17 July 2008

PC-TV Tuner Market With Shift To Digital

The adoption of digital PC-TV Tuners will accelerate in Europe as Digital Terrestrial TV (DTT) services continue to expand there, according to a study.

In addition, Asia, China and India will present strong growth opportunities. North America is expected to see a surge during 2009, when analog TV is cut off, and new mobile digital broadcast TV (MDTV) services are introduced by major US TV stations, according to market research company In-Stat.

"The challenges to PC-TV Tuner adoption include easy-to-use Cable, TelcoTV, and satellite TV services that provide high quality Video-on-Demand, Internet distributed video content, IPTV services, and mobile broadband, such as 3G, WiFi, and WiMAX," explained Gerry Kaufhold, an analyst for market research company In-Stat. "While some European cable and satellite operators allow the use of digital PC-TV tuners with conditional access to receive premium content, the US market will take some time to implement CableLab's tru2way technology. Microsoft also needs to improve their internal support for multiple tuners in a PC."

By 2012, In-Stat forecasts that there will be 30.8 million PC-TV tuners sold annually, with a total retail value of US$1.7 billion.