New Technology TV

There's new evidence that Americans find high definition television to be a source of frustration and don't derive as much satisfaction from it as they often do from normal TV. This information comes in the form of a new study from Frank N. Magid Associates. The survey, which was taken in September and questioned about twelve hundred adults fount that of all the people buying and using high definition television sets, a surprisingly low number were really happy with high definition television itself. For example, only forty seven percent of High Definition Television set buyers said that they're looking forward to watching television shows in High Definition. That number is down from over sixty percent a few years ago.
Of course statistics like that raise the question: If only forty seven percent of people buying high definition television sets are looking forward to watching high definition television on them, why are those other fifty three percent bothering to buy the television sets at all? Actually, a lot of high definition television set buyers are planning to take advantage of the wide screen in order to get the most out of DVD's that display movies in wide screen format. Other high definition consumers want to take advantage of the big wide TV format for video gaming. This isn't surprising given the increasing trend in the video gaming industry to display video game graphics in high definition formats.

So what exactly is so wrong with the high definition television programming that it turns high definition television set owners from taking advantage of it? There are actually several answers to this question. First, there just isn't that much high definition television programming to choose from. Most satellite TV and cable TV providers offer fewer than twenty channels. In fact, it may be that the many high definition television set owners would have to switch away from a television service provider that they're otherwise relatively happy with in order to get any decent selection of high definition television channels.

It may also be that high definition TV set owners just aren't that impressed with the selection of programming itself available in high definition. For example, the survey found that the owners of high definition television sets rated their satisfaction with high definition programming at only a seven on a scale from one to ten.

Another problem with high definition television is that the channels are often placed up in the far, top end of the channel selection. That just makes them less convenient to get to when people who might otherwise be interested in them want to watch them.

Of course, it should be possible to program most satellite TV receivers in such a way as to make it easier to get to those channels, but many high definition television owners may not know how to do that or even know that it can be done. But this raises another problem: lack of knowledge about the details of high definition television and television in general. For example, many consumers believe that digital TV and high definition television are the same thing, and even more aren't familiar with how to install, connect, and properly tune their television sets.

After looking at the results of this survey, it seems clear that if the manufacturers and retailers of high definition television sets want consumers to get the most out of their purchases, and therefore purchase more high definition equipment, they need to do a better job of educating consumers about television in general.