Joel Brinkley At CES on HDTV
LAS VEGAS, Jan. 7 -- Sales of digital television sets have finally begun to gain some steam, even if such sets remain a tiny fraction of overall TV set sales.The consumer electronics industry says 625,000 digital, high-definition televisions were sold to dealers last year, a fivefold increase from 1999. And the industry is projecting that factory-to-dealer sales will exceed a million units this year. In fact, half all projection television sets sold in the United States last year were digital high-definition televisions, or HDTV's.
Still, even three years after the first models were shown here at the annual Consumer Electronics Show, digital sets represent less than 3 percent of all television sales, which exceeded 25 million last year. And that may help explain why here at the show, which was a riot of promotion for digital television the last three years, most manufacturers are now saying little about the issue and making only modest new product offerings. Their reserve may be a tacit admission that the transition to digital television remains plagued with problems whose solutions are not in immediate sight.
Guy Demuynuck, an executive vice president for Philips, said the company would "continue our strong line of rear projection HDTV's--models that are already on sale." He did say later in an interview that the company might have new digital TV products to announce later this year. But Michael A. Vitelli, a senior executive at Sony, did not even mention digital television in his company's product presentation.
With the exception of CBS, which has a full schedule of high-definition programming each night, most broadcasters are doing nothing of note with their digital channels. The broadcasters complain that there are not enough viewers to make doing more worth their while.
As a result, Panasonic, Toshiba, Pioneer and others are focusing much of their marketing energy on digital networking of the home, 
recordable DVD decks and Internet TVís, among other new products that can be sold without all the problems plaguing digital television.
Thomson, one of the nation's largest makers of televisions, is speaking highly of digital television but is offering only one new model this year. Pioneer is offering no new models, just updates of existing sets. Sony showed two new models, including a 40-inch "direct-view" set with a picture tube, which will be the largest such set on the market. Both new models are high-definition capable, with the addition of a digital receiver. But the company never even mentioned that in presenting the new products.
"We risk being misleading" by describing them as HDTV's "because we can't guarantee forward compatibility with whatever comes down the pike," said Vic Pacor, a senior executive at Sony. Mr. Pacor was referring to the many controversies and technical debates that remain to be settled about digital broadcasting.
Despite the uncertainties and reticence, some notable announcements have been made at the show, which will end Tuesday. Panasonic said it would begin selling a 47-inch, wide-screen high-definition monitor later this year for less than $2,000 -- the least-expensive wide screen HDTV to be offered so far. And Zenith said it plans to sell a 27-inch digital set for less than $1,000, though it will not be capable of high-definition display.
Other manufacturers are hanging back, though. Sanyo, the Japanese manufacturer that is one of the nationís largest sellers of TV's, mostly basic models sold at places like Wal- Mart, had a high-definition set on display here. But when asked when it would go on sale, David Bergen, a corporate manager, said: "Oh, yeah, we show that every year. But we have no plans to begin selling it."
He added: "We're a mass-market retailer. When every mom and pop is buying high-definition sets in Wal- Mart, we'll be there."
Copyright 2001 The New York Times Company
