HDTV: A New Dawn — The Case for Electronic Theater and the Future of High-Definition
Summary
Publisher Dale Cripps argues that HDTV's greatest near-term opportunity lies not in the home but in large-venue electronic theaters, where live events can be shared simultaneously by hundreds of viewers with film-quality images and digital audio. He envisions a path from public exhibition to home delivery via satellite, cable, and over-the-air broadcast as the technology matures.
A New Dawn
by
Dale Cripps,
Publisher
HDTV Newsletter
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HDTV is no longer a new subject, but still the new measure for how imaging
of
the future will be captured and presented. It has taken 30 years of
development and billions of dollars, yet it remains a rarity. Why?
New
standards which tend to supplant or replace old standards find
invariably an
up-hill battle. But, as history acknowledges, new
standards do emerge and are
accepted finally as the norm. That is certain to the be case with HDTV. HDTV is about production. It is about transmission, and, it is about reception and display. Unlike its more primitive ancestor, that which we call standard television, it can serve a far wider audience in many more diverse places. In fact, HDTV will not start its business as did the old system. It has far more utility on a big screen, large enough to accommodate a sizeable audience with todays technology. In the near future it will serve, and affordably, huge audiences with big electronic projectors that are clear, and more importantly, bright. Today without any new developments audiences of 300 to 400 can easily be accommodated with these sharp clear images and glorious digital audio sound. Signals can be beamed in from anywhere in the world via proven, reliable transmission links. HDTV contains as much image information as one has come to accept from film motion pictures. Some experts think that the stability of HDTV images offers superior quality to that found in the best of theaters using the finest of film prints. The controversy is so high because the call is so close. That in mind, the added value of beaming in live presentations, where once-in-a-lifetime events are restricted to the few in attendance, is reason enough that HDTV should be discovered. The electronic "theater" is clearly dawning. Flexibility and discovery are the two key words in electronic theater. Film is fully discovered, all its tricks unveiled. But HDTV is part of the roaring creative force of digitally manipulated images-graphics and special effects compositing-which will provide audiences visual experiences never before imagined on the silver screen. Here pundits wax eloquently upon this vision saying that, indeed, a new art pallet has been given form and the creative geniuses of our times will gravitate to it unerringly in their eternal quest for reaching the hearts and minds of their audience. Those electronic theaters can be in hundreds, even thousands of locations while the artists work their magic from practical and convenient settings. Television taught us that there is nothing more riveting than a live dramatic happening beamed simultaneously to millions of individuals hunched before their little TV sets. But what has rarely been experienced is the group dynamics associated with a live remote where a moving and dramatic happening is unfolding. A great performance, where an artist "peaks", can be felt across the land, or even oceans, by thousands who personally experience that peak and mutually share in the wonder which goes with it. "Live" is the key element here for we have all seen the recorded "peaks", even in groups, and they are fine. We give awards and honors to that. But "live" means now! What is happening on the screen is now and is amplified in intensity by the group dynamic in each of the theaters. WOW! From the theater, of course, is quickly recognized the path for HDTV to go to the home. Those presentation fit for the theater become the programming available by satellite, cable and over-the-air to the home HDTV theater. This is years in coming, but we shall in the mean time enjoy that which is vividly real, live and in the full glory of perfectly hued color and full dimensional audio. Electronic vaudeville, electronic Broadway, electronic story telling of all fashion will soon be with us exploding on the scene as TicketVisionx becomes the next exhibition genre of our times.
Dale Cripps
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