4quad supply

I thought the initial feeling was that specific chips were produced for locally produced television sets (often by the company that also produces the set or a wholly owned subsidiary of it), and indeed that was the case 25 years ago, but no longer.

Now, the TV sets marketed as Philips are no longer designed and produced by any company historically related to Philips, and there is no reason to assume they would prefer NXP chips over any other make, nor that NXP would design manufacture an IC for TV sets because Philips might need it.

It was never fully the case and that wasn't what I meant. For example, many ICs for TV sets are/were fron NEC, Thomson and formerly Philips but were used in myriad TV sets of all kinds of other brands. Often such ICs became almost unobtanium or vanished when a certain kind of TV set (regardless of brand) was discontinued.

NXP and Philips don't have that much in common anyhow. But it all doesn't matter, ICs in the consumer electronics world are often designed and produced when a key account wants them and makes a substantial commitment. Regardless of which company that is.

Often without a firm commitment, as long as they think the market justifies the investment. Manufacturers often build features one customer wants, completely "on spec".

That already had changed earlier. There were times that every TV here in Europe had a TBA120 and a TDA440. But as more integrated ICs appeared, they also became more specialized. Now with Digital TV the integration is much further up and both the features and the supported modes change much more rapidly, making such generic workhorse components a thing of the past. Remember when color TV was introduced, it was done in a backward compatible way so B&W sets continued to function. same with FM stereo. That would be unthinkable today. New modes are introduced every couple of years, making all existing equipment obsolete immediately. Of course manufacturers don't keep producing parts for such equipment.

I don't know about the television industry but it's still true in others (with smaller production numbers).

I would bet that *many* models share the same electronics, with just features disabled on the lower models. There is no reason the same parts aren't used in several manufacturer's products. NXP does this sort of things for their (SDR) radios, for example.

Really? My 2D TV stopped working when the 3D model came out? I guess it didn't get the memo.

Within the model range for this year yes, but next years models are again completely different.

When Digital satellite TV was introduced, analog receivers stopped working. When DVB-S2 was introduced, older DVB-S receivers stopped working. When DVB-T2 was introduced, DVB-T sets stopped working. When DAB+ was introduced, older DAB radio's stopped working. and so on.

The local satellite TV distributor has announced that SD transmissions over satellite will end later this year. Buy a HD TV or a HD compatible settopbox with downscale to SD or you will be left in the dark. This only some 5 years after HD was added in parallel with SD.

Your example of 3D holds only as far as 3D is transmitted in parallel with 2D. When 3D would have been a success, stations would have dropped their 2D transmissions and you would be at the mercy of a compatability mode of a settopbox (which you would have had to replace when you had bought it before such a feature was included).

Often equipment lasts less than 5 years due to technology changes today, whereas the technology has been made backward compatible for several decades.

But most of the electronics the same. ...and I'd bet across manufacturers, as well. There aren't hundreds of RF chips (probably SDR) made, one for each model and manufacturer.

No, they didn't. Analog TV was still around...

Satellite TV isn't the universe of TV. The set-top box came with my satellite subscription. They can change the protocols all they want and it doesn't affect my TV at all. Problem solved. In any case, Satellite transmission has zero to do with TVs themselves.

Nonsense. The market doesn't work that way.

...and still works. Good grief!

SDR is a good example how this is not true. Newer generation does more and more in SDR that older sets do in hardware. This of course requires new ICs.

Here the people received a 3 months notice that satellite TV switched to digital, then they had to have their digital receiver as analog stopped. Analog equipment and decoders was marketed right up to the day that this notice came, with no indication whatsoever that it may be of limited use.

Other countries had longer overlaps but only Germany continued analog for as long as one would expect to have to replace equipment.

I have mentioned DVB-T and DAB as well, not satellite related. These are not the only examples. DVB-M has been introduced and already terminated, DRM (digital AM radio) has been introduced and is all but completely dead.

It does! At least here it does. The capacity is limited and costs money, so backward compatible transmissions cease quickly. Else we would hava Analog SD, Digital SD, Digital HD, Digital HD 3D, Digital HD4K all in parallel. We don't.

Maybe in technologically backward countries, but here all analog transmissions except FM Radio have been switched off and FM will follow in a few years. And I already described how it went with DAB (already replaced by DAB+) and Digital TV.

ICs of ten years ago, sure. SDR allows more variations on the same theme so the part can be more markets, in the same hardware.

Satellite is *not* the entire universe. It's a *small* market.

They tell people to throw away last year's hardware? Baloney.

How many years did it take to get rid of analog transmission in the US? What did they have to do to get rid of it? (free converters, as many as you want, anyone?)

Satellite is larger than terrestrial here... (Coax)cable and IP-TV over DSL is dominant.

However, you don't reply to the many examples of terrestrial techniques that have been phased out with short notice and well within the technical lifespan of the associated equipment.

Maybe, where you live there are less of these changes, that could be.

As I said, Satellite is a minor player.

Define "technical lifespan". What's the technical lifespan of a TV these days? Cell phones are two years, computers *maybe* three. TVs aren't a lot longer.

Few that matter, and those have taken several years.