Nielsen, the TV ratings company, released a report on HDTV penetration in the U.S., and the results appear to contradict the findings of the Consumer Electronics Association, according to Broadcasting & Cable on Tuesday.

The report from Nielsen said that only 15.5 million of 112.8 million U.S. households (13.7 percent) have HDTVs with HDTV tuners capable of receiving HD signals. This number is much lower than previous reports from the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA), the trade group that represents TV manufacturers, which estimated in July that 36 million households (32 percent) have HDTVs.

The Nielsen report’s number strikes consumer electronics manufacturers and TV programmers as low.

One reason for the disparity is that not all HDTVs are used to watch HD programming. In the early days of HDTV, consumers bought HDTV monitors, without ATSC tuners, that were primarily used to watch movies on DVD.

In an interesting reversal, however, the CEA has estimated that only about half of current HDTV owners actually receive HD programming. That’s because, in some cases, they don’t know that they need to subscribe to an HD service via cable or satellite -- or they are simply content to watch movies on DVD [in addition to SD broadcasting.] The Nielsen report, however, claimed that 82 percent of homes with an HDTV with an ATSC tuner are watching HD content.

That 82 percent number was surprising, and when pressed, a Nielsen spokesman stood by the numbers.