Satellite AV
Thanks for clarification, but I would only partially agree with such view. Yes, most folks would only watch one FTA sat, usually a channel broadcast from their home country. I see it when looking at dishes mounted on most houses and buildings in the area. If that channel upgrades, they have to upgrade. In large urban areas its mostly Ku-band broadcast they would seek to receive.
However that drawn down requirement is only true for a regular sat receiver. When it comes to a Multimedia Receiver, it may no longer be relevant. I've read marketing reports that say people buy Multimedia Receivers to combine several functions in one box and save money by doing that. In particular, in some countries in 2009 more people were buying a Multimedia Receiver to play and record files over LAN (while low quality YouTube and such Playback remains insignificant in demand) than to receive sat signals. The key is a reasonably priced unit with high quality media processor like recent Sigma models. It does allow to save a lot on cutting several extra devices out. You download a new movie from the web and play it over LAN on such STB, no HTPC required. You record a sat feed game broadcast or movie from the STB to your PC over LAN, and play it at more convenient time, no extra recording devices or high quality video scalers required. You watch IPTV or Sat TV via the same box, and can even check your e-mail while at it to cut time. I know some browser vendors like Opera experience extreme business grows due to proliferation of such features into various STB models currently being developed.
Hence, your observation while based on own experience may no longer reflect the technology trend. Now to say that consumer is grossly stupid is not correct either. Otherwise new technology would never find way in most people homes, they would keep buying whatever a local sat store would offer, and that would be the cheapest model they can directly procure from a Chinese factory or large distributor. If it were true, sat stores would flourish now, which is not the case in NA. Is there still a demand for sat equipment? It certainly is, but the model demand is changing. Also, in large or border cities OTA gear is of very high demand, and a STB combining DVB and OTA tuners is certainly a preferred choice for many.
So while some may think based on past experience, higher feature and capability integration requirement into a single unit is just for elite users, the market research in European countries, were such devices are in broader use now, does not support this conclusion. In fact, it states the opposite.
That said, cheaper STB models with cut back capabilities, which can still play other file formats from a USB drive apart from TS, have the right to exist and being offered for sale and probably even called "Multimedia Receiver", if there is demand for them. Nothing wrong with that either. I agree with Sadoun on that. I just had an impression that improving feature set of this particular STB (if at all possible) would result in increased demand on it and also drive prices on more sophisticated models like AZBox down. And probably make FTA more appealing to a younger audience: they would buy a STB like this for multimedia and socializing on the web via a large TV, camera and wireless keyboard, but then get curious what else to add like a dish or antenna set to receive sat or OTA channels, thus furthering this hobby. May be I was wrong, who knows... Each product has its own customer base, like you say.
