DRM biggest dissatisfaction with digital television
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goo Ranking recently conducted their 10th regular survey into digital terrestrial television, a survey reported on by japan.internet.com.
Demographics
Betwen the 17th and 22nd of July 2009 1,079 members of the goo Research monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 53.0% of the sample were male, 16.6% in their teens, 17.8% in their twenties, 21.0% in their thirties, 16.5% in their forties, 15.9% in their fifties, and 1.1% aged sixty or older.
I don’t believe that having the greatest reason for dissatisfaction being DRM, Digital Rights Management, is in itself a condemnation of copy control on digital broadcasts, as I would guess that the vast majority of people are either (or both) unaware of the presence of DRM or never do any activities that run into these restrictions.
Note that analogue broadcasts stop on the 24th of July 2011. One thing that has struck me as odd is that there is very little advertising for converter boxes in Japan; a few thousand yen gives a new lease of life to any television. When visiting my parents back in the UK last year they had a cheap box that produced a very acceptable picture on their 15 year old telly.
Research results
Q1: At home, what kinds of television broadcasts can you watch? (Sample size=1,079, multiple answer)
Votes Percentage Analogue terrestrial 947 87.8% Digital terrestrial 603 55.9% One Seg 361 33.5% BS digital 360 33.4% BS analogue 313 29.0% Cable television 256 23.7% CS digital 118 10.9% CS analogue 73 6.8% IPTV 34 3.2% Don’t have a television 9 0.8% Other 7 0.6% Q2: Do you plan to buy a digital terrestrial broadcast-ready television, video, etc? (Sample size=1,079)
Already have one 48.3% Plan to buy 30.9% Have changed to different type – cable, satellite, IPTV, etc 2.2% Plan to change to different type – cable, satellite, IPTV, etc 3.3% Will stop watching television 2.0% Not decided yet 13.3% Next, the 412 who watched digital terrestrial television were asked the following.
Q3: How satisfied are you with digital terrestrial television? (Sample size=412)
Totally satisfied 23.8% Satisified 62.4% Can’t say either way 9.2% Dissatisfied (to SQ) 3.6% Totaly dissatisfied (to SQ) 1.0% Q3SQ1: What are you dissatisfied with? (Sample size=19, multiple answer)
Votes Percentage Strict copy restrictions 9 47.4% Price of equipment 9 47.4% The need to buy new equipment 9 47.4% Picture is not what I expected 6 31.6% Difficult to understand how to use 5 26.3% There isn’t any equipment I really like 4 21.1% Other 3 15.8%
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” One thing that has struck me as odd is that there is very little advertising for converter boxes in Japan; a few thousand yen gives a new lease of life to any television.”
I thought the same thing and have actually tried looking for them in major electronics retail stores with no luck.
Somehow, I think because of that, a lot of TV will be needlessly scrapped.