In a report on emerging multimedia products, In-Stat/MDR (Scottsdale, Ariz.) focused on PC-TV tuners and digital terrestrial set-top boxes. It also predicted that the media PCs could spur a rnage of personal video recorder (PVR) applications.

Gerry Kaufhold, In-Stat/MDR principal analyst for converging markets and technologies, cautioned that many chip suppliers for digital terrestrial set tops need greater unit volume to make products profitable. Kaufhold said PC-TV tuner products and hybrid products like PVRs and media center PCs will help "bulk up the volume of digital terrestrial semiconductors," thus driving the costs down.

In-Stat predicted the global retail value of the digital TV-PC products segment, which includes everything from digital terrestrial PC-TV tuners, digital terrestrial set-top boxes to free-to-air satellite PC-TV tuners, wil grow from about $923 million this year to nearly $4 billion in 2007, a compound annual growth rate of 48 percent.

Meanwhile the market research firm said the analog PC-TV products segment will grow from about $466.1 million in 2003 to nearly $2 billion by 2007.

Kaufhold said for now PC-TV tuners will need to support analog broadcasts with a digital option. He said most countries rolling out digital terrestrial television services "have accepted the fact that it will be at least 2010 before they can begin shutting down their existing analog TV infrastructure."

So far, he added, no country has mandated that local cable TV infrastructure be converted from analog to all-digital cable TV. "At least 200 million local cable TV viewers will have their analog TV signals 'surviving' long after the local terrestrial signals have been shut down," he said.

Although the German government cut off all analog TV broadcasts in Berlin this year in favor of exclusive digital terrestrial TV services, Kaufhold said this is a unique case because most German households are either wired for cable TV or use satellite services.