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These figures are contained in a report by technology market research
firm In-Stat. In a surprising twist, Australia currently leads the
world for consumption of High Definition TV (HDTV) Digital Terrestrial
Set Top boxes, with the US running in second place.
Europe has been the unit shipment and market value leader for several
years, and is poised to become the long-term dominating force if
the 2006 World Cup soccer matches drive strong uptake for new Digital
Terrestrial products. Japan and China are emerging markets for DTT
STBs that support High Definition.
In-Stat analyst Gerry Kaufhold says, “The big trend going forward
will be the emergence of DTT Set Top Boxes with built in Personal
Video Recorder (PVR) functionality, because these add convenience
to end users who need to navigate ever-expanding programming choices”.
In-Stat also found that greater number of countries are turning
on local Digital Terrestrial TV broadcasts. This trend is beginning
to accelerate. In the US, US Digital TV (USDTV) is tying together
the bit streams of up to six local Digital Terrestrial TV stations,
and offering a low-cost alternative to Cable TV services.
The next phase of development is focussed on advanced set top boxes
that support new video Coder/Decoders (Codecs) and include hard
disk drives and support for PVRs. China is expected to turn on their
local Digital Terrestrial TV services during 2007, and this will
drive large unit shipments of entry-level HDTV set top boxes in
2008 and 2009.
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