Viewers are slow to tune in

The deadline for switching to HDTV is expected to be postponed.
MINNEAPOLIS-ST. PAUL STAR TRIBUNE
The high-definition-television revolution is happening in slow motion.
Though HDTVs have been available for more than five years and offer a high-clarity, wide-screen format that is undeniably better than standard TV, fewer than 10 percent of U.S. households now have one. And while some analysts forecast that half the nation will be watching HDTV by 2009, sales have been below initial industry and government expectations, forcing the government to reconsider its deadlines for forcing HDTV adoption.
HDTV's virtues are the sharpness of its picture and the width of its screen.
A conventional TV picture is made up of 525 horizontal lines. By comparison, HDTV has 720 or 1,080 horizontal lines per picture (depending on the type of programming a customer watches most, since the lower line count works better for fast-moving sports events). Experts say the highest-resolution HDTV format has pictures that are about 10 times more detailed (based on the total amount of data the screen contains) than those on conventional TV.
In addition, while conventional TV screens are wider than they are tall by a ratio of 4 to 3 (called the aspect ratio), most HDTV screens are wider than they are tall by a ratio of 16 to 9.
The federal government believed these benefits would drive HDTV adoption. Now it may be reconsidering that assumption.
Deadline
On its Web site, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) says that the federal government's goal for requiring broadcasters to switch from conventional, or analog TV, signals to HDTV signals, is Dec. 31, 2006.
After that, today's analog sets wouldn't work unless they got signals from cable TV, which would be able to convert the HDTV signals back into analog. The federal government then would be able to reclaim the analog part of the broadcast spectrum and auction it off for other purposes.
But the FCC says the 2006 date "may be extended until most homes (85 percent) in an area are able to watch the (HDTV) programming."
But slow sales of HDTV sets mean there is zero chance of hitting 85 percent market penetration by 2006, analysts say. As a result, the FCC is rumored to be considering a new, more flexible deadline of 2008 or 2009.
"Those original expectations were extremely aggressive and unrealistic," said Adi Kishore, a senior analyst for media and entertainment at the Yankee Group in Boston. "You don't see the consumer market respond that quickly."
One reason may be that not all TV programs are equally enhanced by HDTV. Industry studies suggest that HDTV buyers often are young men who like sports, because HDTV lends a you-are-there-quality to TV pictures. But while Jay Leno's "Tonight Show" is broadcast in HDTV, the clarity of the picture doesn't affect the sharpness of his jokes.
Price
Earlier in the decade, HDTV manufacturers blamed slow sales on a lack of programming, and programming providers pointed to the high price of HDTV sets. Today, HDTV programming is more widely available and HDTV set prices have dropped, although many remain about $300 per set more expensive than comparable conventional TVs.
Analysts say a typical HDTV set costs $1,000 or more, although less desirable units with smaller, traditional aspect-ratio TV screens are said to be available for as little as $600. The catch, if there is one, is that less expensive HDTV sets typically don't include an over-the-air receiving device called a tuner. That's not a problem if the customer gets an HDTV signal through a cable or satellite TV service, which provide everything needed to receive the signal.
The result has been an uptick in HDTV sales, but hardly a flood. It is projected that a cumulative total of about 12 million sets will have been sold by the end of this year (sales began in about 1998), Kishore said. He expects sales growth to accelerate, and he estimates that by 2009 half of all U.S. households will have HDTV.
"Sales of HDTV have gone up, but not dramatically," said Phillip Swann, a TV industry analyst with TVPredictions.com, a firm in Arlington, Va. "There are three reasons. The public perception is that the price of HDTV sets is still too high, even though it's not that high. HDTV programming availability remains a little sketchy. And you've still got a lot of people who bought a conventional TV in the last three to four years who are reluctant to replace it."
If forcing the nation to convert to HDTV has been difficult for the government, it also is a problem for ordinary citizens. When analog TV broadcasts are eliminated, the only way to use today's ubiquitous analog TV sets will be to subscribe to cable TV, which can convert the digital signals for use by analog TV sets. TV watchers who can't afford HDTV or cable will be out of luck -- they won't be able to receive TV at all.