This year Europeans are expected to buy some 42 million flat TV sets, up 3.1% on last year’s unit numbers. Older cathode ray tube TV sets are expected to fall from 4.4 million in 2008 down to 1.7 million according to Berlin based market research institute EITO.
Prices are also set to fall another 13% this year dropping from €723 to €629. ‘Compared with last year, consumers are getting larger screens with additional extras for less money,’ said EITO Chairman Bruno Lamborghini.
There is also a considerable shift towards these screens showing High Definition pictures with 85% choosing a high-definition TV. In 2008 this was only 80%.
‘The trend to HD-TV is also profiting from the sales of Blu-ray players as well as those of HD-capable set-top boxes and fixed-disc recorders’, said Lamborghini. The boom in sales of high-definition televisions would continue in 2010, when the Winter Olympic Games and the football World Championship take place.
EITO also believes that the market will pick up impetus from TV sets being integrated in a home network allowing photo and video files to be viewed on a TV and shortly it will be possible to surf the Web directly from a TV. ‘Although televisions with Internet connection are at present the exception, soon all high-quality TV sets will be Internet-enabled’, said Lamborghini.
But the rapid decline in pricing, which was really triggered by the advancing recession, will not be reversed by a mere 3.1% increase in demand, so total sales revenues will fall in 2009 by 10% to €26.4 billion across Europe. This is the first decline ever in revenues for flat-screen TVs. Pricing said EITO fell faster in the UK, down 18.2% to €5.3 billion during the past year. The UK is the only European country out of the larger EU countries in which the number of unit sales is also falling ‘ down by 9.5% to just 8.3 million flatscreen TVs. Turnover will fall in Spain by 14.4% to €2.1 billion; in Italy by 11.6% to €2.3 billion and in France by 9.6% to €3.8 billion. In Germany the fall is slower with revenues set to drop just 2% to €5.3 billion.
Sony moves ahead in Blu-ray, surround sound, playing DVDs
Sony is counting on its Blu-ray technology, in its own and others’ players, to spark a growth in revenue. Its newest model, the BDP-S360, features two functions that significantly differentiate Blu-ray players from DVD players and online videos: sound quality that delivers theater-like audio and BD Live that takes users to walled Web sites where they can get extras such as additional scenes, trailers and movie-based games. A built-in USB port allows the bonus material to be downloaded and saved on a USB flash storage device.
Julien Dalle, senior business manager, home video marketing of Sony Europe said BD Live interactivity is the main reason so many are buying Blu-ray players.
The BDP-S360 also has Bonus View, which provides picture-in-picture capability with some movies. Users can watch the director’s commentary in real time alongside the main movie, all in ‘stunning HD.’
Digital media delivered over the Net is this publication’s reason for being. However, it must be admitted that Blu-ray players come with the very best audio and video technology available: 1080p video and 7.1 surround-sound when used with a 7.1 AV receiver. Sony prefers the user to get its new HT-SS360, HT-SF360 and HT-FS3 surround sound systems, of course.
1080p video is available to consumers only with Blu-ray. No pay-TV service delivers 1080p video. DirecTV has started running promos that it is offering movies in 1080p.
It’s often said that it’s the realistic quality of the surround-sound quality, as much as the big screen that makes theater-going such a unique experience.
The S360 comes with DTS-HD audio compression and Dolby TrueHD for bit-for-bit ‘identical to the studio master’ decoding, the first time these features have been made available on an entry-level Blu-ray player from Sony. Many contend that Sony may have fallen behind in many CE areas but that it still leads the pack in audio reproduction. Dalle described the result as ‘a total immersive experience’ that made the BDP-S360 a must for every HDTV owner. (Yeah, we know he gets paid to say that but Blu-ray video and audio are the best that can be used at home.)
Sony says the S360 overcomes two of the most frequent complaints about Blu-ray players: their often faulty playing of the customer’s existing DVDs and the length of time it takes to start playing. It says its Precision Cinema HD Upscale technology converts standard-definition signals to 1080p when an HDMI cable is used to connect the player to an HDTV set.
Its quick start-up mode, it says, allows the Blu-ray to start up in six seconds, the fastest of any player, Sony said. The S360 has Sony’s Precision Drive technology, which helps to detect and correct wobbling discs from three directions, supporting stabilization of the playback of bent or scratched Blu-ray Discs and DVDs.
Nobody wants a living room cluttered with wires, so Sony’s home theater systems provide the capability for Sony’s S-AIR wireless technology. Both the HT-SS360 and HT-SF360 come with Sony’s intelligent DCAC (Digital Cinema Auto Calibration). DCAC, Sony says, makes setting up your speakers easy, by measuring a variety of key factors such as speaker distance, volume and frequency to provide the optimum surround sound for music and movies. DCS (Digital Cinema Sound), according to Sony, enhances the surround-sound experience with its Cinema Studio Modes.
Blu-ray players started out by lurching from model to model with different ‘profiles,’ slow load times and poor playback of DVDs but seem finally to be on a smoother path. Samsung and LG are, of course, giving Sony a run for its money in Blu-ray players, surround sound systems, mobile phones, MP3 players and all things CE.
On their Blu-ray players, the two South Korean companies offer streaming Internet videos – TV shows, movies and music – from online services such as Netflix, Amazon, YouTube and Pandora.
Give Sony the edge in audio quality and playing DVDs but Samsung and LG have the lead in Internet functions, an area that Sony’s engineers still seem to have a mental block about implementing in their CE products.