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HDTV's Promise for Education, Business, and Medical Imaging

Dale Cripps · 1994–1997

Summary

An early editorial argues that HDTV's superior resolution and engagement potential make it uniquely suited to transform education, small business marketing, and medical imaging. The author contends that cost reductions in HDTV displays will unlock life-saving applications in remote clinics and allow the world's best teachers to reach every student globally.

Not all teachers operate at the same level of efficiency. Some are truly outstanding while others merely get by. Perhaps someone here can think of what can be more important in the future than education? I cannot. When I think that our very best teachers have a classroom no more spacious than those of our very poorest, I believe the economy of modern distribution is underused, if not tortuously abused. We have the technology today to extend the best education from every field to all the classrooms and homes in the entire world--served by fully engaging advanced television systems. "Oh, that was tried before," you might say, "and it didn't work then." There are many things that will never work with NTSC. There are things that must be tried with HDTV. If the holding of student attention is achieved with high-definition, the very best teachers can become distributable to every student in the world at a fraction of the cost of employing the poorer ones. And those great teachers will be teaching well beyond their natural life span, preserved eternally in the new medium as fresh as the day they delivered their message. This noble experiment must be made to justify our claim of love for all future generations. There is no better means of creating good will in the future than providing a good education today.

Business will use HDTV. In the United States small business is the majority supplier to the nation's infrastructure. But small business has a difficult time in getting its products and services known to its potential customers. On average only 15% of a small company's market is reached before a product is technically obsolete. Business, especially the manufacturing segment, in the United States can and do benefit from using television to demonstrate their products, or tell of their services to potential customers. But it is an expensive distribution system that uses salespersons or the mails to carry the tapes to the customers. A wider, more cost effective distribution of business-to-business information should come soon under development. A company may reach 15 to 30% of its potential market in a single hour rather than 15% in two years. HDTV is destined for this grade of service if the view prevails that it is not expensive considering the powers of attraction it inherently has.

Medical imaging has been going on in large hospitals for some time. But where the need is greatest is in the outlying clinics. These clinics have not been able to afford the high resolution monitors which are large enough and clear enough to be of life-giving value. They are looking to the commercialization of HDTV to provide them the much needed lower cost higher performing displays. Beyond that, medical education is clearly enhanced by HDTV. Doctors who have experimented with this new medium have said there has never been demonstrated a more superior way to view an operation or display it for their students. Again, financial restraints become the factor in medical imaging. Where the price is lowered, the applications sprout anew.

Continued