If you’re thinking about buying a HDTV, why not just smack some “HD” labels on your old set instead? A new study says that would work for many:

According to recent Forrester Research data, HDTV sets will be in approximately 16 million homes across the U.S. by the end of the year. But, Forrester predicts just seven million of those households will actually be watching HD programming from their video service provider in that timeframe, suggesting that many consumers are buying HDTVs but then not taking the additional steps required to receive HDTV services.

… Those HD television owners polled who believed they were receiving HD service but lacked the proper equipment had varying reasons for not getting the equipment:

* Close to one in four (28%) of HDTV owners reported that they did not get any special equipment from their service provider to watch HDTV channels because the picture quality was already improved with the purchase of an HDTV.

* 23% of HDTV owners did not invest in special equipment to watch HDTV channels because a message at the beginning of the programs they watch tells them that those programs are being broadcast in HD.

* Nearly one in five (18%) reported that they believed the HD television would give them high-definition channels without additional equipment. (exactly how many were told this by retail salespeople is unknown — ed.)

This may explain the big order of “HD” stickers I saw at Fry’s last week …

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H/t: Good Morning Silicon Valley: Well, what’d you expect? I couldn’t program the VCR either.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 20th, 2005 at 6:59 am by A Senior Administration Official and is filed under Funny ... to us. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.