The next big battle

[manlystanley]

Analysis Plus Clear Oval speaker cable.Tweeks---->Isolation "ceramic blocks for CDP and SACDP, Stands filled with cat litter Dedicated two channel/library room with refection points treated.

Frenchmon,

Did you try other fillings besides cat litter? Perhaps 'used' cat litter would have a more useful density?? :-)

Best Regards,
Stan

[Mr Peabody]

Yeah, but U-verse isn't free either. You are right though that it is the best reception option. Well.... I don't know they could be prone to some of the same outage issues as cable.

[nightflier]

Well I neither watch much OTA TV, nor do I own cable. It's actually kind of funny the way they keep trying to sell me on these packages mailings, door tags, and the occasion solicitor (who gets the door slammed on him/her promptly). They must have some kind of database in which I must be at the top of the list of detractors, rebels, and non-conformists. It's probably integrated with the other databases that have me on their lists: store-discount cards, toll-road-meters, magazine subscriptions, and the charities I refuse to donate to. Pretty soon they'll be able to build a psychological profile of me just from the records of things they can't track and that I won't purchase. Is it 1984 yet?

For my part, I'm mostly renting and buying movies, and I fast-forward through all the crap at the beginning of the movies too. Now most movies don't allow that any more either (Disney's real big on that kind of force-feeding), so now I usually put the disk in the player first, go get my beer and snacks, and then turn on the TV and sound. If I do want to see previews, I'll select them after I'm done watching the movie.

For my news & info, I read. Most of what's on TV isn't news anyhow - it's just pointless drivel to get me to buy more products. As for magazines & newspapers, I skip right over the adds, and tear them out if I intend on keeping the mag. Anyhow, that's what a table of contents is for (when I can find it). If the rag is too ad-bloated, I usually loose interest and let the subscription run out.

I've given up on a whole host of websites I used to frequent to (about.com, anything from Microsoft, and the major newspapers too). My browser usually does a decent job filtering out the crapola, but if it's all over the place, then I'll find my info elsewhere. Fortunately, that's where the web is most useful: for every intrusive piece of mallware code, there's an intrepid hacker who finds a work-around and lets me plug it into my browser. Maybe that's why the media corporations hate the web so much - they can't completely control the force-feeding of junk.

[Hyfi]

Well I neither watch much OTA TV, nor do I own cable. It's actually kind of funny the way they keep trying to sell me on these packages mailings, door tags, and the occasion solicitor (who gets the door slammed on him/her promptly). They must have some kind of database in which I must be at the top of the list of detractors, rebels, and non-conformists. It's probably integrated with the other databases that have me on their lists: store-discount cards, toll-road-meters, magazine subscriptions, and the charities I refuse to donate to. Pretty soon they'll be able to build a psychological profile of me just from the records of things they can't track and that I won't purchase. Is it 1984 yet?

For my part, I'm mostly renting and buying movies, and I fast-forward through all the crap at the beginning of the movies too. Now most movies don't allow that any more either (Disney's real big on that kind of force-feeding), so now I usually put the disk in the player first, go get my beer and snacks, and then turn on the TV and sound. If I do want to see previews, I'll select them after I'm done watching the movie.

For my news & info, I read. Most of what's on TV isn't news anyhow - it's just pointless drivel to get me to buy more products. As for magazines & newspapers, I skip right over the adds, and tear them out if I intend on keeping the mag. Anyhow, that's what a table of contents is for (when I can find it). If the rag is too ad-bloated, I usually loose interest and let the subscription run out.

I've given up on a whole host of websites I used to frequent to (about.com, anything from Microsoft, and the major newspapers too). My browser usually does a decent job filtering out the crapola, but if it's all over the place, then I'll find my info elsewhere. Fortunately, that's where the web is most useful: for every intrusive piece of mallware code, there's an intrepid hacker who finds a work-around and lets me plug it into my browser. Maybe that's why the media corporations hate the web so much - they can't completely control the force-feeding of junk.

I hear ya. I get something in the mail every other day for Verizon Fios, which they should give me for free after the 1.5 year battle I had to get my property and driveway back to the condition it was in before they dug it all up. Comcast sends me crap on a daily basis. I do get some Dish stuff but nowhere near the ammont from Verizon and Comcast. Hmm maybe they could lower the price if they stopped chopping down trees and sending people the same crap every other day.

The other point you made about not being able to select Menu instead of all the previews does piss me off. I just rented UP the other day from Redbox and there is no menu or audio selections.

Side Question-
As stated in another thread about new releases being delayed for redbox over royalties or fees, and it was said that they buy them from Target or WallMart, how to they get labeled as dvdname_rental?

[pixelthis]

Pix, I know what you are trying to say, but there are some inaccuracies in your post.

No they didn't. They really wanted stereo so they could compete with the theaters at that time. Stereo was a cheap upgrade

It was a cheap upgrade, but that didnt keep them from fighting it tooth and nail.
I was there, don't try to say otherwise.

No, they fought being mandated to change without funding to do it. The upgrade to DTV (not everyone is HD) costs between hundreds of thousand for local stations (where the market could not support it financially) to millions for network owned and affiliates. Local stations and the Networks didn't have the cash to do this transition when it was mandated, so they didn't want something imposed on them that they could not afford. I think every American should understand that completely

Trying to get something for nothing is something too many Americans understand.
A broadcast liscense carries responsibilities, if broadcasters didnt want to upgrade (and most needed to upgrade obsolete equioment anyway) then they should have just walked away, let someone else take over.
DTV was and is the future, no way around that




No they do not turn up the volume on commercials. Program material is not as compressed dynamically as commercials are. There are spaces of silence, and lower level sounds can easily be discerned. Commercials are heavily compressed with the volume pumped up as close to digital zero as it can be for maximum impact. They advertisers like it that way. All broadcasting antennas have limiters to prevent overload, so the volume has a maximum gain imposed on it. Commercials are loud because the programming on before and after is not heavily compressed with its volume pumped up to the hilt. Commercials are not shot and mixed by the networks, they are mixed by post houses like mine, and the audio engineer has been given instructions to compress and push the volume.

In the book WINNING THROUGH INTIMIDATION Robert Ringer, talking about a tour he took through a local TV station, mentioned how the tour guide answered that question when it was posed to her.
She said that it wasnt even possible.
When leaving the control room Ringer asked a tech if he could do it and he said "sure,
just turn this knob".
THIS IS SUCH A COMMON PROBLEM that several receivers have a mode that fixes it.
And anybody with ears can tell it.
There is no technical reason like you cite, if there were then you're saying it is unfixable?
SURE, and the check is in the mail.
It is an easy fix to run the vollume through a master gain circuit to even out the vollume.
If they don't do it because the advertisers like it that way...
IT IS STILL THEIR FAULT.

[pixelthis]

BTW you can add the local NBC station to the list of those showing this commercial.
It looks nice but is actually cheaper than it looks.
Really, tho, we have a lot more infrastructure than when broadcasting started, it has really become obslolete.
Its no longer a VHF signal with a FM mono audio carrier.
Its UHF HDTV with subcarriers and DD sound.
Time to say goodnight.

[Mr Peabody]

Hyfi, it's Red Box, you paid $1.00 per movie, and you have expectations?

[pixelthis]

ANYWAY..
back to the future.
At CES they have pocket TV, and not those old lcd casios.
There are two competing formats, DTV AND FLO.
They convert broadcast tv to wi-fi, and it plays on your blackberry, smartfone etc, on
a OLED SCREEN with a great picture.
Thats the presentation, anyway.

[nightflier]

ANYWAY..
back to the future.
At CES they have pocket TV, and not those old lcd casios.
There are two competing formats, DTV AND FLO.
They convert broadcast tv to wi-fi, and it plays on your blackberry, smartfone etc, on
a OLED SCREEN with a great picture.
Thats the presentation, anyway.

Well I know I get blasted for this every time I bring it up, but it sure looks from all indicators that movies on small screens is indeed the future. That's certainly the message I'm getting from this threat to OTA, the pervasiveness of Android, Cisco's moves into video, as well as everything that's trickling in from CES, and it sure looks like a merged Comcast/NBC will be targeting that market too. I expect Google to sign some deal with NetFlix anytime, now. Sorry to all the naysayers who think that the battle is over larger TVs, but I just don't see that. Maybe it's because they're still looking at last year's sales figures, lol.

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

In the book WINNING THROUGH INTIMIDATION Robert Ringer, talking about a tour he took through a local TV station, mentioned how the tour guide answered that question when it was posed to her.
She said that it wasnt even possible.
When leaving the control room Ringer asked a tech if he could do it and he said "sure,
just turn this knob".
THIS IS SUCH A COMMON PROBLEM that several receivers have a mode that fixes it.
And anybody with ears can tell it.
There is no technical reason like you cite, if there were then you're saying it is unfixable?
SURE, and the check is in the mail.
It is an easy fix to run the vollume through a master gain circuit to even out the vollume.
If they don't do it because the advertisers like it that way...
IT IS STILL THEIR FAULT.

Pix, you really shouldn't argue about things you have no first hand information about. I have mixed commercials for broadcast, and I can tell you first hand what producers tell us. They want the dynamic range compressed to the hilt, and keep the volume as close to digital reference as possible without clipping the signal. I also mix television programming, and I use only as much compression as it takes to meet SMPTE standards for broadcast audio. Is the problem fixable, yes it is. You tell producers that their requests are going to annoy viewers instead of getting their attention, back off the compression and gain, and mix the commercial at the same levels you mix regular programming. That will cure the problem without the Dolby loudness metering system. If you doubt my explaination, I suggest you purchase Sound Forge 8 and do an analysis of the audio of a commercial versus program audio and you can plainly see the flattening of the wave forms on the commercials (the compression) versus the less flattened wave forms of the program audio.

Televisions stations have become so automated there is nobody sitting around riding the gain on program material which includes commercials. Commercial spots and programming are on servers with the times they run slaved to a master clock. There are no audio dials or sliders in the process, its all automated.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17229281...consumer_news/

http://www.dxaudio.com/page1/files/3...7f6a070-3.html

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

Well I know I get blasted for this every time I bring it up, but it sure looks from all indicators that movies on small screens is indeed the future. That's certainly the message I'm getting from this threat to OTA, the pervasiveness of Android, Cisco's moves into video, as well as everything that's trickling in from CES, and it sure looks like a merged Comcast/NBC will be targeting that market too. I expect Google to sign some deal with NetFlix anytime, now. Sorry to all the naysayers who think that the battle is over larger TVs, but I just don't see that. Maybe it's because they're still looking at last year's sales figures, lol.

Sorry, but the prepondurance of evidence does not support your comments. What is happening is not a trend towards movies on small screens, but a trend to add mobility to digital content. Survey after survey points to the television as the main viewing device for movies, and that trend has not changed one bit. What is viewed on the small screened video devices according to surveys are youTube videos, and television shows rented from Itunes, not movies at all.

Movies are shot for the big screen, and have copious amounts of detail in the foreground and background that are totally lost on a 4.5" screen. They are QC checked on a large screen, not a small screen. Nobody sits in their living room(where movies are watched by the majority of the population) with a cell phone watching movies. Nobody is going to sit for 2-2.5 hours staring at their cell phone or netbook. The latest survey I have seen points to the reality that people that use portable viewing displays watch an average of less than 20 minutes of video on that device per day. That would point to short videos or television programming, not movies. Just over 3% of mobile subscribers watch video on their phones, according to comScore, so not many folks are watching anything on their phones.

The only trend we are seeing here is a broadening of choices to view broadcast and online content, not movies. Movies are less than 10% of the overall content a broadcaster shows daily. With more and more displays being produced that can be connected to either a network, or directly to the net itself, there is no reason to believe OTA changes reflect that more than folks viewing content on small screen devices.

The trend in movies is to shoot, scan, author, and compress at higher resolutions (with 4k on the horizon) to be viewed on larger screens, not smaller ones. 3D is huge at CES, and 3D requires larger screens to be most effective. Both of these trends in movie production and reproduction are beyond the capabilities of portable video devices.

Here is an interesting read:

http://www.businessinsider.com/here-...-course-2009-4

You get blasted because your comments are not based on facts, but gut feelings, desires, and out right fantasy.

[nightflier]

Well, we'll just have to wait and see. What I'm seeing at CES is certainly not in agreement with what you're saying. Also, the people who are being targeted for 3D are those who cannot afford large HT setups. I think you're still basing your assumptions on past information which says very little about the future, and also on sales figures, which simply doesn't reflect the whole picture of what people are watching - it leaves out free content and pirated content because it cannot account for it. You are also forgetting that the Gen-X and younger crowd is even more expectant of free content instead of paid content. Finally, I'm kind of surprised you don't see the Comcast-NBC-Universal deal as a hedge play in response to these trends - that's been the mantra for all those who oppose the merger.

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

Well, we'll just have to wait and see. What I'm seeing at CES is certainly not in agreement with what you're saying. Also, the people who are being targeted for 3D are those who cannot afford large HT setups. I think you're still basing your assumptions on past information which says very little about the future, and also on sales figures, which simply doesn't reflect the whole picture of what people are watching - it leaves out free content and pirated content because it cannot account for it. You are also forgetting that the Gen-X and younger crowd is even more expectant of free content instead of paid content. Finally, I'm kind of surprised you don't see the Comcast-NBC-Universal deal as a hedge play in response to these trends - that's been the mantra for all those who oppose the merger.

Wrong again NF. 3D is going to eventually be offered at all price points. The information I have is from studies done last year, and nobody can know what is happening this year. You have offered nothing to support your comments but your gut, and it has a 100% failure rate so far.

I believe my comments included broadcast television and online video content, so free content is covered. Beside what you call free isn't free at all. You need a internet connection to access youTube. It is not free. If you use wifi, it is not free except in certain places.

As far as what Gen -X wants....let's put it this way. They can want all they want, but they are probably not going to get it.

As far as the Comcast NBC deal, we'll see what happens with that. I however cannot see it being any different than Disney/ABC deal. Its just another marriage of a content producer and a content provider. It might not really help Comcast that much because they are developing an extremely negative reputation as a cable company. Their prices are too high, and they are on the verge of pricing themselves out of the market of the very people they are trying to reach. Comcast will only have a 51% stake in the deal, so it is not certain that the whole deal will be any good for them. Investors think they are paying too much, and there's going to be a well-defined set of regulations around how Comcast is going to treat others in the media industry, how they're going to treat consumers. So I think that will restrict at least initially how big of an impact this deal will have on the media industry.

[Mr Peabody]

I wonder if all the small devices could just be other companies wanting a piece of the Ipod pie?

[nightflier]

Wrong again NF. 3D is going to eventually be offered at all price points. The information I have is from studies done last year, and nobody can know what is happening this year. You have offered nothing to support your comments but your gut, and it has a 100% failure rate so far.

You're saying I'm wrong about something that hasn't even come to pass yet - you really shouldn't pass judgment so soon. Let's just wait this out. I think all your fancy figures of glories past will not stand up to this much change in this industry. All the comments I'm reading point towards miniaturization and yes, Mr. P, that is also because many other players want a piece of the iPod pie. The tide is shifting and you can try to beat it back with a spoon if you like, but you'll look pretty silly....

[Woochifer]

Well I know I get blasted for this every time I bring it up, but it sure looks from all indicators that movies on small screens is indeed the future. That's certainly the message I'm getting from this threat to OTA, the pervasiveness of Android, Cisco's moves into video, as well as everything that's trickling in from CES, and it sure looks like a merged Comcast/NBC will be targeting that market too. I expect Google to sign some deal with NetFlix anytime, now. Sorry to all the naysayers who think that the battle is over larger TVs, but I just don't see that. Maybe it's because they're still looking at last year's sales figures, lol.

Where do you come up with this nonsense?

"All indicators"? You mean, the increasing average screen sizes for the TVs that actually get sold? How does that indicate that "small screens is indeed the future" when the screen sizes for what people actually purchase and use keep getting larger? If you don't see the trending towards bigger screens, then you're just not paying attention or simply ignoring any and all info that contradicts your web-centric bias.

Your backhanded slight on "last year's sales figures" seems to indicate that you'd rather keep perpetuating uninformed presumptions than rely on facts. To each their own, I guess.

As T already pointed out, data on actual viewing habits indicate that people who watch online video (which constitutes less than 60% of households) average less than 20 minutes a day. Contrast this with the average daily viewing time for live TV, which continues to increase and has now gone over 5 hours a day.

Your habits (i.e., relying on OTA broadcasts, not subscribing to any TV services, relying on online video for programming, etc.) are not reflective of the population as a whole, yet you project your preferences as if they are a generalization of the market. They are not. Why not just acknowledge your iconoclast status and leave it at that, rather than trying to convince people that your habits somehow portend things to come for everybody else.

What I'm seeing at CES is certainly not in agreement with what you're saying. Also, the people who are being targeted for 3D are those who cannot afford large HT setups.

What makes you think that 3D wouldn't be right at home in a large HT setup, given that the demo units at CES are at least 50" sets?

I think you're still basing your assumptions on past information which says very little about the future, and also on sales figures, which simply doesn't reflect the whole picture of what people are watching - it leaves out free content and pirated content because it cannot account for it.

You can't figure out where the growth will come from without knowing what the baseline is doing. That data on viewing habits includes all forms of online video, and it shows that the general population remains uninterested in shifting all or most of their TV viewing online.

The network features getting added at CES are basically TV manufacturers trying to prop up the price points on HDTVs, which have plunged into the commodity range. 3D serves the same purpose.

A lot of techies are only looking at what they want to see in the future, without acknowledging the present or the direction that trends are going. The tech press' constant harping on Blu-ray (i.e., predicting that BD will fail, when its sales growth is more than double that of the digital distribution that they claim is taking over) is but the latest example of their usual blindered myopia.

You are also forgetting that the Gen-X and younger crowd is even more expectant of free content instead of paid content.

Over 80% of all households subscribe to some form of paid TV service (and about 90% of TV households). Cable/satellite/fiber TV penetration has consistently continued to increase and it does not differ significantly by age range.

YOU don't subscribe to cable or satellite, but that places you squarely in the minority. The expectations of free content are by people who do not subscribe to cable or satellite.

[Woochifer]

You're saying I'm wrong about something that hasn't even come to pass yet - you really shouldn't pass judgment so soon. Let's just wait this out. I think all your fancy figures of glories past will not stand up to this much change in this industry. All the comments I'm reading point towards miniaturization and yes, Mr. P, that is also because many other players want a piece of the iPod pie. The tide is shifting and you can try to beat it back with a spoon if you like, but you'll look pretty silly....

Mixed metaphors are just as bad as mixing alcohol. The audio and video markets have been going in divergent directions for decades. Audio has been moving towards increased mobility, while video has been going towards larger and larger screen sizes and higher resoltion. The tide that you keep talking about hasn't amounted to anything significant despite all the hype. "fancy figures of glories past" is a rather curious way of characterizing facts and actual viewing habits.

[Feanor]

...
Over 80% of all households subscribe to some form of paid TV service (and about 90% of TV households). Cable/satellite/fiber TV penetration has consistently continued to increase and it does not differ significantly by age range.

YOU [nightflier] don't subscribe to cable or satellite, but that places you squarely in the minority. The expectations of free content are by people who do not subscribe to cable or satellite.

Undoubtedly you are correct, Wooch.

On the other hand I hope for, if I don't necessarily expect, more Internet content.

With retirement looming, I'm looking for ways to reduce our routine expenses. C$80/month for our satellite service that comprises only a little more than the minimum, mandated content, is simply too much for the value delivered. ($80 might be small change to you, SirT, and nightflier (for that matter), but it is lot of money to me.)

80% of my personal viewing is news: mainly CBC, BBC, and CNN, plus Steward & Colbert. All of the TV content and more is available on the Internet. Other than these, I watch a few documentaries.

Why pay for news and Steward/Colbert when I can get them on Internet? Why pay for documentaries when some are available online from the producers for free -- and, (sad to say maybe), most of the rest available via Bit Torrent?

[pixelthis]

Pix, you really shouldn't argue about things you have no first hand information about. I have mixed commercials for broadcast, and I can tell you first hand what producers tell us. They want the dynamic range compressed to the hilt, and keep the volume as close to digital reference as possible without clipping the signal. I also mix television programming, and I use only as much compression as it takes to meet SMPTE standards for broadcast audio. Is the problem fixable, yes it is. You tell producers that their requests are going to annoy viewers instead of getting their attention, back off the compression and gain, and mix the commercial at the same levels you mix regular programming. That will cure the problem without the Dolby loudness metering system. If you doubt my explaination, I suggest you purchase Sound Forge 8 and do an analysis of the audio of a commercial versus program audio and you can plainly see the flattening of the wave forms on the commercials (the compression) versus the less flattened wave forms of the program audio.

Televisions stations have become so automated there is nobody sitting around riding the gain on program material which includes commercials. Commercial spots and programming are on servers with the times they run slaved to a master clock. There are no audio dials or sliders in the process, its all automated.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17229281...consumer_news/

http://www.dxaudio.com/page1/files/3...7f6a070-3.html

What is wrong with you?
You have basically said the same thing I SAID.
Just wrapped it up in a bunch of doublespeak.
I understand ity, but some wont.
BASICALLY YOU said the problem is "fixable", but they don't want to.
Which is what I SAID, BASICALLY.
But dont worry, the free market is a wonderfull thing, and "late night " watching modes,
which limit dynamic range and level sound for late night viewing , and other solutions,
fix this artificial "problem" even if the broadcasters don't want to.

[nightflier]

the screen sizes for what people actually purchase and use keep getting larger? If you don't see the trending towards bigger screens, then you're just not paying attention or simply ignoring any and all info that contradicts your web-centric bias.

You're missing the point. Your sales figures don't include cell phones. Those are also screens, and in the very near future, they will be used to watch everything from broadcast TV to full-length movies. The number of smart phones out there is staggering in comparison to TV sets.

Your backhanded slight on "last year's sales figures" seems to indicate that you'd rather keep perpetuating uninformed presumptions than rely on facts.

Nothing backhanded about it. Sales figures are in the past. This is not uninformed or a presumption, it's factually old information. Unless you'd like to try and convince us that the past is the present/future, but then we will have left the realm of reason...

As T already pointed out, data on actual viewing habits indicate that people who watch online video (which constitutes less than 60% of households) average less than 20 minutes a day. Contrast this with the average daily viewing time for live TV, which continues to increase and has now gone over 5 hours a day.

Statistics are just assumptions taken from a sample of the population. There's a million ways that statistics can be twisted to reflect an intended point of view. The very fact that you're quoting "60% of households" tell me right there that it misses the pot a bit. What about viewers who don't comprise "households"? And how do you know that those "5 hours of viewing time" constitutes actually sitting in front of the tube rather than just having the TV on in the background? And how many people in that "household" are actually viewing it at a time? There's way too many variables at play here that these statistics cannot control for. Contrast that to someone watching video on a computer or smaller screen - they are much more likely to be actively watching it attentively and by themselves. Stats don't take these factors into account.

Your habits (...) are not reflective of the population as a whole, yet you project your preferences as if they are a generalization of the market. They are not.

I never implied that my preferences are exemplary of the rest of the population. Where did you get that? Certainly not from what I wrote. I'm basing my observations on what I read and see.

What makes you think that 3D wouldn't be right at home in a large HT setup, given that the demo units at CES are at least 50" sets?

I never said they would not be at home on large sets. Another attempt at putting words in my mouth. What I'm seeing at this year's CES is that cell phone technology is everywhere. You can't turn a corner without some reference to the wireless internet. The buz word I'm hearing is "personal video" and we can all agree that's not for the big screens. Yes, the big screens are there for the flash and wow factors at the booths, but what people are talking about is smaller screens. You're missing the bigger story, I think.

You can't figure out where the growth will come from without knowing what the baseline is doing. That data on viewing habits includes all forms of online video, and it shows that the general population remains uninterested in shifting all or most of their TV viewing online.

Where are you getting this stuff? Your "household" surveys? Your past sales figures? I'm telling you, you're missing the bigger picture. You don't have to believe me, heck I don't really care. But by the same token I don't have to accept your opinion either. We obviously get our info from different sources and if you can't accept an alternate point of view, then that's your loss.

The network features getting added at CES are basically TV manufacturers trying to prop up the price points on HDTVs, which have plunged into the commodity range. 3D serves the same purpose.

You're downplaying this more than you should, and I think you know that.

A lot of techies are only looking at what they want to see in the future, without acknowledging the present or the direction that trends are going. The tech press' constant harping on Blu-ray (i.e., predicting that BD will fail, when its sales growth is more than double that of the digital distribution that they claim is taking over) is but the latest example of their usual blindered myopia.

Not that old "techies hate BR" line again. Yes, we know your bias against us "techies" but rather than dismissing everything we're saying, maybe you should start paying attention. It was us "techies" that brought you CD-RW, MP3s, iPods, SmartPhones, YouTube, NetFlix, etc.. For better of for worse, you can't possibly suggest that these technological advances didn't influence the A/V industry. As a matter of fact, the whole purpose of your post has been a response to what us "techies" have brought to the table.

Over 80% of all households subscribe to some form of paid TV service (and about 90% of TV households). Cable/satellite/fiber TV penetration has consistently continued to increase and it does not differ significantly by age range.

There we go with the whole "household" blanket case again. Yes cable TV is everywhere, but the more it becomes ubiquitous, the more it becomes background noise, in homes, in bars, and just about everywhere. If there is one ongoing complaint about cable that just never gets heard it is that "there's nothing on." That's because despite all the choices, people are bored with it.

YOU don't subscribe to cable or satellite, but that places you squarely in the minority. The expectations of free content are by people who do not subscribe to cable or satellite.

My subscription preferences have nothing to do with the desire of people to want free content. You sure are really reaching here. Nice try stringing these two together.

And for you information, the people who are searching for free content are all living in those "households" that already subscribe to cable. Isn't that a kick in the pants for your argument? That's right, they are our own kids. So your comment above is total nonsense.

Look, I realize that on this A/V forum my point of view is in the minority. But let's broaden our horizon and consider what the big media companies are really targeting. That's right, they want to sell their content to cell phone providers and the latter are more than willing to allow that because it will increase talk/online time. What cell phone providers are not as interested in is the wired internet, that which feeds entertainment and video into the homes because they have no part of that. There is a battle raging out there between the cellular network and the wired network. What is of interest to the media companies is that they simply cannot control content on the wired one, but they have an opportunity here to control it on the cellular one. That is the carrot that the cellular carriers are offering to them.

Now I am of the opinion that the cellular network will become an extension of the now ubiquitous wired network (the Internet) and so whatever control they hope to offer, is going to be transitory. But if the cellular network remains completely private and separate with (heavily guarded) points of access to the Internet, where things like Net Neutrality have no meaning, then that's a different story. I really don't know what is going to happen in this battle, but there is absolutely no denying that it is raging. You can choose to see it or you can be like the proverbial three monkeys.

[Woochifer]

Undoubtedly you are correct, Wooch.

On the other hand I hope for, if I don't necessarily expect, more Internet content.

With retirement looming, I'm looking for ways to reduce our routine expenses. C$80/month for our satellite service that comprises only a little more than the minimum, mandated content, is simply too much for the value delivered. ($80 might be small change to you, SirT, and nightflier (for that matter), but it is lot of money to me.)

I can sympathize with that given that we've been trimming back as well. The telecomm situation in Canada is really warped. In the U.S., cable TV is treated like a public utility and nearly all communities are required to offer some form of low cost "lifeline" service for basic programming.

This comes at a price though in that cable companies typically get a local monopoly in return for offering the lifeline service and maintaining public access channels. In years past, you did have multiple cable operators in adjacent cities and they would compete for the franchise rights whenever existing deals expired. That was good for consumers and helped to control costs, even if the service was spotty and fragmented. Nowadays, the cable companies have been consolidating and now blatantly collude to control regional markets. For example, in California, Time Warner and Comcast horse traded their local franchises so that Time Warner now controls nearly all of the L.A. region, while Comcast controls almost the entire SF Bay Area.

On top of this quasi collusion, the programming costs keep escalating and the consolidation certainly hasn't helped consumers. My understanding is that the carriage costs for ESPN alone in the U.S. is about $4 per household, and other networks want similarly high fees. Consumers have wanted a la carte channel selections for years, but that's not coming anytime soon because the entire telecomm sector's business model is now built around bundling. The existing bundling that goes on with TV, phone, mobile, and internet services is expected to extend into content as well in the upcoming years.

80% of my personal viewing is news: mainly CBC, BBC, and CNN, plus Steward & Colbert. All of the TV content and more is available on the Internet. Other than these, I watch a few documentaries.

Not ALL of the TV content is currently available, given that networks don't stream their live feeds online (CNN's live online feed is not the same thing as their TV broadcast). My point about bundling is that online programming is now squarely in the crosshairs of service providers that want to corral online content into their paid subscription bundles.

For example, Hulu is actively shopping its service around to cable, satellite, and telco companies. Basically, those service providers would pay Hulu a carriage fee (similar to how broadcast networks operate) and Hulu would wall off a portion of the content exclusively for subscribers. ESPN360 shows online streams of live games, but it only works with those ISPs that have paid ESPN a carriage fee. Yet,the picture quality of the feed pales in comparison with even ESPN's standard def channel, and picture quality still matters to most people.

Why pay for news and Steward/Colbert when I can get them on Internet? Why pay for documentaries when some are available online from the producers for free -- and, (sad to say maybe), most of the rest available via Bit Torrent?

The simple answer to why pay is because a couch potato wants to watch a big TV from his/her comfy chair, not some small screen on a computer desk or a laptop. Because they want to watch something that looks halfway decent (the existing broadband service for most households is barely adequate for even a highly compressed and pixelated standard def image in real time). Because there is a lot of programming that is not available online. etc etc etc

Surveys of viewing habits indicate that people primarily watch online video only for short periods of time. That's fine for YouTube clips, news segments, and even half hour sitcoms. But, for a long form program or something with a lot of visual content, it just doesn't work.

The online options also leave a lot to be desired, especially for the technically challenged. Media PCs have been available for the better part of a decade and they've failed miserably. The reason is simply that people do not want the same experience in their home entertainment that they get with their computer (i.e., long boot up times, system crashes, complexity galore, etc.), and most people do not have a network connection to their TV.

[Woochifer]

You're missing the point. Your sales figures don't include cell phones. Those are also screens, and in the very near future, they will be used to watch everything from broadcast TV to full-length movies. The number of smart phones out there is staggering in comparison to TV sets.

Oh please, now you're really reaching. Cell phones are nice for viewing short video clips and short form programs ... that is for that small minority of people who carry smartphones (as opposed to conventional cell phones that don't play video or access the web).

And your claim about smart phone numbers being "staggering" in comparison to TVs is rather laughable, unless you were saying that they were staggeringly LESS than TVs. Consider that the market penetration for TVs is over 90%, and cell phone service is roughly around 80% (incidentally about the same as cable/satellite service).

Already, you're behind the curve, and data from last year indicates that the sales split for smartphones according to Gartner was just 14% of the total cell phone sales. Even if you presume that all smartphone owners use those devices for video viewing (and that's a very laughable presumption), you're still talking about minor numbers at best. If you expect some tidal shift in viewing habits because of smartphones, you need much a bigger base than that. And that's overlooking the smartphones' natural disadvantage of smaller screen size and lower resolution.

Nothing backhanded about it. Sales figures are in the past. This is not uninformed or a presumption, it's factually old information. Unless you'd like to try and convince us that the past is the present/future, but then we will have left the realm of reason...

To you it's "factually old" but it remains factual, which is a lot more than your fantastical prognostications based on nothing more than bias and wishful thinking.

Statistics are just assumptions taken from a sample of the population. There's a million ways that statistics can be twisted to reflect an intended point of view. The very fact that you're quoting "60% of households" tell me right there that it misses the pot a bit. What about viewers who don't comprise "households"? And how do you know that those "5 hours of viewing time" constitutes actually sitting in front of the tube rather than just having the TV on in the background? And how many people in that "household" are actually viewing it at a time? There's way too many variables at play here that these statistics cannot control for. Contrast that to someone watching video on a computer or smaller screen - they are much more likely to be actively watching it attentively and by themselves. Stats don't take these factors into account.

And statistics are based on a much larger sample than your sample of YOUR personal preferences and viewing habits, and those of people in your social circle.

You obviously don't understand much about market research otherwise you'd know that households represent more than 97% of the U.S. population, and it's the primary unit of analysis in most market studies and federal data sources on consumer expenditures.

You can quibble about the methodology all you want, but the results from multiple survey and tracking sources have been consistent. The average consumer watches TV programs on TVs, and the availability of online video has not changed this. I don't know why this is news to you.

If there's been a tidal shift from cable/satellite/fiber to online video, we would have seen a massive rise in subscription cancellations. That has not happened.

I never said they would not be at home on large sets.

Then what were you getting at when you said that "the people who are being targeted for 3D are those who cannot afford large HT setups."? This makes no sense at any level.

What I'm seeing at this year's CES is that cell phone technology is everywhere. You can't turn a corner without some reference to the wireless internet. The buz word I'm hearing is "personal video" and we can all agree that's not for the big screens. Yes, the big screens are there for the flash and wow factors at the booths, but what people are talking about is smaller screens. You're missing the bigger story, I think.

Yeah, and concurrently at CES you see 3D and massive flat screen TVs everywhere. Most of the news accounts I've seen about CES include something about 3D. Your point right at the outset was that these small cell phone screens were the trend for movie viewing. I don't see that at all.

Personal video is a buzzword, but to me it implies viewing short form clips, not full length movies. The big picture that you keep missing is that the average consumer does not watch movies on small portable devices and the interest in doing so remains a very limited niche. All you have to do is look at the low redemption rates for the digital movie copies that get bundled with DVDs and BDs.

Your continued dismissal of the growth in TV screen sizes is rather telling because it directly contradicts the tech press' meme that people are shifting their viewing habits over to small screens.

Where are you getting this stuff? Your "household" surveys? Your past sales figures? I'm telling you, you're missing the bigger picture. You don't have to believe me, heck I don't really care. But by the same token I don't have to accept your opinion either. We obviously get our info from different sources and if you can't accept an alternate point of view, then that's your loss.

These arent "my" surveys and "my" sales figures. The Nielson tracking data and last year's Ball State study used two very different sampling methodologies, yet they both came up with similar results on online and mobile video viewing -- combined less than 20 minutes a day on average. Sales figures are what they are. I've posted them on this site periodically. To me, the trends that tell the direction of the market are where the big picture starts. Market changes don't happen in the abstract and don't occur overnight. Ignoring the current baseline is rather foolish if you're trying to project forward. You seem to be working backwards by coming up with the conclusion first. I don't care if you accept my opinion, but you seem more determined to malign the factual data that I use, since you have yet to offer up anything comparable that supports your view.

You're downplaying this more than you should, and I think you know that.

I've always downplayed the effect of "feature creep" whether that was with home theater receivers or what's now happening with HDTVs, so don't tell me what I know or don't know.

The primary reason for adding new features to any commodified product is to prop up the price point, and there has always been a herd mentality in the consumer electronics industry. If one receiver manufacturer adds auto EQ calibration, then inevitably everybody else will too. If one TV manufacturer adds 240 Hz refresh to their TV and prices it at a certain point, other manufacturers will follow suit. If one TV manufacturer adds Netflix streaming to their $2,000 HDTV, then others will inevitably follow as well. If one manufacturer announces 3D compatibility, then others will follow shortly.

It doesn't mean that consumers will actually use the feature, because higher price points bundle together multiple enhancements. I mean, is the consumer purchasing the more expensive model because it has better video processing or because it includes a built-in DVR or because it uses a more advanced panel technology or because it consumes less energy or because it looks better/thinner? With flat panel TV prices bottoming into commodity territory, manufacturers have no choice but to include and market the latest features in hopes that consumers are willing to pay more to get those features.

Not that old "techies hate BR" line again. Yes, we know your bias against us "techies" but rather than dismissing everything we're saying, maybe you should start paying attention. It was us "techies" that brought you CD-RW, MP3s, iPods, SmartPhones, YouTube, NetFlix, etc.. For better of for worse, you can't possibly suggest that these technological advances didn't influence the A/V industry. As a matter of fact, the whole purpose of your post has been a response to what us "techies" have brought to the table.

The issue I have is not with the people who create the technology (it's their job to try to come up with the next big thing), but with the lackeys in the tech press who persistently overestimate consumer tolerance for short-term change. They glom onto the latest shiny object and proclaim that it will revolutionize consumer behavior. And inevitably they are wrong most of the time, because they are more about hype and serving their own interests and preferences than analyzing what an average consumer actually purchases. Taken as a whole, consumer expenditure patterns are rather mundane and predictable, and don't fundamentally shift from one year to the next. But that doesn't make for an interesting read, especially for jaded "journalists" who like to consider themselves cutting edge.

Just recall all of the hype during the dotcom boom where the tech press was proclaiming that retail stores were obsolete and online shopping would take over. Someone should have done some basic market research on remote retailing before saying something that dumb. More than a decade later, the entire remote retail sector remains less than 10%, which is not that much more than the market share that mail order and catalog operations commanded prior to the dotcom emergence.

There we go with the whole "household" blanket case again. Yes cable TV is everywhere, but the more it becomes ubiquitous, the more it becomes background noise, in homes, in bars, and just about everywhere. If there is one ongoing complaint about cable that just never gets heard it is that "there's nothing on." That's because despite all the choices, people are bored with it.

Or so you say. If people are so bored, why would they watch more TV than ever? If you say that TV is background noise, then how is it any different now than 10 or 20 or 30 years ago when the average daily TV viewing time was closer to 4 hours? Your points are illogical because TVs were installed in bars and other places back then too.

And how does online video resolve any of this, given that much of the heavily viewed content is ported over from those same boring content providers? Boring content doesn't suddenly become exciting because it gets streamed over the internet and displayed on a puny screen.

You can keep on speculating about complaints that never get heard. I'd rather make judgments based on actual consumer behavior, which has been steady increases in cable/satellite/fiber subscriptions and subsequent increases in the average TV viewing time. Do you actually think those two trends aren't somehow interconnected? Until you see a sudden spike in TV subscription cancellations and declines in TV viewing time, there's not much to discuss.

My subscription preferences have nothing to do with the desire of people to want free content. You sure are really reaching here. Nice try stringing these two together.

And for you information, the people who are searching for free content are all living in those "households" that already subscribe to cable. Isn't that a kick in the pants for your argument? That's right, they are our own kids. So your comment above is total nonsense.

And people who subscribe to cable or satellite services are not suddenly moving over to their computer to do their TV viewing, when there's likely a big HDTV in the living room with more comfortable seating in front of it. Every study out there consistently indicates that the biggest and most centrally located TV in the house commands the vast majority of the viewing time.

Nobody's disputing the popularity of online video (didn't I indicate already that just under 60% of households view online video?). But, despite the number of hits, the duration of the viewing time remains just a fraction of what TV viewing time is. You can parse this all you want (and inevitably you will because you have nothing factual to contradict this), but nothing out there suggests that online video is anywhere close to supplanting the TV and broadcasting as the primary viewing mechanism for TV programs.

Look, I realize that on this A/V forum my point of view is in the minority. But let's broaden our horizon and consider what the big media companies are really targeting. That's right, they want to sell their content to cell phone providers and the latter are more than willing to allow that because it will increase talk/online time.

Sure, they're providing the content because somebody's willing to buy it, since when were the media outlets going to say no to more revenue for their programming? But, the availability of the feature doesn't mean that it will be broadly used or supplant home viewing. Just think of all the features on a typical cell phone - you think everybody uses every function or even most of them?

What cell phone providers are not as interested in is the wired internet, that which feeds entertainment and video into the homes because they have no part of that.

So how do you explain the top two U.S. cellular providers, AT&T and Verizon, also providing broadband internet while investing billions of dollars building up their U-Verse and FiOS TV services? Incidentally, AT&T is both my cell phone and wired internet provider. But, what good are facts in an ideological rant?

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

You're missing the point. Your sales figures don't include cell phones. Those are also screens, and in the very near future, they will be used to watch everything from broadcast TV to full-length movies. The number of smart phones out there is staggering in comparison to TV sets.

No current trend points in that direction or even alludes to it. Currently you have less than 3% of folks with the ability to download movies and television to their phone actually doing it. This figure is the same as last years. There has been no trend whatsoever of people actually using their phone as a movie viewing device, and this activity may never really take off. Having the movie fill our field of vision is where the movie watching experience is currently headed. The only video I have ever watched on my cell phone are short videos that my friends send me when they are in a special place, and I am at work. Just because a phone has video capability does not mean everyone will use it. At this time only 3% are, and they are watching less than 20 minutes on average a day of content.

Nothing backhanded about it. Sales figures are in the past. This is not uninformed or a presumption, it's factually old information. Unless you'd like to try and convince us that the past is the present/future, but then we will have left the realm of reason...

Yes but you are trying to present the future (as you see it) as fact, and it hasn't even happened yet. Sales figures when compiled over time show trends. This is how analyst and marketing folks evaluate and indentify trends. What they don't do is look at a featured product and assume every feature will be used 100%. Photo's and moving images have been apart of cell phone technology for the last several years. Taking photo and exchanging them via the cell phone is a trend with a sharp upward curve. Watching full length movies is so rare on cell phones that there is no way to evaluate a trend. It is just that insignificant of a practice.

Statistics are just assumptions taken from a sample of the population. There's a million ways that statistics can be twisted to reflect an intended point of view. The very fact that you're quoting "60% of households" tell me right there that it misses the pot a bit. What about viewers who don't comprise "households"? And how do you know that those "5 hours of viewing time" constitutes actually sitting in front of the tube rather than just having the TV on in the background? And how many people in that "household" are actually viewing it at a time? There's way too many variables at play here that these statistics cannot control for. Contrast that to someone watching video on a computer or smaller screen - they are much more likely to be actively watching it attentively and by themselves. Stats don't take these factors into account.

Your gut, and what you see is also a sample, a rather small and colored sampled at that. Secondly the net folks do know what folks are watching on their computers or smaller screens because they can see and "listen" to the packets your data generates. A ISP provider knows video from text, and email from audio just be looking at those packets.

I never implied that my preferences are exemplary of the rest of the population. Where did you get that? Certainly not from what I wrote. I'm basing my observations on what I read and see.

And it is rather obvious that you are seeing what you want to see, and reading far too many computer mags, the very ones that predicted that BR would tank, and the format war would leave an opening for digital downloading to take over.

I never said they would not be at home on large sets. Another attempt at putting words in my mouth. What I'm seeing at this year's CES is that cell phone technology is everywhere.

Yes, but so is 3D television and Blu-ray players, along with thousands of other products. Everything you see at CES does not make it to market, nor are they always sucessful in penetrating the main stream.

You can't turn a corner without some reference to the wireless internet. The buz word I'm hearing is "personal video" and we can all agree that's not for the big screens.

Then you are hearing what you want to hear. I am hearing 3D televisions and Blu ray players, ultra flat televisions, wireless speakers, radio controlled air craft using Ipod touch as the controller, and many more things than just "personal video". As a matter of fact both of my sons are there now ( I am working on a mixing project so I could not go), and they say that 3D televisions and Blu ray players and programming is sucking the air out of the CES room.

Yes, the big screens are there for the flash and wow factors at the booths, but what people are talking about is smaller screens. You're missing the bigger story, I think.

My sons accounting differs from yours, and they are actually there all over the place. I think your idea of the bigger story is mostly made up.

Where are you getting this stuff? Your "household" surveys? Your past sales figures? I'm telling you, you're missing the bigger picture. You don't have to believe me, heck I don't really care. But by the same token I don't have to accept your opinion either. We obviously get our info from different sources and if you can't accept an alternate point of view, then that's your loss.

I guess we both can accept an alternate point of view if A) it wasn't a bunch of over blown personal fantasy b) based more on fact and reality rather than gut and plain fiction, or C) not tainted by selective hearing and sight.

You're downplaying this more than you should, and I think you know that.

And you are overplaying more than you should, but I don't think you know that.

Not that old "techies hate BR" line again. Yes, we know your bias against us "techies" but rather than dismissing everything we're saying, maybe you should start paying attention. It was us "techies" that brought you CD-RW, MP3s, iPods, SmartPhones, YouTube, NetFlix, etc.. For better of for worse, you can't possibly suggest that these technological advances didn't influence the A/V industry. As a matter of fact, the whole purpose of your post has been a response to what us "techies" have brought to the table.

The line ain't so old my friend. The teckies rags have been recently bashing and dismissing BR in the very face of 100% growth. And American teckies cannot take credit for things developed by Japanese techies. American techies are responsible for almost nothing that sits in my hometheater, and have not been leading much of anything since it invented cell phone technology in 1973. They didn't invent VHS, DVD, laserdisc, CD, MP3, Ipods, HD DVD or Bluray.

I just love how you American techies love to lump yourselves with and ride on the coat tails of the Japanese teckies when the two do not even think or work alike.

There we go with the whole "household" blanket case again. Yes cable TV is everywhere, but the more it becomes ubiquitous, the more it becomes background noise, in homes, in bars, and just about everywhere. If there is one ongoing complaint about cable that just never gets heard it is that "there's nothing on." That's because despite all the choices, people are bored with it.

Cell phones are also everywhere, so it could also be called background noise right? Cell phone users appear to be bored with every cell phone except the Iphone, so dispite all of the choices, people seemed to be bored with them as well.

My subscription preferences have nothing to do with the desire of people to want free content. You sure are really reaching here. Nice try stringing these two together.

If someone looked carefully, nothing is truely free.

And for you information, the people who are searching for free content are all living in those "households" that already subscribe to cable. Isn't that a kick in the pants for your argument? That's right, they are our own kids. So your comment above is total nonsense.

Nothing on cable is free is it. Even the internet costs even if what you find there is free. So your free content arguement closely scrutinized is total nonsense.

Look, I realize that on this A/V forum my point of view is in the minority. But let's broaden our horizon and consider what the big media companies are really targeting. That's right, they want to sell their content to cell phone providers and the latter are more than willing to allow that because it will increase talk/online time. What cell phone providers are not as interested in is the wired internet, that which feeds entertainment and video into the homes because they have no part of that. There is a battle raging out there between the cellular network and the wired network. What is of interest to the media companies is that they simply cannot control content on the wired one, but they have an opportunity here to control it on the cellular one. That is the carrot that the cellular carriers are offering to them.

This is pure BS. Media companies want to sell to any entity that will buy its content, not just cell phone providers. Media providers make more money selling their content to cable companies than they will selling to cellular carriers, which is why media companies are stiking deals left and right with cable companies. I have yet to see a contract between Disney and T-mobile, AT&T wireless, Verizon wireless, or any other cell provider.

Now I am of the opinion that the cellular network will become an extension of the now ubiquitous wired network (the Internet) and so whatever control they hope to offer, is going to be transitory. But if the cellular network remains completely private and separate with (heavily guarded) points of access to the Internet, where things like Net Neutrality have no meaning, then that's a different story. I really don't know what is going to happen in this battle, but there is absolutely no denying that it is raging. You can choose to see it or you can be like the proverbial three monkeys.

One could also be more real about what they see, instead of coloring it with what they think they see. You have been a failure with the former, and a champ with the latter.

[nightflier]

Cell phones are nice for viewing short video clips and short form programs ... that is for that small minority of people who carry smartphones (as opposed to conventional cell phones that don't play video or access the web).

Boy, what a Luddite comment. With internal memory, cell phones can easily download whole TV shows and allow the one to view it later, so we're not just talking streaming, here. Your comments are also a bit misleading about the actual numbers. SmartPhone sale figures were about 40% of total cell phone sales in 2009, according to Nielsen ratings (I know how you two love these), and are expected to surpass cell phones well before 2011. Now you can downplay this and say that these people don't use their cell phones for video, but we do know that some 70% do use them for music, and video shouldn't be far behind. According to Nielsen:

"Assuming that 150 million people will be using smartphones by mid-2011, that means 120 million will be on the mobile Internet and 90 million, or 60%, will be watching video, according to Nielsen projections based on current data trends."

And while there's a lot of hooplay at CES this year over 3D, you must have missed LG's booth altogether. They have phones currently available that stream OTA broadcasts, have MicroSD slots for storing gigabytes of video, and can even display the video feed on a wall. Now LG isn't the biggest player in this market, but I can assure you that Apple, Sony/Ericsson, and Nokia aren't ignoring them.

And your claim about smart phone numbers being "staggering" in comparison to TVs is rather laughable, unless you were saying that they were staggeringly LESS than TVs. Consider that the market penetration for TVs is over 90%, and cell phone service is roughly around 80% (incidentally about the same as cable/satellite service).

Well in my haste to respond I didn't check my figures, so no, it's not staggering, but don't start patting yourself on the back yet. When you add the number of cell phone screens to the number of computer screens, and other personal/portable devices and you consider this world-wide, the number of TV screens is probably less. But let's take this a step further. Americans have multiple TVs in their homes, and it's unlikely they'd be watching them at the same time, but each person typically has their own cell phone, laptop, or other portable screen. That vast majority of TVs is starting to look a little less certain, now, isn't it?

Already, you're behind the curve, and data from last year indicates that the sales split for smartphones according to Gartner was just 14% of the total cell phone sales.

Nielsen's numbers disagree with that 14% figure.

Even if you presume that all smartphone owners use those devices for video viewing (and that's a very laughable presumption), you're still talking about minor numbers at best.

I never said they are doing this now, I am speculating that they will. I'm trying to talk about about the future, not the past, like you two.

If you expect some tidal shift in viewing habits because of smartphones, you need much a bigger base than that. And that's overlooking the smartphones' natural disadvantage of smaller screen size and lower resolution.

In the portable consumer electronics segment of this industry, a very small base can grow a lot faster than the large screen segment. This is because people typically keep a large, expensive TV for years, but they typically swap less expensive portable devices much faster. You know this very well, so don't downplay it.

And statistics are based on a much larger sample than your sample of YOUR personal preferences and viewing habits, and those of people in your social circle.

Statistics can be manipulated to fit a particular economic agenda. It's been shown over & over again. And your stats come from the very same industry (well to be specific, the "independent bodies" that track these stats are funded by this industry, but we're splitting hairs then). While I use stats too, I also take a look at other indicators from other industries and competing points of view to get a better picture of what's really going on. You two rely almost exclusively on your "official" sources, so that is why you're missing the bigger picture here.

And for the last time, this is not based on my "social circle" whatever you think that may be. I read, a lot. So stop trying to minimize a differing perspective. Just because it doesn't agree with yours doesn't make it invalid or cause for such childish insults. Really, it doesn't help your argument in the least bit.

You obviously don't understand much about market research otherwise you'd know that households represent more than 97% of the U.S. population, and it's the primary unit of analysis in most market studies and federal data sources on consumer expenditures.

If it is "the primary unit of analysis" for these conclusions about TV watching, that explains soooo much.

You can quibble about the methodology all you want, but the results from multiple survey and tracking sources have been consistent.

Well if they don't consider the well documented and academically supported critiques of statistical analysis in their margin of error, then no wonder they can't seem to get a fix on what's happening with smaller electronics, the internet, piracy, and a whole host of other less measurable factors. And if you rely solely on their figures, that explains a whole lot about why you're missing it too.

If there's been a tidal shift from cable/satellite/fiber to online video, we would have seen a massive rise in subscription cancellations. That has not happened.

This comment makes absolutely no sense. It's not a one or the other proposition. Why would they cancel their subscriptions? As long a s one member of the household still watches cable, there's no reason to think that this household would cancel its subscription. Why can't we consider the very real possibility that some people in the household use both downloads and cable for their entertainment? This kind of conclusion is so typical of a black & white only world view.

[QUOTE=Woochifer]Then what were you getting at when you said that "the people who are being targeted for 3D are those who cannot afford large HT setups."? This makes no sense at any level.

The people who are being targeted are young kids. They can't afford 3D. Their parents who pay the bills and who have much busier lives to be able to watch that much TV, aren't as interested in another techno-fad. Some of them will buy it for their kids, and an even smaller number will buy it for themselves, but you're forgetting the millions who recently bought a new TV. Remember TVs are not replaced that often. Now portable/personal devices, that's a whole different story; they are upgraded much more often, and I expect that 3D will make a big splash there.

Another detail that someone mentioned to me was that with portable devices, the idea of wearing special glasses becomes much more palatable. After all, the viewer is already wearing headphones, so an integrated headphone/glasses device is much more convenient. At home with the large TV, the wearing of special glasses is considered one of the biggest headaches of 3D - it just doesn't lend itself as well to that environment. Yes, I know Samsung and others are working on glasses-free TVs, but that's a much smaller share of the market.

Yeah, and concurrently at CES you see 3D and massive flat screen TVs everywhere. Most of the news accounts I've seen about CES include something about 3D. Your point right at the outset was that these small cell phone screens were the trend for movie viewing. I don't see that at all.

Well I did. As I explained, the 3D TVs are great for the wow factor, but just to get people in the booth. 3D may very well be the next big fad, fine, but we're not there yet. What we do have is millions of people with portable devices that can view video. I expect that video phones are just a short time away, and video, OTA, well that's already there, especially since most SmartPhones today are wifi enabled. Blueberry, LG, and Sony/Ericsson reps were just as excited about their cell phone plans and these all included video as the biggest new trend in cell phones.

Personal video is a buzzword, but to me it implies viewing short form clips, not full length movies. The big picture that you keep missing is that the average consumer does not watch movies on small portable devices and the interest in doing so remains a very limited niche. All you have to do is look at the low redemption rates for the digital movie copies that get bundled with DVDs and BDs.

The ability to pause & rewind changes all that. The lack of interest for digital copies on disk is because by then the people have already seen it and the need to watch it again isn't that great. The phenomenon you're missing is the podcast factor. Why just listen to an audio broadcast that's downloaded, when one can watch the video instead? Free content, everything from pirated movies to favorite TV shows will also be viewable on cell phones and personal devices. And unlike larger & larger TVs, this doesn't need to be BR quality content or have 7.1 DTS-MA audio, so the files can be much smaller & compressed.

Your continued dismissal of the growth in TV screen sizes is rather telling because it directly contradicts the tech press' meme that people are shifting their viewing habits over to small screens.

I'm not dismissing it outright, I'm just not considering it as heavily because this economy does not support this growth. In a contracting economy, people want simpler, smaller, and less ostentatious gear. While last year's big TV screen sales were probably still impressive, I don't think this trend will continue unabated. The effects of a recession take several years to be felt, and when it comes to consumer electronics (a diversionary purchase), it can take even longer. But just as people are ditching large Escalades, houses, and multiple grocery carts at Costco, so too will they see less and less appeal for large TVs.

I've always downplayed the effect of "feature creep" whether that was with home theater receivers or what's now happening with HDTVs, so don't tell me what I know or don't know....The primary reason for adding new features to any commodified product is to prop up the price point, and there has always been a herd mentality in the consumer electronics industry. If one receiver manufacturer adds auto EQ calibration, then inevitably everybody else will too. If one TV manufacturer adds 240 Hz refresh to their TV and prices it at a certain point, other manufacturers will follow suit. If one TV manufacturer adds Netflix streaming to their $2,000 HDTV, then others will inevitably follow as well. If one manufacturer announces 3D compatibility, then others will follow shortly.

Well feature creep sells new gadgets, especially those that are less expensive than bigger and bigger TVs. Maybe you should start paying attention to these features that companies are adding to their smaller electronics. 3D will not just be a factor for large screens, it will be a factor on small screens too.

The issue I have is not with the people who create the technology (it's their job to try to come up with the next big thing), but with the lackeys in the tech press who persistently overestimate consumer tolerance for short-term change. They glom onto the latest shiny object and proclaim that it will revolutionize consumer behavior. And inevitably they are wrong most of the time, because they are more about hype and serving their own interests and preferences than analyzing what an average consumer actually purchases. Taken as a whole, consumer expenditure patterns are rather mundane and predictable, and don't fundamentally shift from one year to the next. But that doesn't make for an interesting read, especially for jaded "journalists" who like to consider themselves cutting edge.

Funny, for a minute there I thought you were talking about 3D.

Just recall all of the hype during the dotcom boom where the tech press was proclaiming that retail stores were obsolete and online shopping would take over. Someone should have done some basic market research on remote retailing before saying something that dumb.

Nice hyperbole. Those predictions were made before the bubble burst. The economic correction changed all that and a whole lot of other things too. Had the economic trend continued, who knows what would have happened with retail stores. Yes, hindsight is 20/20, duh.

More than a decade later, the entire remote retail sector remains less than 10%, which is not that much more than the market share that mail order and catalog operations commanded prior to the dotcom emergence.

10%? More hyperbole. Yes, online sales of some items like cars and clothing are probably not as great as in-store sales, but others (that probably represent a much smaller percent of whatever minute specific you're tracking) are much greater. Take online music sales for example, I hardly think that represents an insignificant amount. What about software sales? Service contracts? and pretty much anything intangible? That 10% figure is a huge exaggeration to prove a self-interested point, and you know it. And we're in a recession right now - who knows where things would be if we were at the top of a bull market?

If people are so bored, why would they watch more TV than ever? If you say that TV is background noise, then how is it any different now than 10 or 20 or 30 years ago when the average daily TV viewing time was closer to 4 hours? Your points are illogical because TVs were installed in bars and other places back then too.

20-30 years ago, people watched attentively. Today they watch much more passively while doing other stuff, both at home and in bars. What you're measuring is how long the TV is on in the home today, but that gives you very little information about what that household is watching and who in that household is watching it. Didn't I already explain this? Geeez.

And how does online video resolve any of this, given that much of the heavily viewed content is ported over from those same boring content providers? Boring content doesn't suddenly become exciting because it gets streamed over the internet and displayed on a puny screen.

Actually it does. People who watch on a smaller screen typically watch alone. They often use headphones, and the screens are too small to share. This makes their viewing much more attentive.

Until you see a sudden spike in TV subscription cancellations and declines in TV viewing time, there's not much to discuss.

Like a broken record. Online viewing and subscription cancellations have very little to do with each other. We already covered this.

And people who subscribe to cable or satellite services are not suddenly moving over to their computer to do their TV viewing, when there's likely a big HDTV in the living room with more comfortable seating in front of it. Every study out there consistently indicates that the biggest and most centrally located TV in the house commands the vast majority of the viewing time.

TV watching in a home is different than personal viewing. I already covered this, see above.

Nobody's disputing the popularity of online video (didn't I indicate already that just under 60% of households view online video?). But, despite the number of hits, the duration of the viewing time remains just a fraction of what TV viewing time is....nothing out there suggests that online video is anywhere close to supplanting the TV and broadcasting as the primary viewing mechanism for TV programs.

I'm not saying it will supplant it - they can co-exist. Why does everything have to be so black & white? This seems to be some kind of mental disorder you and your buddy share, but it's probably the reason you're missing so much. Online video will coincide for some time to come, but for now, online viewing is a different type of viewing and that is the big difference you seem to want to ignore.

But, the availability of the feature doesn't mean that it will be broadly used or supplant home viewing. Just think of all the features on a typical cell phone - you think everybody uses every function or even most of them?

Again, for the umpteenth time - it's not supplanting it. It's coexisting and taking eye-ball time away from it. That's my point. And yes, cell phones have lots of features, some of them rarely used, but video will be a core feature - you can bank on that.

So how do you explain the top two U.S. cellular providers, AT&T and Verizon, also providing broadband internet while investing billions of dollars building up their U-Verse and FiOS TV services? Incidentally, AT&T is both my cell phone and wired internet provider.

Yes, but they are also competing with cable for the TV broadcasting & video. I should not have said they were not interested in it, of course they are, but that they were less interested in that then providing internet and TV/video over cellular because they can make far more money that way and cut the cable providers out completely.

[Woochifer]

Boy, what a Luddite comment. With internal memory, cell phones can easily download whole TV shows and allow the one to view it later, so we're not just talking streaming, here. Your comments are also a bit misleading about the actual numbers. SmartPhone sale figures were about 40% of total cell phone sales in 2009, according to Nielsen ratings (I know how you two love these), and are expected to surpass cell phones well before 2011. Now you can downplay this and say that these people don't use their cell phones for video, but we do know that some 70% do use them for music, and video shouldn't be far behind. According to Nielsen:

"Assuming that 150 million people will be using smartphones by mid-2011, that means 120 million will be on the mobile Internet and 90 million, or 60%, will be watching video, according to Nielsen projections based on current data trends."

And while there's a lot of hooplay at CES this year over 3D, you must have missed LG's booth altogether. They have phones currently available that stream OTA broadcasts, have MicroSD slots for storing gigabytes of video, and can even display the video feed on a wall. Now LG isn't the biggest player in this market, but I can assure you that Apple, Sony/Ericsson, and Nokia aren't ignoring them.

And you seem to be so caught up in reading those techie blogs, that you still don't get how consumer behavior actually evolves. Doesn't matter if your technoelitism regards me as a luddite. I prefer to stay in the rhelm of reality. Note that in that same article:

As of the second quarter, Nielsen has previously reported that some 15 million U.S. mobile subscribers watch video on their phones for an average of three hours, 15 minutes each month.


That works out to an average of about 7 minutes a day for those mobile subscribers that actually watch video. Between 50% and 60% of households are already watching online video at home, and that viewing time is similarly low.

A phone that can stream OTA broadcasts? Color me underwhelmed, given that handheld TVs have been around since the days of the Sony Watchman and those Casio LCD TVs.

You can keep right on listing all the features, but the bottomline is that the capability of a device doing something does not mean that the consumer is fundamentally shifting their behavior. Those same Nielson surveys indicate that the average viewing time for live TV (i.e., viewed on TVs) has increased to over 151 hours per month.

Well in my haste to respond I didn't check my figures, so no, it's not staggering, but don't start patting yourself on the back yet. When you add the number of cell phone screens to the number of computer screens, and other personal/portable devices and you consider this world-wide, the number of TV screens is probably less. But let's take this a step further. Americans have multiple TVs in their homes, and it's unlikely they'd be watching them at the same time, but each person typically has their own cell phone, laptop, or other portable screen. That vast majority of TVs is starting to look a little less certain, now, isn't it?

Again, you keep missing the target.

It's not about the number of screens out there, but which screens get the most usage for displaying video. Survey after survey indicates that it's the TV with the biggest screen and the most central location within a house that gets the most viewing time. TVs have a 90+% market penetration, while cell phones have the same ~80% market penetration that cable/satellite TV service has.

Just because people can own multiple devices that display video does not mean that their viewing time is split evenly.

Nielsen's numbers disagree with that 14% figure.

And the Gartner numbers disagree with the 40% figure.

I never said they are doing this now, I am speculating that they will. I'm trying to talk about about the future, not the past, like you two.

Speculating is the operative term here. Talking about the future is rather pointless if you lack even a cursory understanding of the past and the present. Better to know where you've been if you're trying to figure out where you're going.

In the portable consumer electronics segment of this industry, a very small base can grow a lot faster than the large screen segment. This is because people typically keep a large, expensive TV for years, but they typically swap less expensive portable devices much faster. You know this very well, so don't downplay it.

Again, stop presuming what I know or don't know.

It doesn't matter how the cell phone features evolve if it doesn't create a fundamental change in consumer behavior. The evidence of consumers shifting to HD and larger sized TVs has been bourne out in all sorts of credible market data -- based on uptake on HD subscriptions, HDTV market penetration, and Blu-ray sales. The evidence of shifts to mobile video is less than convincing.

Statistics can be manipulated to fit a particular economic agenda. It's been shown over & over again. And your stats come from the very same industry (well to be specific, the "independent bodies" that track these stats are funded by this industry, but we're splitting hairs then). While I use stats too, I also take a look at other indicators from other industries and competing points of view to get a better picture of what's really going on. You two rely almost exclusively on your "official" sources, so that is why you're missing the bigger picture here.

And your presumptions about consumer behavior seems cribbed straight out of the fanboy blogs that have been wrong time after time. That's the problem with trying to shoehorn an enterprise computing mindset into analyzing consumer markets.

And for the last time, this is not based on my "social circle" whatever you think that may be. I read, a lot. So stop trying to minimize a differing perspective. Just because it doesn't agree with yours doesn't make it invalid or cause for such childish insults. Really, it doesn't help your argument in the least bit.

Has nothing to do with a differing perspective, and more to do with reality vs fantasy.

If it is "the primary unit of analysis" for these conclusions about TV watching, that explains soooo much.

What, that you are clueless about how consumer market research works? Try looking at how the data is collected. It's about creating a uniform basis for researching market changes, taking into account age demographics, income sources, living arrangements, etc. Since I've done many many retail market studies (working on two of them right now), I can tell you first hand how nonsensical it would be to try and estimate everything on a per capita basis.

Well if they don't consider the well documented and academically supported critiques of statistical analysis in their margin of error, then no wonder they can't seem to get a fix on what's happening with smaller electronics, the internet, piracy, and a whole host of other less measurable factors. And if you rely solely on their figures, that explains a whole lot about why you're missing it too.

If you ever read the actual reports that come from these market research firms, they go into detail about the error rates and the methodology. It's transparent and well documented.

All of your points about this purported shift to small screens are anecdotal and not based on anything other than what you wish to see. All of your methodological nitpicking simply cannot explain away all of the consistent findings that TV viewing is on the increase, TV screen sizes are getting bigger, the biggest TV in the house gets the most viewing time, and the vast majority of viewing time remains with TVs. I don't know why this is so controversial with you. We're talking about average consumers, not techies.

This comment makes absolutely no sense. It's not a one or the other proposition. Why would they cancel their subscriptions? As long a s one member of the household still watches cable, there's no reason to think that this household would cancel its subscription. Why can't we consider the very real possibility that some people in the household use both downloads and cable for their entertainment? This kind of conclusion is so typical of a black & white only world view.

Why don't you try telling this to your friends in the tech press who've been writing article after article about how now's the time to cancel your cable because of online video?

If the shift to online video is as pervasive as you seem to think it is, of course it would lead to a rise in cancellations for cable/satellite/fiber service. Why would people pay for programming if they actually watch all or most of it online? The answer is that they don't.

The people who are being targeted are young kids. They can't afford 3D. Their parents who pay the bills and who have much busier lives to be able to watch that much TV, aren't as interested in another techno-fad.

That's a load of crap. All you have to do is look at the box office returns for 3D movies over the last couple of years. It's not just the young kids that are turning out in huge numbers for those movies. Avatar is a game changer because it's a mainstream audience actively seeking out 3D screenings of that movie. 75% of the box office for that movie is for 3D. You don't get those kinds of numbers from just young kids.

Some of them will buy it for their kids, and an even smaller number will buy it for themselves, but you're forgetting the millions who recently bought a new TV. Remember TVs are not replaced that often. Now portable/personal devices, that's a whole different story; they are upgraded much more often, and I expect that 3D will make a big splash there.

Since you're so focused on the future, you don't think that the TV that a family buys a few years from now won't have 3D capability?

Portable devices are upgraded more often because people get one for almost free when they re-up their two-year contracts. That doesn't mean that they will actually make use of all the features on their new phones. Maybe it's news to you, but most people buy cell phones to actually use as phones.

Another detail that someone mentioned to me was that with portable devices, the idea of wearing special glasses becomes much more palatable. After all, the viewer is already wearing headphones, so an integrated headphone/glasses device is much more convenient. At home with the large TV, the wearing of special glasses is considered one of the biggest headaches of 3D - it just doesn't lend itself as well to that environment. Yes, I know Samsung and others are working on glasses-free TVs, but that's a much smaller share of the market.

Now you're really reaching. When I'm out and about (which is when people are likeliest to view video on a mobile device), I'd be LESS inclined to want to carry around a special pair of glasses with me. I didn't see anything about 3D on portable devices at CES, so your prognostications are rather pointless.

If 3D is now emerging as a market force in movie theaters, in spite of the 3D glasses, why would it be more of a market hindrance in the home market?

Well I did. As I explained, the 3D TVs are great for the wow factor, but just to get people in the booth. 3D may very well be the next big fad, fine, but we're not there yet. What we do have is millions of people with portable devices that can view video.

You're way behind the times here. 3D is well beyond the wow factor. More and more movies are getting produced in 3D because audiences have proven that they will turn out and pay more to see 3D screenings. It's not a novelty anymore.

Like I said before, just because you got millions of video-capable devices out there doesn't mean that people will use the capability or use it for extended periods of time. I've already said that people will use portable devices for viewing video clips or short form programs. The evidence that large numbers of viewers will use it as their primary device for movie viewing doesn't exist.

The ability to pause & rewind changes all that. The lack of interest for digital copies on disk is because by then the people have already seen it and the need to watch it again isn't that great.

The lack of interest for digital copies is simply because most movie viewing doesn't take place on portable devices or computers. It's the same reason why the uptake on UMD movies for the Playstation Portable was so pitifully low, despite the fact that 60 million PSPs have been sold.

The phenomenon you're missing is the podcast factor. Why just listen to an audio broadcast that's downloaded, when one can watch the video instead?

Because podcasts fit right in with the portability of audio. Unlike video, audio has been trending towards portability for decades. The sales trends for devices and formats alike support the conclusion that people want their audio content on the go. The trends on the video have been the opposite -- bigger screens, higher resolution. Portability of video content has been a small niche and continues to have limited appeal except for short-term viewing, while portability of audio content has been the mainstream for decades.

Free content, everything from pirated movies to favorite TV shows will also be viewable on cell phones and personal devices. And unlike larger & larger TVs, this doesn't need to be BR quality content or have 7.1 DTS-MA audio, so the files can be much smaller & compressed.

Might be good enough for hackers or people who wouldn't have paid for their movies anyway, but the sales trends indicate that the growing demand is for HD resolution.

I'm not dismissing it outright, I'm just not considering it as heavily because this economy does not support this growth. In a contracting economy, people want simpler, smaller, and less ostentatious gear. While last year's big TV screen sales were probably still impressive, I don't think this trend will continue unabated. The effects of a recession take several years to be felt, and when it comes to consumer electronics (a diversionary purchase), it can take even longer. But just as people are ditching large Escalades, houses, and multiple grocery carts at Costco, so too will they see less and less appeal for large TVs.

Where do you come to this conclusion? Recessions will cause shifts in consumer spending, but they are not as drastic as you portray them. Year-to-year changes in household spending patterns are more affected by income than anything. In case you missed it, the retail performance in the holiday shopping season ran ahead of expectations, and sales of consumer electronics also showed healthy growth.

HDTV sales have been on the increase, average screen sizes continue to increase, and Blu-ray sales have continued to grow exponentially. Why would people want "simpler, smaller, and less ostentatious gear" when HDTV prices have plunged into commodity territory? For the same price as an unlocked Nexus One phone, you can now buy a 42" HDTV. Your conclusion that people want smaller TVs is once again not based on fact.

Well feature creep sells new gadgets, especially those that are less expensive than bigger and bigger TVs. Maybe you should start paying attention to these features that companies are adding to their smaller electronics. 3D will not just be a factor for large screens, it will be a factor on small screens too.

Nope, feature creep props up price points. Big difference. What also sells gadgets is price drops. Just look at the PS3, which had a huge holiday sales season after the price point fell to $300.

Nice hyperbole. Those predictions were made before the bubble burst. The economic correction changed all that and a whole lot of other things too. Had the economic trend continued, who knows what would have happened with retail stores. Yes, hindsight is 20/20, duh.

No hyperbole because it's the plain truth. The bubble burst because the vast market that those tech writers thought would materialize never existed in the first place. The simple fact is that online retailing is just another form of remote retailing, which already had a history of trend data that anybody with an internet connection back then could have looked up. I did exactly that because self-proclaimed techies would challenge me in public meetings. In the end, I was proven right but anyone who chose to do some research and analyze the data objectively would have arrived at the same conclusion that I did.

The bubble burst because it had to. You had hundreds of billions of dollars invested in startup companies competing for less than 10% of the overall retail market. Retail stores commanded and continue to command more than 90% of retail shopping dollars. Delusional tech writers were treating e-tailers like high value added technology companies, when in reality they were nothing more than low margin retail operations -- basically a more efficient and multifaceted successor to catalog and traditional mail order operations.

10%? More hyperbole. Yes, online sales of some items like cars and clothing are probably not as great as in-store sales, but others (that probably represent a much smaller percent of whatever minute specific you're tracking) are much greater. Take online music sales for example, I hardly think that represents an insignificant amount. What about software sales? Service contracts? and pretty much anything intangible? That 10% figure is a huge exaggeration to prove a self-interested point, and you know it. And we're in a recession right now - who knows where things would be if we were at the top of a bull market?

In the context of online shopping, 10% would actually be a generous amount. Note that I said less than 10% of the overall RETAIL market, and that's accounting for ALL forms of remote retailing that also include catalog sales and all forms of mail and phone order sales. Retail is not the same as service or business-to-business transactions. Again, we're talking about consumer behavior, and retailers which by definition are selling tangible goods. You can nitpick the specifics all you want, but it's not hyperbole because that's the actual sales data. Your comments reflect a rather superficial understanding of how retail sales trends actually are. Try going beyond the headlines and look at the fundamentals of how consumers spend money. You'll see shifts during a recession, but they are not nearly as dramatic as you think they are. Year to year retail sales declines peaked around 3%, and that's actually considered a huge decline. The spate of store closures and retail bankruptcies simply illustrates just how thin the operating margins are for retail.

If you think online retailing has taken over the retail market, show me some evidence. The annual U.S. sales for Wal Mart alone are more than TRIPLE what the ENTIRE e-commerce retail sector takes in annually. The annual sales for Best Buy alone are more than DOUBLE what Amazon takes in. The Department of Commerce's latest e-commerce tracking trend for November 2009 puts e-commerce at 3.7% of total retail sales. It might have had a bigger impact on specific categories, but overall it's doing nothing more than following the historical trends for remote retailing.

20-30 years ago, people watched attentively. Today they watch much more passively while doing other stuff, both at home and in bars. What you're measuring is how long the TV is on in the home today, but that gives you very little information about what that household is watching and who in that household is watching it. Didn't I already explain this? Geeez.

Nothing more than an unsubstantiated presumption on your part. You have no evidence whatsoever that people watch less attentively now than before. I'd rather focus on what can be accurately compared and that's the increasing viewing time. To me, the two overriding long-term trends are increased programming choices and increased viewing time. To presume that one does not correlate with the other is simply silly.

Actually it does. People who watch on a smaller screen typically watch alone. They often use headphones, and the screens are too small to share. This makes their viewing much more attentive.

151 hours vs. 3 hours per month. No amount of parsing and impugning on your part can negate the magnitude of that difference in viewing time.

TV watching in a home is different than personal viewing. I already covered this, see above.

Yeah, personal viewing is done in short bursts and every study done to date confirms this. Home viewing is done for hours at a time. No evidence whatsoever that hordes of people will shift their movie viewing to their portable devices.

I'm not saying it will supplant it - they can co-exist. Why does everything have to be so black & white? This seems to be some kind of mental disorder you and your buddy share, but it's probably the reason you're missing so much. Online video will coincide for some time to come, but for now, online viewing is a different type of viewing and that is the big difference you seem to want to ignore.

Mental disorder to pay attention to facts and to seek evidence before arriving at conclusions? Mmm hmmm

Again, for the umpteenth time - it's not supplanting it. It's coexisting and taking eye-ball time away from it. That's my point. And yes, cell phones have lots of features, some of them rarely used, but video will be a core feature - you can bank on that.

Yet, the eyeball time for TV just keeps increasing.

Yes, but they are also competing with cable for the TV broadcasting & video. I should not have said they were not interested in it, of course they are, but that they were less interested in that then providing internet and TV/video over cellular because they can make far more money that way and cut the cable providers out completely.

You shouldn't have said it because it was a point very easily disproven.