Telecom commentator Phillip Swann of TVPredictions.com says it's imperative that the industry drop its penchant for three-letter acronyms (LCD, DLP, SED, TFT, PDP, etc.) to describe new HD sets. Swann, who speaks at various tech meetings such as the CEA's HDTV Summit back in March, said most people don't know (or care) that DLP is digital light processing or LCD is liquid crystal display.
"However, the arcane terms do nothing but further confuse consumers who are already baffled by the buying process," he said in an article on ways to reach better HD sales. Consumers have asked him whether they should get an HDTV or a DLP, as if the two were different types of television. "The industry needs to de-emphasize the tech talk and start communicating in a way that average folks will understand," Swann says on his Web site.
TV manufacturers believe the acronyms give them an edge at the retail level, "but trust me, guys, real people don't think that way. They go into the store to buy a high-definition TV and when they start hearing the three-letter acronyms, they get confused. And when they get confused, they don't buy," he said. The industry should promote brands, he says, not acronyms.
