Me TV: What and when should you buy?
Technological advancements have raised prices and created confusion for buyers. Is DLP, HD, LCD or CRT in your future?
Couch potato confusion
Mark and Nina Lees found that more research got them only more confused while shopping for a new TV. Flat panel vs. CRT, plasma vs. LCD, digital vs. analog, or even digital vs. digital?
In their bewilderment, the couple made their decision on the one factor they understood: price. They just couldn't see spending four figures on a television set, so they settled on a flat-screen, 32-inch Sony for $450. "It was like we weren't just hamsters running on a wheel, but the wheel was on a track running backward," said Mark, a semiretired consultant in the Southern California desert community of Rancho Mirage.
Welcome to the brave new television market, in which the picture on the set is often the only thing that's clear. For decades, TV sales steadily evolved into a commodity business, with products in nearly every U.S. household but hardly any technical innovation.
Today, consumers must learn not only the new technologies in the box, but also whether their prospective purchases will work at all with a broad array of digital broadcast standards not yet decided. Federal regulators
are still considering deadlines for such features as CableCards and broadcast flags.
It's not all bad news, however. "For the first time in the television industry, there is a wider choice of sizes, technologies and products that consumers can pick from for their specific needs," said Riddhi Patel, an analyst at research firm iSuppli. "This is leading to a more competitive market."
That means cheaper prices. The most popular range of LCD television sizes, 30 inches to 34 inches, sold for an average of $2,600 at the end of 2004, down from nearly $3,700 in 2003. By 2007, prices are expected to be about $900. Similarly, 40-inch to 44-inch plasma sets will fall from about $3,000 in 2003 to about $800 by 2007.
Flat-panel TV prices are falling so fast that shipments are projected to surpass those of the familiar cathode ray tube, or CRT, television by 2007--even though the traditional sets reputedly are more reliable, last longer and offer better picture quality. Plasma and liquid crystal display, or LCD, sets offer roughly the same picture quality and screen life.
Both plasma and LCD screens light up and create images when an electrical charge is applied. While each flat-panel technology has advantages over the other--plasma sets tend to have better color, contrast and response times, while LCDs offer higher resolutions--advancements are being made to close those gaps. Plasma TVs currently have an advantage in price and size, but LCD manufacturers are getting better at making larger screens.
"This isn't a winner-takes-all sort of market," said Bob O'Donnell, a research vice president at research firm IDC. And that's good for price-conscious consumers.
Couch potato confusion
Mark and Nina Lees found that more research got them only more confused while shopping for a new TV. Flat panel vs. CRT, plasma vs. LCD, digital vs. analog, or even digital vs. digital?
In their bewilderment, the couple made their decision on the one factor they understood: price. They just couldn't see spending four figures on a television set, so they settled on a flat-screen, 32-inch Sony for $450. "It was like we weren't just hamsters running on a wheel, but the wheel was on a track running backward," said Mark, a semiretired consultant in the Southern California desert community of Rancho Mirage.
Welcome to the brave new television market, in which the picture on the set is often the only thing that's clear. For decades, TV sales steadily evolved into a commodity business, with products in nearly every U.S. household but hardly any technical innovation.
Today, consumers must learn not only the new technologies in the box, but also whether their prospective purchases will work at all with a broad array of digital broadcast standards not yet decided. Federal regulators
are still considering deadlines for such features as CableCards and broadcast flags.
It's not all bad news, however. "For the first time in the television industry, there is a wider choice of sizes, technologies and products that consumers can pick from for their specific needs," said Riddhi Patel, an analyst at research firm iSuppli. "This is leading to a more competitive market."
That means cheaper prices. The most popular range of LCD television sizes, 30 inches to 34 inches, sold for an average of $2,600 at the end of 2004, down from nearly $3,700 in 2003. By 2007, prices are expected to be about $900. Similarly, 40-inch to 44-inch plasma sets will fall from about $3,000 in 2003 to about $800 by 2007.
Flat-panel TV prices are falling so fast that shipments are projected to surpass those of the familiar cathode ray tube, or CRT, television by 2007--even though the traditional sets reputedly are more reliable, last longer and offer better picture quality. Plasma and liquid crystal display, or LCD, sets offer roughly the same picture quality and screen life.
Both plasma and LCD screens light up and create images when an electrical charge is applied. While each flat-panel technology has advantages over the other--plasma sets tend to have better color, contrast and response times, while LCDs offer higher resolutions--advancements are being made to close those gaps. Plasma TVs currently have an advantage in price and size, but LCD manufacturers are getting better at making larger screens.
"This isn't a winner-takes-all sort of market," said Bob O'Donnell, a research vice president at research firm IDC. And that's good for price-conscious consumers.
Turbulence in airwaves
Fear of obsolescence is always a factor in choosing electronics, but it's creating even more uncertainty than usual among TV buyers these days.
The confusion begins with the screens, which have evolved from CRT to LCD, plasma and projection models, but it goes far beyond that. Thanks to political squabbling over the rules that will push TV into the digital age, it's still unclear what sorts of features will be available--and how soon.
Regulators vow that they won't stick consumers with obsolete equipment, but they admit that the changing landscape can be hard to navigate. "These are great times for consumers because there's so much new technology. But it's also difficult because there are so many choices," said Rick Chessen, chairman of the Federal Communication Commission's DTV Task Force.
To avoid disappointment, new TV buyers should take the time to get up to speed on their options. That means being as vigilant of what's going on in Washington and the consumer electronics industry as they are of what's on store shelves at the mall. Among the key issues that are in constant flux:
• Digital television: DTV is the "back end" technology for delivering TV signals using ones and zeros rather than the analog systems used for generations. Congress has ordered U.S. broadcasters to turn off their over-the-air analog signals by Dec. 31, 2007. But that deadline could be
delayed indefinitely in some markets, if consumers are slow to adopt digital-ready TVs and devices. Satellite providers and cable companies aren't waiting. Some already use HDTV exclusively or offer it as an option to subscribers in conjunction with a set-top box.
• High-definition television: DTV provides various levels of picture quality; HDTV is the current highest. Others include enhanced-definition television, or EDTV, and standard-definition television, or SDTV.
Be careful: Although some EDTV sets are labeled as HD-compatible, that means only that they can receive HD signals--not display them in high-definition quality.
• CableCard: The Federal Communications Commission has ordered manufacturers to offer "digital cable-ready" (or "plug and play") TVs that can receive digital cable television without a set-top box. One specification, known as CableCard, allows this but does not support interactive services such as pay-per-view or video-on-demand.
• Video recording: As of July 31 this year, all DTV devices sold in the United States must support technology known as "broadcast flags" designed to prevent consumers from copying over-the-air DTV programming and transmitting it over the Internet. The rule, which would still allow copying for personal use, faces a legal challenge. In the meantime, device makers are beginning to comply.
TV hub of home media
Nick Davis doesn't have a TV set--at least not in the usual way. Instead, he watches football games through his PC, projected in living color against a tall white wall in his New York loft.
His DVD player, TiVo and a PlayStation are all hooked up to the system through a wireless network. The PC has a television card that plugs into the cable. Perhaps the most remarkable quality about the ingenious set-up is that anyone can do it, as long they don't mind reading a few minimal instruction manuals. "It's simple," Davis said. "It just sounds complicated."
Davis, 25, is on the forefront of a generation of TV viewers who are tearing down the technology walls that once isolated their television sets, turning them into just one component of a powerful Internet-connected, networked multimedia system. But is this really something for the average viewer or even the mildly ambitious computer hobbyist? It all depends on what the masses want and whether they are willing to wait a few years for the technology to settle into standards.
According to analysis firm In-Stat, the number of people who have home media networks will grow from 50 million in 2005 to more than 200 million in 2009, driven largely by PC companies that continue to shift their focus from the desktop and laptop to the living room.
It's increasingly easy to buy a Media Center PC and simply plug it into a television. That's the start of a quick TV home network, making it simple to record shows, burn them to DVD, and even watch them from other computers or on a cell phone.
For a top-flight system, viewers can go Davis' route and do it themselves--or talk to a professional installer
like Adam Zolot of Entertaining Spaces, near San Francisco. Zolot and others say the future can be seen in the work of a company called Kaleidescape, which creates $30,000 systems that hold hundreds of digital movies on a home server accessible anywhere in a networked home.
Because Kaleidescape is embroiled in litigation with Hollywood, Zolot is installing a much cheaper system. Axonix's MediaMax, his temporary solution, stores movies on a 400 DVD changer connected to television sets throughout a house. Add a server for music and nonmovie video content, and he says he has a powerful system.
As the world moves toward having all media digitized, with hard drives and Net connections at the core of home media centers, Zolot sees a much more easily networked future. "As soon as the legal issues are resolved, much like the digital-music era, this is going to blow wide open."