Thin is in: high-definition TV is here to stay

Custom Home, July-August, 2005 by Rebecca Day

Lawmakers and television-industry leaders are still squabbling over the turn-off date for analog TV that will officially usher in the high-definition age, but most custom electronics installation specialists are designing A/V systems as if the HDTV transition was yesterday's news.

As recently as March at the annual HDTV Summit in Washington, D.C., members of Congress proposed turning off the switch on analog TV at the end of this year. That's even ahead of the late-2006 timeframe originally proposed in the Balanced Budget Act of 1997, which would allow the Federal Communications Commission to auction off the analog TV spectrum and stuff the proceeds into government coffers.

But with household penetration of digital TV at just 16 percent, and the cable, broadcast, and consumer electronics industries at odds over transition procedures and regulations, it could still be several years before TV broadcasts are exclusively digital.

A major hurdle involves how many local broadcast channels cable providers will have to deliver to their subscribers. In the analog world, cable providers are required to carry local broadcast channels in their basic TV package. In the digital world, four or five digital channels can fit in the space required by one high-definition channel, and broadcasters expect to use those multiple streams for commercial gain during non-prime-time programming. Cable companies argue that they shouldn't have to carry multiple streams of broadcasters' channels at the expense of their own premium channels.

But while those issues continue to be hashed over, digital TV--led by the superior HDTV format--continues to plow forward. Most network broadcasters now simulcast analog and digital TV and the majority of prime-time programming is available in high-definition. Cable networks including HBO, Showtime, Cinemax, Discovery, Starz, ESPN, and others have dedicated high-definition channels that run HD programming throughout the day.

Retail pricing is more attractive than it has ever been. Consumers can snag a 52-inch rear-projection HDTV monitor for $1,300, while 60-inch plasma TVs have dived to $6,000 or less. Consumers looking for a big-screen TV would be hard-pressed to find an analog model today. For the first time, in 2005 the number of home-theater-grade digital TVs sold at retail is expected to exceed sales of analog TVs. In short, the cutoff date for analog TV may not be set in stone, but consumers are transitioning on their own terms. And luxury-home owners are leading the way.

"I can't think of the last TV over 30 inches that we've sold that wasn't high-definition," says Robert Ruderman, president and owner of the installation firm Harmony Home Systems in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla. Ruderman's upscale clients do whatever is required to pull in the pristine signals. That includes locating spots for satellite receivers and cable boxes and even making space for unsightly '50s-era antennas to catch over-the-air broadcasts.

But it's not just the push for better pictures and sound that's driving sales of HDTV displays, Ruderman says. Homeowners are drawn to the stylish look, the flexibility, and the status statements that flat TVs bring to their lives. In fact, the lust for flat TVs--which are primarily digital--account for as much, or more, of the interest in digital TV as the pristine pictures and enveloping sound coming through them.

TVs that measure 3 or 4 inches thick are opening up placement opportunities that didn't exist before. That means builders and installers have to anticipate homeowners' needs early on to be able to get the required wiring in place before walls go up.

"A lot of builders in our area are making sure wiring is in place," Ruderman says, "but we always tell them to make sure there's enough. The cost of running additional cable in the building stage is so negligible that it doesn't make sense not to do a lot of it," he says.

That can include half a dozen runs of RG6 coaxial cable to multiple satellite dish locations (determined by line of sight to satellites) and then to all the locations that will have primary TVs. He prescribes an additional three or four more coax runs for the distribution hub so they can feed satellite TV, TiVo-like recorders, and cable sources to the TVs throughout the house.

"We're doing more TVs in the kitchen now," Ruderman says, "so we're running more cables there. In a lot of cases we're running cable to three or four locations because LCD TVs are so small--and they've gotten so affordable--that our clients can afford to put them in a handful of locations."

Because of the placement opportunities in narrow spaces, Ruderman now finds himself installing plasma TVs in the ceilings of master bedrooms, using specialized lifts to motor the TV from a supine position above the ceiling down to a perpendicular angle for viewing. That location requires not only power and cable runs to the ceiling but additional support as well. "We work with the builder to be sure there's enough framing with plywood attached to trusses," he says.