Digital television (DTV) technology has the capability to provide clear, sharp, cinema-like pictures as well as CD-quality sound. It can also be used to compress video signals, allowing providers to offer multiple video programming streams in the same 6 MHz slot now occupied by one analog channel. Additionally, digital technology can be used to provide a host of new services, such as data, interactive television, video-on-demand and other enhanced services. The broadcast, cable, consumer electronics and content production industries have all embraced digital technology. Yet, there has been much confusion about the steps being taken by each of these industries, how they relate, and the progress being made. The primary focus of policymakers has been on the broadcast industry’s digital transition. Their interest stems from a concern about the impact of the transition on consumers and the fact that broadcasters' transition entails the use of additional valuable spectrum. The government has played a significant role in the broadcast industry’s digital transition: in 1996, Congress gave every local broadcaster an additional 6 MHz of spectrum to make the transition from analog to digital.1 The FCC then assigned digital spectrum to specific broadcasters and adopted build-out and service rules for these digital stations. While the lion’s share of the digital transition issues focus on the broadcast industry, there are implications for other industries. Issues involving how and when broadcasters’ new digital signals are carried by cable systems have far reaching implications for cable programmers, cable operators and cable consumers. Questions about the compatibility among digital broadcast signals, new digital televisions and cable systems impact the consumer electronics and cable industries.2 And discussions about the creation and protection of pristine digital content involve content producers. These are complex issues, but substantial progress has been made in an effort to resolve them. As FCC Chairman Michael Powell said in a May 2001 letter to members of the House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet,

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