HDTV shortage may force Euro viewers into pubs

While we've had the opportunity to watch sporting events from the Super Bowl to the World Baseball Classic (the what?) in glorious HD here in the US, the upcoming World Cup was set to be the event to get Europeans to tune in to HDTV. A shortage of decoder chips, however, has apparently limited supplies, leaving at least some Europeans to watch the tournament on their old analog sets. Or their cellphones. Or in pubs that have installed HD sets, which is where we know we'd want to be anyhow.

[Via HDBeat]

[Baha @ Mar 21st 2006 1:00PM]

Another glorious win for the Brasilian national team.
:)

[Adam @ Mar 21st 2006 1:07PM]

The atmosphere in a pub is great anyway.

[steve @ Mar 21st 2006 1:08PM]

There are plenty of HDTVs in the channel here in the UK, what we don't have is an HDTV service, so even with an HDTV display, there is no way to watch an HD broadcast. SKy will be out soon, and the BBC will probablt trial their system around the world cup time, but nothing yet :-(

[RA @ Mar 21st 2006 1:09PM]

who makes these chips?

[citykids @ Mar 21st 2006 1:14PM]

Hot beer and crisps? meh, I'll stay at home!

[DC @ Mar 21st 2006 1:23PM]

Love the shot of the Manhattan Beach pier on the TV screen.

[Comrade Penguin @ Mar 21st 2006 1:33PM]

HDTV uptake doesn't seem to be that great over here anyway. Only Sky is slowly introducing HD for a few things so it's fairly pointless in the UK. Also the european PAL system often looks a lot better compared to NTSC and others so the upgrade the HD isn't as great. Couple that with most HDTV sets look worse than ordinary set when playing standard def contents and I think the HDTV reveloution will take quite a bit longer over here.

[glacia00 @ Mar 21st 2006 1:40PM]

Is there any descent HD conent out there yet? And what would it look like?

No need to answer the first because there isn't. The examples given are ones I would rather go through eye surgery than watch.

So what is the killer content for HD? The majority of people I've asked including people who currently own HD sets are at a loss to come up with more than a "it's just cool" or "Games".

Ok maybe it's cool to some to be able to see people's acne but what is really going to take full advantage of HD? Is the only real use for HD games?

[Conrad Quilty-Harper @ Mar 21st 2006 1:44PM]

FORCE? HA! I can quite gladly say I'll be willingly going to the pub come the world cup. :-)

[Jim Jolo @ Mar 21st 2006 1:47PM]

I just returned from a quick trip to London and I must say the SD digital Pal output to HD panels is much better than SD NTSC output here in the states. As a previous poster mentioned the jump is simply just not as great as you get here so apart from the 'cool' factor of having a flat panel there is little too push the charge into HD

[ShureF00t @ Mar 21st 2006 2:15PM]

You Europeans dont really want to watch soccer at home, anyway! It's much harder to incite a riot.

[granny down east @ Mar 21st 2006 4:21PM]

Comrade penguin has it exactly. HDTV is highly over-rated at this point because of hardware limitations.
I'm waiting....

[RDA52 @ Mar 21st 2006 7:20PM]

this is mexico's year!! w00t hahaha it probably will be another brazilian team, but i have fatih in the tricolor

[Roberto @ Mar 21st 2006 11:29PM]

Screw it. No HDTV means I'm not watching.

[Al @ Mar 22nd 2006 4:02AM]

Nice idea, but a lack of HDTVs isn't really the issue. 1) I don't know of a single pub that has bothered to upgrade yet and 2) they wouldn't have anything to show on it anyway thanks to Sky's dawdling.