Reinventing Television, Part I — Dr. Joseph Flaherty, CBS, on the History and Future of HDTV

by Dr. Joseph Flaherty, Senior VP-Technology, CBS, Inc.
Sunday, March 8, 1998

Reinventing Television

Television broadcasting, a 20th century phenomenon, has a rich history of technical innovation that brought the medium from its crude beginnings to the World's most important communications medium. American science and engineering created this miracle, and, today has created the modern miracle of digital HDTV. We can all learn much from this work, past and present. Learn, despite the 1790 warning from Hegel that:

Quote. "What experience and history teach is that people have never learned anything from history, or acted on the principles deduced from it" Unquote.

On May 7, 1935, in a report to his stockholders on the emergence of television, David Sarnoff, then President of RCA said:

"Public interest in television continues unabated since ... the management of RCA stated that it was diligently exploring the development of television. Our laboratory efforts have been guided by the principle that the commercial application of such a service could be achieved only through a system of high-definition television."

"Our technical progress may be judged by the fact that we have produced a 343-line picture, as against the crude 30-line television picture of several years ago. The picture frequency of 12 per second has now been raised to 60 per second."

Even in 1935 the engineers knew that a 60 picture-per-second rate was required to achieve smooth motion portrayal. 30 frames per second was, and is, wholly unsatisfactory.

A year later, on June 15, 1936, just two weeks before the first experimental television transmitter went on-the-air atop the Empire State building in New York, Mr. Sarnoff said to the FCC:

"Of the future industries now visible on the horizon, television has gripped the public imagination most firmly. To bring television to the perfection needed for public service our work proceeds under high pressure at great cost."

"Such experiments call for... imagination of the highest order and for the courage to follow where that imagination leads. It is in this spirit that our laboratories and our scientists are diligently and devotedly engaged in a task of the highest service to humanity."

From such work television was born, and today, the same genius and dedication in the service of mankind gave birth to digital HDTV - a technology that is reinventing television broadcasting!

So, what is high definition television? In 1935 it was 343 lines, in prewar England it became 405 lines, by the 1939 New York world's Fair it was 525 lines, NTSC color was introduced as a "high definition color TV system,” and in latter day Europe HDTV became 625 lines.

In short, HDTV has always been, and will always be, the best quality achievable with a given state-of-the-art. RDTV is always the best, not the second best, not the third best, and not the previous best.

After years of research, NHK described the first modern, wide screen, 1125 line, 60 Hertz, high definition television system.

In 1974 the International Telecommunications Union, through its CCIR, adopted a high definition Study Question stating-.

"Considering: That high definition television systems will require a resolution which is approximately equivalent to that of 35mm film and corresponds to at least twice the horizontal and twice the vertical resolution of present television systems-."

"The CCIR UNANIMOUSLY DECIDES that this question should be studied: What standards should be recommended for high definition television systems intended for broadcasting to the general public?"

By 1977, the SMPTE Study Group on High Definition Television was formed, and in 1980 the SMPTE Journal published that group's HDTV report. The report stated:

"The appropriate standard of comparison (for HDTV) is the current and prospective optimum performance of the 35mm release print as projected on a wide screen."

The SMPTE HDTV Study Group concluded:

"The appropriate line rate for HDTV is approximately 1100 lines-per-frame, and the frame rate should be 60 fields per second, interlaced 2-to-I ... ".

Indeed, rather than being better than necessary, high definition was to finally put television resolution on a par with cinema quality. Today, this has been achieved! Full HDTV equals the quality of 35mm film. Thus, our HDTV is not too good, it's simply catching up -- catching up to a quality most widely accepted by the creative community and by the American public. Through full HDTV, and only through full HDTV, television will finally achieve its technical maturity.

The first glimpse of this maturity came in 1981 when CBS and NHK presented the first HDTV demonstration in America at the SMPTE Winter Television Conference in San Francisco. Viewers were simply captivated.

There was no turning back! Television would never again be the same!

Interest in high definition continued to increase, and in 1987 the FCC sought private sector advice and formed the Advisory Committee on Advanced Television Service, or ACATS, under the chairmanship of Richard E. Wiley, and charged it to make a recommendation to the FCC for selecting a single ATV terrestrial transmission standard for America.

In April of 1990, then FCC Chairman Sikes had announced:

"... the Commission's intent is to select a simulcast high definition television standard that is compatible with the current 6 MHz channelization plan but employing new design principles independent of NTSC technology. We do not envision ... that the Commission would adopt an enhanced definition standard, if at all, prior to reaching a final decision on an HDTV standard."

America had a goal - full quality terrestrial high definition television!

Two years and eight months into the FCC Advisory Committee Advanced TV process, on June 1, 1990, General Instrument proposed an all digital terrestrial HDTV system, and television was forever changed. The digital era had begun and analog television was doomed worldwide! Television was to make its most fundamental technological change since its invention and its subsequent colorization.

By 1991, five HDTV systems were proposed, and four were all-digital systems.

In September of 1990, in its First Report and Order, the FCC decided:

"Consistent with our goal of ensuring excellence in ATV service, we intend to select a simulcast high definition television system."

"Such a system will transmit the increased information of an HDTV signal in the same 6 MHz channel space used in the current television channel plan."

Thus, as of 1990, the FCC and the private sector Advisory Committee had abandoned "enhanced SDTV" from consideration; focused further work on incompatible high definition simulcast systems, and ensured that complete and objective tests would be made on all proponent systems before the approval of any HDTV system.

This was best expressed by FCC Chairman Sikes when he said:

"I understand the concerns of those who believe in an incremental, step-by-step progression toward full HDTV.... but "pursuing Extended Definition options would tend to maximize transition costs for both industry and consumers. Stations presumably would need to make a series of sequential investments, as they inched toward full HDTV. At the same time, however, consumers almost certainly would be confused, and would probably resist buying equipment .... The FCC cares enough about broadcasting and the service it provides the public to want the very best - full HDTV - and not some incremental solution to this formidable challenge."

Objective laboratory tests and both expert and non-expert viewing tests were made through 1992 and early 1993, and in its third Notice of Proposed Rule Making the FCC proposed to transition broadcasting to an all HDTV service, and to require broadcasters to surrender one of their two paired channels in 15 years from the date an HDTV standard was set and a final table of HDTV channel allotments was effective. At this time the NTSC service would be abandoned, but this schedule would be reviewed in 1998.

Thus, the FCC was finalizing the regulatory procedures and rules that would govern high definition terrestrial broadcasting. On May 24, 1993 the "Grand Alliance" was formed by the four digital HDTV system proponents, and through their joint efforts America was to have the best-of-the-best digital high definition television system.