SAN FRANCISCO -- Improved video quality and local content provided by TV stations broadcasting mobile signals could help boost the audience for mobile video and increase the amount of time viewers spend watching video on mobile devices, said broadcast executives pushing the technology. An average mobile video viewer watches now VoD or streaming video content for 30 minutes a day, said Sam Matheny, general manager of Capitol Broadcasting’s News Over Wireless. “If you're able to put this HD quality, no buffering signal on our handset, we really think we're going to be able to dramatically increase that."
ST. LOUIS -- “Forty points ain’t enough,” HTSA Executive Director Richard Glikes told vendors Wednesday at the fall meeting of the Home Technology Specialists Association. The comment followed a detailed presentation by HTSA member Bob Gullo, president of Electronics Design Group, Piscataway, N.J., on the design, labor and subcontractor costs involved in large-scale custom home-electronics projects. “Our vendor partners need to be educated,” Glikes said, “because some of you sell us projectors but you may not know what goes on beyond that.” He said manufacturers understand their own product categories “but may not know the depth of what we do."
MAKUHARI, Japan -- A year after 3D splashed across CEATEC, the 2010 show has been a study in refinements and breakthroughs, both requiring more R&D if the technology is to gain wide-spread consumer acceptance, industry officials said here. While Toshiba unveiled “glasses free” 12-inch and 20-inch 3D LCD TVs, improvements are needed in resolution, brightness and viewing angle if the technology is to expand to larger sizes, Yuji Motomura, chief specialist in the company’s TV marketing group, told us.
BJ’s Wholesale Club and Target on Thursday reported weak September CE sales, one day after Costco also cited weakness in the category for Q4 ended Aug. 29 and for September. Warehouse clubs BJ’s and Costco each singled out continued soft TV sales. Target said its weak September CE sales included videogame products.
HOLLYWOOD -- The effort by NAB and RIAA to mandate wireless devices be manufactured with an FM radio chip is a transparent “poison pill” intended to derail radio performance royalties, said CEA Senior Vice President Michael Petricone at the Digital Music West conference. CEA originally took no official position on the issue of radio royalties until the electronics industry was involved through the back door, he said.
LCD TV unit sales in North America fell 3 percent year-over-year in first half 2010 due to economic pressure from high unemployment and the slow housing market, according to the DisplaySearch Quarterly Advanced Global TV Shipment and Forecast Report. Paul Gagnon, director of North America TV Research at DisplaySearch, said continued economic pressure combined with a “sharp slowdown” in price erosion have “pushed consumers to the sidelines” as they wait for the economy to improve or prices to drop.
ST. LOUIS -- “Revivify” is the theme of this fall’s Home Technology Specialists Association meeting as specialty audio/video dealers -- hit hard by the economy, changing technology and a fading customer base -- seek to energize their business with new products and fresh approaches. In his opening remarks to dealer and vendor members, Executive Director Richard Glikes outlined changes that have taken place in the customer base and retail landscape that have reshaped how specialty dealers have to adapt to survive.
The FCC may consider revising a draft CableCARD order in areas such as what information cable operators must put on subscribers’ monthly bills, if all operators must let customers install on their own plug-and-play devices, and whether one-way HD boxes without the cards need IP connections, agency and industry officials said Wednesday. Lobbying by the cable and consumer electronics industries on the item continued at what some at the commission described as a fervent pace in preparation for the end of such discussions Thursday night (CED Oct 6 p6). The item isn’t generally controversial within the FCC, agency officials said.
MAKUHARI, Japan -- Sibeam is developing third-generation WirelessHD chips that will drive adapter prices down to $49 to $79 by late 2011 and help clear the way for widespread adoption of the technology as an embedded feature in TVs, CEO John LeMoncheck told us at Wednesday at the CEATEC Japan show. Sibeam expects to demonstrate third-generation ICs at January CES that will be designed around a QFN-like package that allows a smaller footprint, thinner profile and light weight, he said.
MAKUHARI, Japan -- Silicon Image is sampling Mobile High-Definition Link (MHL) chips with a goal of starting production in early 2011 and spreading them to smartphones and tablet PCs, Products Business Group Vice President Tim Vehling told us in an interview at CEATEC Tuesday. The Sil9244 MHL transmitter, MHL-equipped SiI9381A port processor and SiI9292 MHL-to-HDMI chips, which Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp. (TSMC) will make using a 130-nanometer process, will support transfers of uncompressed 1080p/30Hz video and 7.1-channel audio up to 192 kHz via a five-pin connector. Based on an MHL spec approved in June, the chips feature high-bandwidth digital content protection and provide power to the mobile device via the connector.