Telstra has revealed the addition of almost one million new mobile services in the six months to December 2011, but Sensis revenues plummeted 24 percent in 12 months.
I'm not at all surprised that only one-quarter of Australian homes have digital TV tuners. I'm more surprised that three-quarters of those have an HD tuner.
After all, it's only during the last year or two that flat-panel TVs have fallen to mass-market prices, and even then they are still far more expensive than similarly sized CRT models. For example, a 68cm CRT set costs around $400, while a flat-screen set that displays a 16:9 transmission at the same dimensions is three to four times more expensive.
Unless you can afford a fairly big set, does HD really do that much for you? And that reminds me - as Adam Turner mentioned - sport is one of the 'naturals' for HD. But so many of the flat-panel sets I've seen just can't keep up with the often rapid panning that is common to much sports coverage, and the jerky blurring of the background distracts from the action.
Similarly, PVRs are a lot more expensive than VCRs. Yes, they do have several advantages, including higher picture quality and no messing with tapes, but you're talking serious money. I doubt I will buy another VCR, but I'm not going to prematurely scrap the one I have in favour of a PVR.
I'm also curious whether the Digital Broadcasting Australia figures that Adam quoted tell the whole story. Were they just for set top boxes, PVRs and built-in, or do they also include digital tuners connected to computers? I wouldn't claim that the people I know are a cross-section of the community, but a lot of them seem to be using USB tuners so they can watch and record TV on their computers.
But when all else is said and done, the longer you leave buying a piece of electronic gear, the cheaper it will be. If a digital tuner of a certain quality costs $200 today, it'll be $150 or maybe even $100 next year (and you've had the benefit of the cash in the meantime). To my mind, it's only sensible to put off going digital until your current equipment needs replacing.
And that is the piece of the story that the Federal Government keeps getting wrong. It responds to the relatively slow takeup of digital by pushing out the deadline for switching off analogue transmissions. If I'm still going to receive analogue until 2012, isn't it more sensible to replace a dead TV with a relatively cheap analogue set now, safe in the knowledge that when it needs to be replaced a high-def model is likely to be affordable?
David Bass
| For the fourth year in a row, IDC has placed content security provider Websense (NASDAQ: WBSN) at the top of the IDC Worldwide Web Security 2011 –…
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