Content is king.

I don’t spend a lot of time watching TV because there is not a lot worth watching. It does not matter how good it looks; if it is crap, it is crap. Audiences will dwindle until the content improves. Any surge from the introduction of a newer, better technology will only be a blip on a graph, unless there is sufficient quality content to maintain interest.

I love new technologies and HDTV is awesome; but without anything worth watching, it might as well be an old black and white; so what is the point of buying one if it just sits there as a piece of furniture 99% of the time.

To the guy who doesn’t watch TV because he can’t afford to spend $400: Kelly, you need to fill your head with some better content. I suggest you read Mark’s motivation posts. Your choice to be poor is a stupid choice. Don’t blame it on others if you have chosen to be unable to buy a TV.

A couple of my coworkers got HD tvs and digital cable connections. The better pictures led them to believe that they were watching HD. Both were disappointed that the “HD” wasn’t that much better. It took me a long time, with an annoying lack of appreciation on their part, to convince them that they did not have HD and that they needed to get HD receivers, subscriptions, etc.

Despite my assurances that real HD would be a lot better, none were interested in going any further. One of the people involved has a brother who is a tv repairman, and a good one, but he was somewhat negative, probably because he thought he might have to fix the thing for free all the time.

I think this is a widespread problem. How many people can really understand all the equipment required and then make sense of the subsequent manuals, cables, inputs, outputs and 12 optional ways to do everything? And then properly work 2 or 5 remotes? Damn near impossible for most people.

Now, if early-adopter types have problems understanding, installing and operating HD equipment, what about old people? There are millions of them with more on the way. Many have money and do tend to watch a lot of tv, often more than they should. Big screens, sharp pictures and clear sound is more than a luxury to them.

My parents enjoy watching my HD HT, but they would never consider owning and operating it anymore than I would consider operating the space shuttle. To them, it is impossibly difficult and even if someone set up the system, the whole issue of actually using it, dealing with modes and menus is something they would never consider. So, they have their old square tvs and fuzzy bad cable. What they do have is a simple remote where you punch in the channel and it appears and then maybe you set the volume.

Content providers, like HDnet, are missing out on this audience of millions, a big percentage of the population with huge financial assets, because many of them are afraid of the equipment! And it is not just old people. Many younger potential customers are equally apprehensive about the difficulty of using this technology.

I saw one of those kitchen appliance shows on tv, where a sweaty sales guy was getting way too excited about this refrigerator that had a computer screen on the door that would tell you how many eggs were left, how old the milk was and so on. It would, I believe, either order new supplies from the on-line market or call you on your cell phone to warn you. Something like that.

I would disconnect that sucker the first time it ordered up some milk or bothered me in any way. Also, it does not do this automatically. Somebody has to punch in info every time the inventory changes. Can you imagine gramps doing that? No, because he would never buy that pos in the first place. Now, what if every refrigerator from every company had that feature set? Likely gramps would keep his old one. But, the sales guy would say, this is high tech, the way of the future. Gramps would counter that plugging it in and having everything work perfectly, quietly, economically for 20 years in an environmentally correct way-that is high tech.

If content providers want to maximize their business, they had better use their influence to make sure that the equipment suppliers offer systems that people will actually buy and use so that they can view their programs. And equipment suppliers: what in the …. are you doing trying to sell a few systems to people on these forums when you should be mass marketing this stuff and you cannot do that until you make your products more universally useable. Am I missing something?

I pay $50 for cable and $7.5 for the HD box, and all I get are the same crappy network channels I get with my built-in HD reciever. If I pay $20 more a month, I get a bunch of low-quality analog channels and a whopping 3 additional HD’s. Speaking for myself, I’d prefer 10 HD channels to 100 SDs. If CNBC was OTA, I wouldn’t even have cable. Wake up and smell the coffee . People want quality, not quantity. Once the rest of the public wakes up from their technological slumber, they will realize what they want, MORE HD. Kudos to the pioneers who had the foresight to adopt the technology early , producing and distributing the content. The satellite providers look like they have the edge but it will be interesting to see how it pans out. One thing is for sure, the consumer is king and the industry will change on our schedule.