Will This Be the Year of HDTV?

Jan. 7 -- It's 2002. Do you know where your high-definition television is?

For years, various groups have been promoting HDTV as the next big thing in home entertainment. By using digital technologies, HDTV promises to deliver superb picture quality — nearly twice the sharpness of current analog broadcasts — as well as other advanced features.

Still, only a tiny fraction of households in the United States own a high-definition TV set. According to the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA), roughly 2.3 million TV sets capable of receiving the new digital TV signals have been sold over the past 3½ years. In comparison, nearly 25 to 27 million ordinary TVs are sold annually.

The adoption of HDTV among consumers has been hampered by what many call the case of "Cs": cost, content, and cable. But some industry experts say that all three factors are being addressed and may finally lead to HDTV's mass consumer adoption soon.

Costly Cutting-Edge TV

Consider cost. Three years ago, an HDTV-capable set could cost as much as $10,000. But Jeff Joseph, vice president of communications for CEA, says that average prices for HDTV sets have fallen roughly 50 percent every year over the past three years. "Consumers can get into digital TV at $1,100," he says.

And at those prices, Joseph says that digital TV sets are becoming "competitive" with analog "big-screen" TVs — those with screens measuring larger than 32 inches. "We're getting to the point where there is only $75 difference between big-screen digital TVs and analog TVs," he says.

And according to Joseph, that has helped fuel sales of digital TVs in 2001. He says that the CEA is confident that their initial projections of 1.2 million unit sales will most likely mushroom another 16 percent, or 1.4 million sets. By the end of this year, total cumulative sales of digital TV sets will top some $8 billion. "In dollar terms, digital TV has been one of the most successful products in the [consumer electronics] industry," he says.