e in United States are exemplary, though not alone, rejecting what was later to become a prized possession for society. No less a notable than Thomas Edison tried blocking the film projector, claiming it would dilute the audience for his Kinetoscope--his "golden goose" at the time. With all his resources he tried to block Westinghouse and scientest Tesla by descrediting Tela's alternating current scheme, which proved far more efficient than Edison's direct current. Telegrapher Samuel B. Morse was thought deranged by the United States Congress after presenting his ideas to them. Alexander Grahm Bell couldn't convince financier J.P. Morgan that the telephone was anything but an "interesting novelty". Morgan financed the telegraph instead.
Little wonder that HDTV--Hi-Vision in Japan--finds itself with uneasy acceptance as the new imaging standard around the world. Hi-Vision is, of course, very quickly seen as a threat to users of older existing or poorly competing systems. These users, mostly found within television groups, value old standards as their greatest asset. These groups have feigned a certain acceptance of the coming usurper in order to manipulate negatively its marketing progress.
Hi-Vision adds to itself today the greatest of all obstructions--notoriously high prices. But manufacturers know high prices will soon end with competition doing what it does best--lowering prices. But for competition to be efficient, a market worth thirsting after must exist. That market is most unlikely today to be the classic consumer market, though the consumer market must remain in focus in order to support the first markets.
The first market of consequence, eager if properly sold, and able to absorb tens to hundreds of thousands (or on a world level vastly more) of Hi-Vision sets, will be the industrial commerce segments. Why? An investment which brings automatic increases to industrial commerce offers a return that a company, a society, a nation, or the world cannot ignore. SMPTE founder, C. Francis Jenkins, explains succinctly the reason why this is so. "Commerce," he said in a radio broadcast in 1924, "like an army, can go forward no faster than its means of communications. The history of industrial advance in all ages shows that with every addition to communications facilities the volume of business has increased."
Is Hi-Vision really an addition to communications facilities? If the answer is clearly yes, then today's focus for promoting Hi-Vision should be to serving industrial commerce first. The champions for the all-important programing along with the distribution systems for these industrial commerce markets must seize the moment and take center stage to sell their points now. The network and program designers need to envisage an imaginative communications system which fully stimulates the creative process within industry. If the volume of business, as Mr. Jenkins postulates, is sure to increase with every addition to communications facilities, the price industry pays for its Hi-Vision network is as inconsequential as that for the facsimile machine (which also is making its way to the home after starting in business).
Acceptance of Hi-Vision or any new development comes when a profit for its use is in view. To take Hi-Vision, then, where the greatest potential profit can be realized with its use appears the path of least resistance to achieving ever widening acceptance.
