, don’t sell.” Shapiro said “the dearth of information from cable operators certainly doesn’t help the attachment rate” on CableCARDs. Nevertheless, CableCARD-ready DTVs “will remain important for the high percentage of cable customers who don’t want a set-top box,” Shapiro said. “Luckily, there’s a large and growing installed base of digital cable-ready TVs that will prove very useful to consumers as awareness of this latent capability increases.”

There’s much more to adding DTV reception capability to an analog TV set than simply “soldering a single tuner/chip onto a circuit board,” RCA set maker TTE told the FCC last week in an ex parte filing. That’s why a deadline earlier than March 1, 2007, for requiring DTV tuning capability in 13-24” sets “is not achievable without unacceptable risk of quality problems and needlessly high prices for consumers,” TTE said, echoing virtually all other set makers and the CEA. The Commission has proposed moving up the current deadline on 13-24” sets to Dec. 31, 2006, from July 1, 2007. But TTE said there’s “no evidence” Dec. 2006 -- or an even earlier 2006 date that broadcasters have proposed -- “would be achievable for any manufacturer, much less for the general population of manufacturers.” DTV integration “requires a major re-engineering effort -- and in the case of smaller- sized sets, an entirely new chassis -- to accept the digital tuner, demodulator and other essential circuitry and related components,” TTE said. Also needed are cabinet modifications, all new reliability and safety testing, “and, of course, regulatory approvals,” as required for all RF emitters, TTE said. The FCC and Congress long have recognized the importance to set makers of the 18-month manufacturing cycle “in every instance where a new television technology has been mandated,” TTE said. “Truncating” that cycle “would introduce unacceptable levels of complication and risk” to product quality and availability and cause “needlessly steep price increases for consumers,” TTE said. “It also would be arbitrary and capricious as a matter of law.” TTE said it believes Congress “almost certainly will enact legislation this fall” setting a hard analog cutoff date in 2009. A March 2007 deadline for 13-24” sets would afford 22-34 months lead time before the analog cutoff -- “more than sufficient time for consumers to obtain integrated DTV receivers to accommodate the switch to digital broadcasting,” TTE said. The FCC is “erroneous” in speculating there will be only “modest” costs associated with building DTV tuners into 13-24” sets on an accelerated deadline, TTE said: “Integrating DTV tuning and reception capability will result in substantial increases in the costs of smaller-sized sets, as much as doubling the price of many 13” TVs and other products.”

BEVERLY HILLS, Cal. -- TV set makers “are without question, the most abused, beaten up and taken advantage of” industry, and it’s time they stood up to program distributors who would degrade HD picture quality by multicasting, HDNet Chmn. Mark Cuban told the DisplaySearch HDTV Conference here Tues.

Factory DTV unit shipments climbed 45% in 2005’s first half to 3.8 million, fueled by price declines averaging $200 during the period, CEA reported Fri. Dollar shipments rose 23% to $4.6 billion, CEA said. Falling prices have meant a sales increase each month in 2005 from the one before, CEA said. CEA said total DTV shipments reached 3.8 million in Jan.-June, suggesting that just under 1/2 -- or 1.85 million sets -- were flat- panel LCD or plasma TVs. CEA doesn’t publicly release monthly or weekly shipments on flat-panel DTVs, as it does for digital direct-view or projection sets.

The NRSC-5 standard specifies no audio codec for iBiquity Digital’s in-band on-channel (IBOC) digital HD Radio, but is “sufficiently complete to serve as the basis” for FCC service rules, NAB told the Commission. The NAB’s reply comments again urged adoption of the National Radio System Committee (NRSC) specification.

Challenges abound in improving the reliability, ease of use and system support of CableCARD-ready devices in homes, representatives of CEA and 5 CE makers told the FCC’s Media Bureau in an Aug. 11 visit, according to an ex parte filing at the Commission. Executives from CEA, Hitachi, Pioneer, Sharp Labs, Sony and TTE were sent by the Cable Working Group of the CEA’s Video Div. board to emphasize the importance of CableCARDs in the “competitive availability” of digital cable products and in the DTV transition, the ex parte said. Despite “the good-faith efforts and cooperation extended by a number of cable operators and their vendors,” achieving “systematic and predictable support” among the “large variety of local cable systems” remains an unfulfilled goal, the CE delegates told the Commission, the filing said: “They emphasized the urgency of achieving high levels of consistency and reliability at this time, especially in light of the importance of the CableCARD as a potentially attractive feature for mid-size and smaller TV receivers bearing DTV tuners. Based on experience to date, they made the point that the most efficient way to assure systematic, reliable support for competitive devices is through common reliance by both cable operators’ set-top boxes and competitive devices on the same conditional access technologies.” Last March, the FCC extended the integration ban on digital cable set-tops by a year to July 2007 to give Comcast, Microsoft and Time Warner Cable time to develop a software-based conditional access system for navigation devices and a timetable for deploying it. The FCC has set a Dec. 1 deadline for a cable industry progress report. By Oct. 1 and then every 90 days, the 6 largest cable operators also must file status reports at the Commission on CableCARD deployment and a timetable for deployment of multistream CableCARDs.

Sirius gave a 29.4% raise to Scott Greenstein, pres.- entertainment & sports, the firm disclosed in an 8-K report filed at the SEC. Under his new contract, Greenstein -- the executive who landed Howard Stern -- will get a $700,000 annual base salary, up from $540,750. He also got 462,222 restricted stock units and 1.25 million stock options, the filing said. Greenstein’s deal was extended 2 years to July 31, 2009. CFO David Frear’s contract also was amended, raising his annual base salary 28% to $450,000 and granting him 300,000 restricted stock units and 700,000 stock options, the filing said. Sirius extended Frear’s deal 2 years to July 31, 2008. Jim Meyer, pres.-sales & operations, got 48,067 restricted stock units, with no changes to a contract that expires April 16, 2006, according to the most recent Sirius proxy statement filed at the SEC. Under his agreement, Meyer has an annual base salary of $540,750, plus options, the last 1.2 million of which vest April 15, 2007, or sooner if 2005 performance milestones are achieved, the proxy said. Meyer has agreed to stay on as a Sirius consultant for a year when his employ contract expires, the proxy said. Meyer is to get 300,000 more restricted stock units that will vest May 3, 2007, if he’s still a consultant then, the proxy said.

The FCC’s proposal to move up the DTV tuner mandate deadline to Dec. 31, 2006, (CD June 10 p2) doesn’t allow “for the engineering and production challenges entailed,” Panasonic told the Commission in reply comments last week. “It would provide at best barely 16 months if the decision were made today” to advance the deadline from the July 1, 2007, date now on the books, Panasonic said, echoing the replies of CEA, the Consumer Electronics Retailers Coalition (CERC) and 2 other CE makers that also filed replies individually.

NAB and MSTV agree with Motorola that speeding the remaining DTV tuner mandate deadline to “a couple of months” before the end of 2006 would have a far more “positive effect” than setting the deadline at Dec. 31, 2006, as the FCC urges, the broadcast groups told the Commission Wed. in reply comments. CE groups have urged the FCC to keep the deadline at July 1, 2007, but said they would accept moving up the date 4 months to March 1. Accepting the March 1 proposal by CEA and the Consumer Electronics Retailers Coalition “would be of little value,” NAB and MSTV said. A late-2006 deadline wouldn’t “unduly burden” CE makers and retailers, broadcasters argued, saying CE claims to the contrary have “no merit.” CE “will have well over a year to allocate financial, facilities, engineering and personnel resources to equipping small receivers and other television receiving equipment with DTV tuners,” NAB and MSTV said. They dismissed Philips complaints that to meet a late-2006 deadline it would have to “revisit” factory and personnel decisions already made, saying the CE maker offered no evidence that revisiting old decisions “would outweigh the many benefits of removing analog-only sets from the market.”