What They Say
STBs are being developed and upgraded to meet the need for support of technology features such as HDR and UltraHD and are also being designed to try to minimise additional costs according to Nagra. However, there are a range of solutions needed from DVRs to all-IP devices and hybrid boxes. Nagra is testing ATSC 3.0 services in the US. That development could lead to ‘huge’ market deployment of STBs in the US. Sky also talked about the recent upgrade of its Sky Q STB
What We Think
More than 30 years ago, a company that I was working for decided to get out of the add-on graphics board business partly because ‘integrated graphics are getting much better and probably good enough’. As it turned out, there is still a market for add-in boards and probably always will be. In the same way, despite the fact that smart TVs have enough power to do most things that STBs can do, a) service providers will want to ensure a consistent experience for their customers, regardless of the brand or cleverness of the TV and b) Smart TVs don’t always degrade gracefully as the world moves on. The replacement cycle for TVs is still in the five to seven years range and in that kind of period, there can be huge changes in the Smart Apps needed. So, I have believed for a long time that the death of STBs is in the future – and always will be. Having said that, the form factor might be more like a dongle than a box. Then again, I haven’t seen a box on the top of a set, ever. It always seemed to me that Box-top sets were more important in terms of physical design| (BR)
