FierceIPTV

At last week's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas McKay, whose company sells a hybrid TV product for pay-TV operators that allows them to provide subscribers with a melding of programming that includes OTT content, told an audience during a Parks Associates panel discussion that "cord cutting is an overblown reality," with a caveat. While most cord cutters seem to actually be cord switchers, he said, flitting from operator to operator, the threat that they'll potentially def ...read more

But connected TVs and devices are expected to become part of the home far more rapidly than are 3D TV sets. Connected devices made up some 25 percent of TV sales last year; Parks Associates vice president and principal analyst Kurt Scherf anticipates they'll make up three-quarters of all sales by 2015, about 350 million units.

"Content options are finally catching up to the hardware innovations, and growing libraries of on-demand movies and TV available are starting to unloc ...read more

Kurt Scherf, vice president and principal analyst at Parks Associates, said he believes the integration of Google TV into devices like a Blu-ray player eventually will be a good fit for consumers looking to add entertainment power without adding more boxes, but agrees that the price is critical.

"I actually like the idea of having the Google TV embedded into a device that I'm likely to buy anyway, which is a new Blu-ray player to replace my existing DVD player," Scherf said. ...read more

There's no question that "3D" has created a lot of buzz in the industry, but the focus has been on hardware as content has been hard to come by. Hollywood studios are expected to release just 35 3D movies this year, but that number grows to 100 in 2011, and upwards of 200 in 2012, said Parks Associates analyst Pietro Macchiarella earlier this year. But, the catalog of existing feature-length films is slim enough that providers have had to work hard to land them.

But Hollywoo ...read more

Parks Associates analyst Pietro Macchiarella agrees, and said that, while there are a number of similarities between the launch of HDTV and that of 3D TV, the difference this time around is that everybody in the industry is looking at 3D as a must have. CE companies see it as a way to drive sales of new televisions and 3D-compatible devices; broadcasters, who bridled at the introduction of HD, are jumping into the new technology with both feet, because they see an opportunity to ...read more

"After seeing the G.hn demo at CES, it's clear the technology has made substantial progress over last year with respect to standard development and moving toward delivering its first commercial product," said Kurt Scherf, vice president and principal analyst with Parks Associates, in the HomeGrid press release. "The demonstration provided by DS2 showed dramatic performance over all three media: power line, phone line and coaxial cable. The demonstration reflects the tremendous p ...read more

Service providers so far mostly have demurred from publicly advocating or attacking G.hn, though Light Reading has a story talking about one MoCA-supporting service provider who is concerned about future pricing of G.hn gear. Parks Associates analyst Kurt Scherf also suggests in the story that G.hn is no slam dunk.

From the article, "Home networking tech war heats up" by Dan O'Shea

There has been much recent news on the home network front: A number of residential gateways announcements have come out within the last month or so, and Parks Associates recently released a study forecasting that residential gateways will be used in more than half of all home network deployments by 2013.

From the article, "Finding a home on the smart grid" by Dan O'Shea