NAB 1988: HDTV Price Resistance, ACTV Compatibility Debate, and Digital Image Archiving

Vol. 2, No. 9 NAB, 1988

As GM Goes, so Goes....

"We know that if we want to drastically improve results, we have to make drastic changes."

Roger Smith, Chairman

General Motors

Professor William Schreiber, MIT

People are looking for a miracle when they are looking for HDTV compatible with NTSC in 6 Mhz. It has to be demonstrated that miricals are possible.

For improved pictures in 6 Mhz it is certianly the Sarnoff system [ACTV]. That has to be domonstrated to work properly in normal channels in real conditions - recordable and so forth - and is enough improvement for people to buy special receivers. It is probably true that the networks don't care if people buy special receivers but rather they are interested in just preserving their audience share. I guess they are hopping this will do it in the U.S.

I have heard various numbers for a player plus display around $7000 - $3500 more or less for each. That is a lot of money and not too many are going to buy. We are going to present a report on the studies made by Russell Neuman made here at the consumer testing facility and the price resistance is way below $7000.

You could forsee a scenario where 2 or 3% of the network audience gets diverted to recorded media and that would cause the networks grevious injury. If they loose 2% of their audience it relects more strongly on earn
ings. The cable comapny could be hurt but a little less. At the same time they might not sell enough players and sets to make a profit for the Japanese manufacturers. That is definately conceivable. If I were a Japanese manufacturer I would worry about that.

The cable companies don't need a compatible system and are in better position than terrestrial.

When people see the price tag for HDTV a lot of people are going to say to heck with it I am sticking with NTSC. I am sure if you are selling 2 or 3 million sets a year the price will come down considerable. But the tube is going to be much higher, the circuitry is going to be higher.

Send FAX to Joe at 317 231-4926

Committee Updates

The industry needs a champion to carry a system through.

Beth Zarcone: head, photo archives, TIME,INC., New York:19 million images. Just getting computerized for text records [this spring w/ German hardware/software system] despite the fact that production in the company is almost totally electronic in layout and preparation and sent via satellite to the printing plants.

We currently have a manual system which has worked very well for about 50 years. We are about to be involved in a computerized text system to catalog our photographs [which] will be eventually on line through out the organization. We started looking10 years ago. We've taken several stabs at it, and been learning what we want. Now we're excited by a system that has been brought over from Germany, in use 12 years that has totally to do with photo archiving.

We're a service area and at least up until now it would have been difficult to cost-justify say a digital disc for the amount of stations we need it for. The technology wasn't quite there, or is it was there it was too expensive, the definition certainly wouldn't be print quality, and useful only for research; we'd still find what specific image we want and then send the actual color print or transparancy or whatever it is.

Time's productions departments have Crossfield and Sytex imaging machines which digitize the photographs or layouts, with many options for manipulating, etc. Storage costs are extremely high and take a lot of computer space. We have 19 million images here so needless to say that won't really do for us. We need something that gives high density but doesn't take up a lot of computer space.

What would you like to see the future be, not associated with cost or anything else?

Well I'm very happy with the text system we're getting because it incorporates archiving, keyword search. You can customize your own specs, your own screen. It has full word processing, full accounting, orders processing, utilities programware for our own changes; Ultimately it would be great to have some sort of visuals. In fact in one of the fields that we have developed with the archiving screen we've made room for videodisc location. In terms of the word processing we're getting pretty much what we want and the other will come later when the technology is there.

***

Lisa Kamisher: Assistant Director, Aga Kahn Islamic Art videodisc project; MIT, Cambridge, Massachussetts: Most of the 30,000 Islamic architecture pictures in this prototype project (on a standard 12" optical videodisc in NTSC) came out of the Aga Kahn archives, so the usual copyright bind was not a problem. [Art libraries are often largely images sold by vendors 'for educational purposes only' - no copies] The study emphasis was on the analysis of an image and so a database describing the images in depth was built on an accompanying computer and hard disc. An unlimited number of descriptors was desired and as a result only 16% of the pictures got the full text treatment. Digitizing accessory software (AT&T target board) allows editing, windowing, selection, saving to floppies. The project created its own user interface, very much designed for someone who has never used a computer, to be a workspace for visual and textural information. Aga Kahn videodisc systems are now just at Harvard and MIT but targeted to be at several sites in the Islamic world by September .

Newsletter: What about the importance of higher quality images in this whole process?

It's been a serious, serious problem. Whether it came from original 35mm slides which were not as good as they could be or the multiple generations to get the videodisk, the analog image just was considered unacceptable, especially by the historians. In fact, we started indexing from the slides, and when those very same slides got on the videodisc there were details that were totally lost so you had a description of something that could not been seen. So it really highlighted for us the loss of quality in the multiple genera
tions to encoding. There is some leeway there [in NTSC] for improvement, but you're definitely not talking about high definition.

Will the Aga Kahn Program do this again in high definition?

If the user community says to us this is very useful, and if there is image definition. One thing that has come out of this is that the payoff on that kind of in depth indexing isn't there. It's better to do less in the indexing and more in image delivery. and design a system where people can enhance the indexing at a later point.

The museums and schools can't necessarily be leaders because they don't have the budgets. Industry does. In pictures sources; where people come to do picture resource, commercail publuishers or who to build up their own archives like the magazine.

***

Elizabeth Parker; Prints and Photography Archivist, U.S. Library of Congress:

Here an extensive NTSC videodisc image storage project has been accomplished. It is used as a browsing tool for researchers with the expectation that its interactivity will release library employees to other tasks, the reader being self-sufficient. Sony subcontracted the installation of that system and demonstrated high definition imaging at the Library in 1986:

"We gave them space for their demonstration and they did it, but we have not put any of that to use. We're betwixt and between at the moment. We have an analog videodisc [mastered on 35mm film] we made 2 years ago and are currently using and don't plan to make another disc for 2 years. We have 12 million items in our collection and about 49,000 on videodisc. What we have was done as a pilot project, and we consider it successful, but we don't know at the moment exactly what we will pursue in the next disc we make. Obviously high definition is tantalizing but we're 2 years off and haven't got down to the details yet. Next time we are going to do the cataloging and selection first and that's why it's 2 years off.

[With our disc system] a lot of people are satisfied without having to see the original. It's been a tremendous surveying device. They can look through a lot of material that they couldn't before, and the collections [which are originals, not copies] are handled less.

We have contemplated distributing a disc, but haven't gotten to that kind of outreach yet. Our users are researchers who need our collection because of the originals. It is not just an image library.

Are you considering making your second disk in high definition?

We might. We're watching how things develop and what will be practical at the time.

***

Myra Orth, Photo Archivist, Getty Center for the History of Art, Santa Monica, California: Oversees1.2 million images and their use by researchers.

Her department is preparing for a pilot videodisc project of 5000 Getty generated photographs of Roman architecture, largely to explore collections management but also information sharing, choosing a subject which they feel other scholars and archives would be interested in seeing. Analog encoding has been chosen for the first disc for simplicity, lower cost and commonality with other machines. Mastering will be on 35mm motion picture film, for high quality and archival permanence.

We are interested in using video as a quicker way of access. A browsing tool. Poke around until you see what you want and then ask for it. I'm not sure it is quicker, but we won't know until we try. It will be a double screen operation no matter what we do because people want the information in some agonizing detail. The information will be downloaded into a database, stuck on a hard disc, with either a Sony or Pioneer player, etc., so that graduate school or antiquarians or a big museum that has the equipment could in fact use this, see what we've got, and then either order something, come see it or use it as it is.

This will not be particularly user friendly - it's not touch screen - the public would hate it. We are using B&W, transparencies, slides, trying to make it as complicated as possible to make a maximum number of mistakes, so we can maybe do it right the next time.

I have seen HDTV and its fabulous. But our focus at the moment is to have something relatively conventional and easy to send around. Otherwise we would go for something much prettier and would work better. Better definition is very important to us [most of their material is B&W because color printing is not sharp enough], but it's also important that it be widespread; that's why we are mastering on film, hoping that high definition will become more available. We are also testing the waters to see how useful this is; do we want to keep this an in-house thing? Do we want to share?

The fact of the matter is very few institutions have even a videodisc player. The people who seem to be using video technology and putting it to very good use are slide collections in large universities. That is a particulary clever and useful way to use the video medium. I taught for years and picking out slides is a big pain.

It's a very empirical problem, how this new technology can be used by art
historians and others who work in photo archives. We have special ways of working which are not immediately obvious, and easily go through 600 - 1000 photographs in the course of a day manually and very fast (At the moment a researcher can research faster, quicker and more efficiently by hand with boxes than they can with any video system). It's a question of comparing them, and this is difficult to do on an analog videodisc unless you have 6 screens. Pulling out a whole tableful of comparisions is sort of how it is done... so we need split screens and windows. The disc we are experimenting with right now is not that kind of material and does make sense on its own, one at a time.

The Getty Museum currently has an analog videodisc for the public about their vase collection, and two other projects in the works. These are pretty glitzy, easy-to use, interactive, educational... Might the Getty Museum take up high definition TV in a demonstration project?

It might. Theirs is public access, and they are trying to do one on manuscripts. It's visually complicated and analog is not good enough. I've seen it and the color resolution is terrible, and it's too expensive to go in and color correct, so they are still looking for what they want to use. Theirs is sound and theirs is motion picture and all sorts of bits & pieces, quite different from ours.

Mr. Bret Waller, head of Audio/Visuals for the Getty Museum education department and overseer of their public videodisc projects mentioned above tells us, "The big breakthrough is going to come when the quality of a video image projected large - 4-5 feet - rivals that of a slide."

Ideally would you have all your images in some kind of storage system so they come up in stunning clarity whenever you want them?

I'm an art historian. I would rather have them in boxes so I could grunge around in them, and flip through them, compare them and pull them out and rearrange them physically. Use a magnifying glass when I want to, xerox them, take them home. I can't transport the damn screen.

How close is that to world habit in your line?

It's very common. But we're also obliged to consider using things differently, to consider scholars of a different stripe who are not trained to do things that way who would be more amenable to another system.

In the museum environment, because of the need to keep control over a collection of objects, it's more important to have at least a full photographic survey of everything you've got and be able to call it up really quickly. But
in our case here in art history research you don't really know what you are looking for until you find it, so how are you going to look it up?

***

Helene Roberts: Fine Arts library, Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University,

1.25 million images on file:

Our collection is used so much in the process of teaching, and the habits of use I think are so deeply set in terms of pulling slides and using photographs that I think it would take a long period of time, even generations, for a faculty to get use to another kind of automated system. And so far most of the imaging [we've seen] is not as good as the actual slide itself. So it will take a long time.

There are a lot of reasons why one should proceed with caution. So much depends on cost.

***

Maura Mulvihill: still picture archivist, National Geographic Society, Washington, DC.: tells us that she has seen HDTV at the Library of Congress and is ready to use it for the Geographic when the price comes down. They are currently advanced in publishing with an active electronic photo archive already in place for picture editors [as well as the Society's sophisticated typography and cartography units]. She is looking forward to "in-house broadcasting" where several workstations connect with central, eliminating her current situation with data replications at each. They mastered in 35mm film.

***

FLIGHT SIMULATION

Existing flight simulators at the top end of the aerospace industry are complex systems of considerable investment where compatibility of line rates, aspect ratio and other specifics is very important to every element from generation to display; for instance the overlaying/compositing of multiple images is a key technique to realistic effects, as well as splitting the output of image generators to feed several different display devices (out-the-window, radar, sensors, etc.,) simultaneously. Advanced simulators currently resolve 950 vertical lines and older 525s are still in service. Hence new high definition television systems entering this market face close scrutiny of systems engineers based on other considerations than highest resolution alone.

Boeing's Joe Sweeten: "We buy our machines for a number of reasons; one is we are looking for good scene content and databases for doing our training here; one is good resolution; one is ease of maintenance and reliability (very
high on the list); commonality with the existing equipment; cost of spares; field product support; cost."

As realism in simulators (and their training effectiveness) largely depends on the scene software, considerable focus and expense is devoted to this area, with users specifying scenes and conditions from the visual systems suppliers and working in their development. Sweeten: "Our machines are detailed. An approach to a major airport will include the runway itself with all of the taxiway marks, the runway lights, the buildings surrounding, the terminal, other airplanes in line for takeoff, cloud texturing, everything. You have no doubt looking at it that it is a computer generated image, as opposed to a photographic image, but it is very detailed." What's currently being developed is the increased number of edges, data or light points and the computing power to display really complex scenes with 6 degree motion and high speeds.

On compatibility, McDonnell-Douglas chief systems engineer Bill Bezdek:

"A lot of our computer generation systems are built around the specifications for the GE lightvalve. [We use] RS343 with a 1024 x 953 active line area for our pictures which conforms to that GE lightvalve.The thing that drives us to wanting compatibility between different monitors and image generations is the amount of image fusion and combining we're doing. Just like in NTSC standard and RS170 for broadcast TV where you want to combine 2 images, the newscaster and the story behind him, we have very similar applications in flight simulation so we have to have our monitors and our generators running at comparable line rates so we can line up the synchs and overlay different pictures; so we have a considerable investment in doing that, and have invested in some of Ultimatte video combiners at both the low and high resolution pictures."

In military applications compatibility problems only get worse as weapons systems and crew training simulators are added in a great complex.

Nevertheless, the consistant trend toward higher resolution in simulator imaging is still alive and well:

"We are very interested in the new Sony 2000 x 2000 pixel display, which is fairly flat faced which is important to us also and we see a real application for that type of technology. It gives us the 100 lines per inch that we've been trying to get by some means, to essentially get 35mm slide quality for some of our projection." This is a fairly new product to us, and I don't think it has been formally announced yet. We did get a brochure with some actual size photogrpahs, and it looks like it's being set up for the CAD CAM/digital type market with windowing and that type of display that you-re used to seeing in that type of application.

I hear you jumping right past the 1125/60.

"Yes, that's what you're hearing all right. There is a big market for the 1125, but I will tell you right off the phone that I know that for instance that Silicon Graphics is using the 1125 monitor for their standard video output, and we have a request in to Silicon Graphics out in Mt. View to modify that to give us the 30Hz, interlaced RS343 standard we'd like to have. So even though we get less lines it gives us so much more capability, what monitors we're compatible with, and gives us the options for 30Hz interlaced display."

So if and when you make moves to higher resolution in your displays it will be onto that [2000 x 2000] level? "Yes, but I think we'll stay with the RS343 standard for quite a while, only because we have considerable investment in that technology right now.

We asked Paul Urzi, McDonnell Douglas design engineer:

"You are familiar with the 1125 line system. Is there any reason why if I were setting out to build a new simulator I might not use the 1125? Any problem with it?

Aspect ratio. The GE lightvalves we use are keyed around a 4x3 aspect. Also we require 2 or 3 simultaneous displays off of one basic generator system and I don't know how we can make an 1125 5x3 for out the window and that same one for the cockpit displays. There may be a way of doing it...

Greg Wilson: Evans & Sutherland Computer Corp.: "We may have some applications for a high resolution camera in my business sector (interactive systems division; avionics simulations). For the avionics simulations applications high resolution displays, projectors, other things that are associated with that are of interest to me. A camera probably I wouldn't have a lot of use for, but you never know too.

***

MEDICAL

In the US medical community the importance of high quality visuals, an emphasis on education and a receptiveness to new technologies indicates a quick acceptance of high definition television - when its possibilities become known. Yet few have seen or heard of HDTV and demonstrations are needed. Computer imaging systems are developing rapidly. Cost issues are critical, especially now as the health industry is under great pressure to trim. Many projects are conceived; self-study videodiscs could be an entry point.

Dr. Robert Brecht, director, University of Texas Department of Biomedical Communications, Galveston, Texas:

A truly functional, cost effective system would be very helpful in the high definition area. Subjects that make NTSC an insufficient visual medium are pathology, radiology (they don't like anything under1000 lines), microanatomy, telediagnosis, and CAD-CAM.

AT&T has been down here meeting with us and the Texas Dept. of Corrections about a telediagnosis network. (and the Texas heart institute, where they recorded heart operations on high definition and used them for demonstrations) Do you know of any instances where the manufacturers might be giving some of the equipment away for any applications development or demonstration projects?

Can you characterize where the medical community is relative to this potential that has been demonstrated?

Much of the medical world is unaware of high definition because they are really not in the cycle in terms of where they would see it. One of the things I do is follow emerging technologies. It's of keen interest to me. Most demos projects and showing of potential applications in the health care environment in front of meetings and associations that would make people aware of it because my feeling is that the community is not aware of the technology.

In the medical arena there are a lot of proprietary solutions; for instance the ability to send 1000 line radiology type of images across either phone or fiber or some other kind of system to another terminal; of course very expensive systems. I see HDTV as a generic system for different kinds of applications where we need high definition, instead of having to buy proprietary solutions for a particular application, so that it offers the resolution and everything needed by these people.

How about better display? Is that a demand in medicine?

We have people who are unhappy with our current level of television...

for microanatomy most instructors find them lacking.

Is the definition of1125/60 Hz, the Japanese standard, is that high enough?

It appears to be but of course I haven't seen what Europe would like to have as a standard. But from all I have seen of it it appears to be high enough for our purposes.

High definition videodiscs would have a lot of application in this environment for educational purposes. Primarily still images, because with students
learning pathology and everything they need to access huge databases of slides. Certainly the Listerhill Center of the National Library of Medicine has put a number of these databases on videodiscs, but again, with the limitations of the current standard they could be markedly enhanced.

The Listerhill Center for Biomedical Communications is part of the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda. They have extensive production facilities, and have ramrodded a number of technologies, like videodiscs for independent study and learning. Computer technology is their basic thrust in videodisc, but I believe that in one of my recent conversations they were certainly going after high definition and considering buying a system.

[The Listerhill Center AV Department did not return our calls.]

***

Jim Williams, director, Biomedical Communications, Oregon Health Sciences University, Portland, Oregon:

What's really high definition and what needs to be developed are all of the computer scans. We just need more pixel points and the power to make that three dimensional, to slice and turn and look at that stuff.

A lot of those images are dumped out to magnetic tape and ultimately they are displayed and recorded, but recorded on film itself, 35mm up to print color films of different kinds. But the way people then use those materials is to go through standard photographic methods and bring them to whatever television levels they need in terms of meetings, etc.

If I were giving a meeting, having given a lot of attention to my material throughout and were getting ready for display, I could use a slide projector, or put it on NTSC television and have a severe drop in image quality. That seems like a falling out in the whole system.

Those are the real issues. I don't think that the standard users of images in general in communications or in diagnostics are very aware of what the problems are with images. In other words, if they can barely put it together and it works, that's it, they don' t spend any more money. The reality of the pressure in medicine to keep costs down is so incredible we're not going to see a lot of new innovation. Systems will get maybe smaller.

It's going to be a long haul before that kind of technology [HDTV] makes the impact I think it should. Obviously everyone wants higher resolution. Everybody wants it but they want it at a cost they can afford. If they can't afford it, they live on the old stuff, unfortunately.

***

Arpo Lepisto: Wy'East Color, Inc., Portland, Oregon: We mind the Good Samaritan Hospital satellite station for them. They do live broadcasts in the medical community encoded for transmission in the digital domain. It is sort of an educational channel.

Is anyone showing product? Pharmaceutical companies, medical hardware etc.?

I don't think so, and that would be a real hot thing to do. Makes a lot of sense.

***

PRINTING & PUBLISHING: High quality publications and news photo services have found no alternative to film.

Electronic systems have revolutionized the publishing industry, particularly in production. There is every indicator and expectation that more devices will fill in the current gaps until eventually a signal alone will carry the story from the point of origination to the printed page - or reader display.

The weakest link in the chain is imaging. No electronic camera or device has yet delivered the origination resolution required for books and magazines and all pictures, including those generated by computers and other imagers, are committed to film and manually delivered to the sophisticated separators or digitizers for final insertion.

Electronic picture desks in large firms assist picture editors in selecting and manipulating current photos, but few publications maintain an electronically stored image library randomly accessible and, being in NTSC, these are for search and review only, the actual negatives having to be retrieved in the end to print from.

In news photo services the emphasis is on speed of delivery of high quality photos to headquarters, and hence into distribution. The electronic still cameras being developed are closely watched, but as yet found wanting in resolution. The requirement to match their current film sources is approximately 5 megabytes. Frame grabbing from television is currently used, usually where no other photo is available, as even with enhancements there is not enough detail. High definition television cameras currently built or planned are expected to improve the frame grabbing results for the services but not provide the electronic solution they need; lack of shuttering is seen as a problem in motion situations.

Carl Schrader: head of photo & typesetting, National Geographic Magazine:

As far as HDTV we don't have any involvement at the present time. Most generally we would use video and high definition electronics where we need the speed which we cannot get from film.

Other than that we are in electronic typesetting, electronic color separation, electronic stripping and design and layout. Electronic transmission of photographs is not as big an issue with the National Geographic as with news magazines. We don't have the need or time for those kinds of things.

The Illustrations Library (see Archiving, Maura Mulvihill) is working on producing some video images on optical discs so we can search our photo files. Several things are happening. They are creating in educational areas some kinds of things they can publish for use in the classrooms, producing images by video that they can store and move information around to certain workstations so a picture editors can go in with cross references and use of a thesaurus and see what's on file on a certain kind of cow in India, and close in on it by seeing it.

There is still some manual work to bring the parts together but that's the hope that someday you will be be able to get your type and your separations scanner through the Compuscope or some other kind of color workstation and the stripping station all combined, and you will be able to completely make up an electronic page. We are not there yet but we have lots of pieces.

***

Emory Kristoff, photographer and researcher, National Geographic Society, Washington, DC.: I am not all that familiar with the1125/60 except for all the perturbations about it right now. I am more inclined to work with things like Kodak's megapixel camera than with a Sony high definition camera. [Sony's cameras] have come down in size but you are still talking about a monster recorder you'd have to take into the field. I'd much rather work with some sort of cartridge machine, in my stills, some sort of a disk recorder. We are looking at development with Kodak for the next generation of underwater robots that won't have film cameras [Kristoff designed the camera systems of the Argus and Angus submersibles used in the Titanic exploration]. We will be starting out with megapixel, and it will be going into color.

I am applauding this move away from NTSC and into machine vision, and systems that are set up to produce images for computers. I'm looking to use my computer technology to do my recording and my manipulation of pictures, rather than using a high definition TV camera that is putting down 60 pictures a second which are still lower resolution than I want to deal with. It's a lot of trouble and money to handle that kind of information right now. If what I want to do is handle a still picture that I can reproduce in the maga
zine, why do I want to handle 60 of them?

You are not looking at the 1125 high definition at all then?

I'm interested in the move toward that. I'm trying to bypass it. If you are really talking about an electronic camera that is going to replace Kodachrome for the Geographic you're talking about a 4000x4000 chip. There arn't any of those. If you're talking about a picture that didn't need any enlarging, a 2000x2000 would do it. I think you are going to have the move to high definition television and it's going to be a wonderful thing. But it's going to be the equivalent of what NTSC is today and will be1/4th the resolution we need for still pictures. Though if they got the size down to the little handicams, I would use it.

Do you picture your high quality electronic picture signal eventually going directly to the color separation and layout machines?

Wire photo pictures now are close to1500x1200, close to the Japanese standard. I think you could do a lot right now to build an electronic camera that would make the newspaper people happy and overcome problems they have in moving film around. There are a lot more newspapers out there than there are book and magazine publishers. In terms of printing on paper I think we are in the 15-20 year range before we are looking at electronic images for someplace like the Geographic.

***

Reuters Ltd., Washington DC reports: they are not convinced that the perfomance of HDTV itself is what they are looking for in the publishing and photographic world. Their issues have more to do with data communications and carrier networks using digital transmission of reasonable bandwidth for their existing 2048x1000 pixel standard (approximate) and enhancements in that area. They expect to forge links with HDTV standards that develop to assist the means by which they gather pictures, but as yet have seen no substitute for the quality of film origination when it is available.

Reuters has examined electronic still cameras from Canon, Nikon and Hasselblad but finds them not yet "up to scratch". They're looking for CCD arrays of 2-6 megabytes: 2 million to emulate their current transmission standard, 6 million for enlarging color images without loss of quality.

The company is likely to push the technological parameters all they can and explore the highest possible definition they can get, in both origination and transmission. In the digital domain they expect much higher standards than exist now, the idea being able eventually to move quality that would be comparable to magazine reproduction off a 35mm slide.

The news photo division is interested in taking still images off television footage, if the definition were high enough, to widen their potential source of pictures. HDTV may be of interest to Visnews, Reuters' television news service.

Optical disc archiving for photographs is also being examined.

**

Frank Folwell, Photo Department, USA Today, Arlington, Virginia:

Conventional photography for printing has to be scanned into separations to be stripped on to a page or scanned into a editing system where it can be paginated onto a page. I have seen very few operations that are now paginating photos directly into their pages, but that is certainly the future. It will happen.

One of the reasons it's not done right now is that it takes special processing, large amounts of memory and equipment, and a high quality scanner for color especially. They have to be proofed, to see that they are right. This is not so hard with B&W but these are all reasons it's on hold right now.

We've been thinking about videodiscs for long term filing of images, but I don't see that as an option for us right now. As long as we are shooting silver based photography we'll have them in a library just like we always have.

We've experimented with electronic cameras (Canon), and are one of the few newspapers who have published color images from those. They are in their infancy as far as development goes. The resolution is not good enough for day to day use. It doesn't have half the resolution required in my opinion.

There is no reason at all to use electronic cameras except to get the image into the newspaper quickly - with no processing or printing. That speed often means a picture or no picture. In a standard operation if you had color negative film and still videodisc arrive at headquarters at the same time the film would be developed, edited and transmitted in 90 minutes, if you are fast. The still video would be out in 10.

I think electronic imaging in the short term will have improvements that allow it to be used for specific events by larger newspapers, used for speed. But you are giving up a lot by using it. Your flexibility goes down the drain. The next thing that is going to happen - and with electronics it's hard to predict - is going to be a slow process to achieve the higher resoultion and higher speeds we need. High quality, high speed films are here now - 1600ASA Fuji color is quite good and 400 ASA Kodak and Fuji color both are amazing compared to what was just a few years ago.

Frame grabbing from television isn't that simple. Aliasing and translation of that image to a copy that can be printed are difficult to deal with. The lower resolution of moving objects in Muse would be a huge problem. Besides videotape does not use a shutter and so there is no still image at any time so action can't be frame grabbed on videotape no matter what. You can sharpen it up but not much. With computer enhancement you could do better but you can't make it sharp.

***

Arpo Lepisto: director of R&D, Wy'East Color, Inc. (photographic processors) Portland, Oregon: spent 16 years in digital imaging, building real time processors providing images in use by NASA, medical, graphic arts, animation, motion picture special effects, cartooning systems and the military.

Our use of video right now is feeding our Crossfield imaging machine to create compositions for our customers. It is much cheaper than a misunderstanding. In the end we shoot the chosen design on film and go on normally. In many graphics situations high definition cameras could provide the origination as well and bypass the film step.

I think that what is going to happen faster than HDTV capability will develop is that people will start producing the transmitting signal in the digital domain, and if that is so what's going to happen is that the data encoding techniques are developing fast enough that you don't have to have a wider band in the transmission channel. And by going to the digital domain I think there is a chance that internationally everyone could agreed on one standard. I think that would be worth it.

But it takes a digital smart receiver. You can't build an analog smart receiver because the price would be sky high and nobody would buy it, and hence the system wouldn't develop. It only takes the industrial user, the interactive stuff first, which is non-broadcast to bring the development of receivers down. Once the first receivers are made and the semiconductors made, then duplicating them is no cost at all.

***

EDUCATION:

The US is deeply involved in technologies to deliver educational opportunities yet has very little awareness of HDTV outside the technical communities. Television is seen as an important vehicle for delivering a wider base of information to the classroom; large satellite networks, teleconferencing groups, origination facilities and educational authorities are in already place and the trend is seen as in its infancy. Current congressional activity has mandated a new emphasis on science & mathematics instruction, and among other fundings a $100 million, 5 year program within the Department of Education
has just begun soliciting proposals for demonstration projects in the delivery of programming, particularly from satellite. Cost consciousness, existing habits, questions of compatibilty and the essentially slow nature of movement in institutional bodies will have a slowing effect on the introduction of high definition TV in this area but the long term opportunities are large.

Forrest Morris, executive director, Mississippi Authority for Educational Television, Jackson, Mississippi: "The marketplace has to become viable."

Education is really a process in which you use whatever tools you have. Technology, telecommunications can be used for specific things and I don't find any detractors to this; it's gung ho and a good thing.

The last several years there has been a light shone on science & math which the country has been short on. It's a real need and you can do some things that arn't being met at the moment. A lot of rural schools don't have science teachers, don't have good math teachers, foreign language. The satellites can do it as a pipeline. It's a very viable option.

Star Schools is a good idea, but what comes after that? It's only a drop in the bucket, only a start. What this does is for particular people is get up a demonstration of possibilities. During that period other things will happen. That's the way satellites started. NASA had demonstration project. Anything like that that adds to education is good. It moves us to using technology for education further and further.

Will there be a project under the Star Schools program that will give HDTV an airing in the educational community?

It's a possibility. There is absolutely no telling who would bring it forth. The problem with HDTV right now is that there is a dearth of education and understanding among the professionals in all the different user fields. A lot of technical people understand it, but you get away from those folks who know about all these goodies in the technical world and everybody just gets a blank stare. I've seen it happen with videotapes, interactive disc, all these sorts of things. Gradually it will come around, and it takes demonstration. To say who will put it together and do it, I don't know. We have it as one of our considerations when we get down to talking about it.

HDTV is just one aspect of advanced television. PBS had a demonstration in St. Louis last year and I sat on the panel. We know how good it is. Then we get into the practical matters of money, compatibility, transmission and all those kind of things. I don't think we have progressed, just beyond the fact that it is good, too far.

An interactive videodisc in HDTV could be a powerful teaching tool. The problem is a lot of people have a lot of ideas but not all of them are market
able.

The idea of a pilot project like this is to couple it with the disc, couple it with actual needs of a user field like medicine, then people find a way of paying for it. But it's a long term project that you have to get, and show, and get folks involved in. The technology is here, it's entirely practical and feasible to do. What has to happen is you have to have end user education, get all those players together.

The computer was hailed as the answer to education, and then we got into it to learn there was a practical side to it. I see HDTV taking exactly the same route as other innovative ideas and techniques. It's just more spectacular because it is so beautiful.

***

William Dunn: assistant director, National Universities Teleconferencing Network, Stillwater, Oklahoma: This distribution network reaches 255 member colleges & universities in 44 states, DC and Canada, as well as approx. 600 others who take programming occasionally.

Medical programs are a hot item in teleconferencing... during it you may very well want to illustrate in some detail and higher resolution would be required. Engineering, medical and management are our 3 biggest program areas.

***

Tim Tassie: head of programming, KET, Lexington Kentucky: Kentucky Educational Television (a state agency) has broadcast terrestrially to schools across Kentucky (largely rural) since1968 with great growth, and is currently establishing a second channel direct from satellite, placing 1380 downlinks by the fall of 1989. Last year 5000 students were enrolled on their open broadcast college courses, 3000 adults enrolled on GED study at home programs. 98% of the schools use their instructional programming, reaching at least 85% of the students. All but about 50 of the 1380 are already wired for closed circuit distribution within the school. 92% have video recorders, and in the first year of operating a distribution of educational videotapes 6700 units were ordered. KET receives funding 70% from state, 15% federal grants and 15% fundraising.

It's a booming business. The reason we're going to satellite is we have a second channel, more airspace, to deliver more things to more people, and DBS is by far the least expensive method. Many groups are clamoring for more programming.

Our plans at this point are to begin broadcasting with 2 full transponders
during the day - 8 hours each. One would be dedicated to elementary/ middle school, the other to high school and the electronic classroom type thing, interactive to the degree they have an 800 number to call in with, but we are also looking at VSAT and various kinds of microcomputer returns. This allows the student to be an active viewer rather than a passive one.

Do you have studies which show that educational TV use has improved your students' performance?

Most of our research deals with how teachers behave and how they feel about it. We asked a random sample of 5000 teachers in the state: "Do you believe that watching programming from KET has improved the achievement scores of your students?" 85% said yes. At the least, since schools have been willing to invest a lot of money and time and equipment in TV, and since it is so widely used, there must be a reason for that. They wouldn't invest in something they didn't think was working.

For display we have the RCA 25" classroom monitor as the basic standard in our schools.

Would it be desireable to have a projection system?

We haven't really tested that much, but economically it doesn't make a lot of sense. The projection system generally costs as much as 5-6 monitors, so you might as well get the monitors and have more flexibility. There are some really good ones, GE for instance, but their cost is way out of reach.

If educational TV is growing and there is a benefit, then are schools are a positive and important area for HDTV to go into?

I think so.

Is federal funding getting easier to get?

Yes, now with the Star Schools Legislation. We hope to be successful in our bid for a part of that since we have a leg up in satellite distribution already.

***

Ed Craig, senior engineer, South Carolina Educational TV, Columbia, South Carolina: Network reaches 98% of the schools in SC and carries all of the national instructional satellite service programs, plus uplinks for the regional network which is headquartered there plus their own programming. Educational TV is working well for South Carolina. Most of the programs are supplemental to the activities of in-classroom teachers, though they also
have "electronic classrooms", outbound video and 2 way audio (48 line telephone bridge with autodialers) at University of SC, Clemson and various other sites.

Compatibility of advanced systems to the existing base is the key issue. Without it we can't implement because it would be too expensive. We do lots of live programming, we feed out of here by way of tape something like 66,000 programs a year. So we have to stay compatible with what we've got as a delivery system. The reason we are interested in HDTV is just the basic improvement it offers to what we are currently doing.

Do you see the big screen option of HDTV as important for your network?

No. Not directly. It would be one of those things that are nice to have, but no I don't.

Would the production capacity of high definition be of interest to you?

Yes, when the compatibility is there. We do very little work in which it would be a benefit to produce on a non-compatible system to make prints from.

Do you produce any programs on film?

Some. Most of them are for outside agencies, industrial people we might do training films for. Lots of times we shoot on film and then go to videotape editing.

Which schools in South Carolina come to mind that are particularly forward thinking and most likely to be seeking for advanced systems?

The medical university in Charleston. We cross switch for them from other hospital sites and training facilities in the state, meaning they have at times 5 feeds from around the state coming into a control room here with interactive audio.

***

Marshall Allen, director, Educational TV Service, Oklahoma State University, Still water, Oklahoma: Mr. Allen directs a $7 million facililty producing superior educational programming used all over the nation.

Might the Star Schools program work out a sharing of the private sector with a public institution?

I'll tell you what we're doing is looking at the Star Schools to put together what I'll call an Industrial Advisory Board. These people would come in obviously a totally independent, non-compensated capacity, and would simply work with us in an advisiory role to see what is possible in Star Schools, what kind of technology is there and somehow give us a little bit of guidance or direction in the applications of not only the technology but also the overall concept of the technology. That's what we're going to be looking at here and I've already gotten a couple of committments from people who are willing to meet with us and work in that kind of capacity.

So the private sector can give you an overall view?

Yes. Trying to keep us objective and forward thinking.

Therefore helping you create a project that would intersect, dovetail with corporate needs so when your student exit they can go to meningful jobs?

That's right. We here I know are not turning out students who have any kind of corporate skills. We tend to have somewhat a traditional view of telecommunications and applications. I don't think we are turning out kids who can go out in the corporate world and identify communications problems and have enough knowledge to put together a good media mix of of various technologies which can serve some corporate needs. We're not doing it here. I'm not sure that there are many universities who are. They're talking. They give coursework, but the're not doing a damn thing about it.

***

Frank Witherow, technical supervisor, Office of Research Integration (OERI), US Department of Education. Mr.Witherow is a key player in the administration and distribution of the Star Schools Legislation funding.

Since1981 the department has had no authority to do anything in technology. Now there is the star schools and some pending legislation on television production. [HDTV] will ultimately be an important thing in some level of training where you need a very clear graphics kind of thing, a so I personally can see some of it, but the departnment has not done anything at this time.

Star Schools is a direct service program aimed at elementary and secondary education in the areas of math, schience and foreign language. The offerers are free to develop any kind of technology they think would be appropriate to deliver that kind of programming.

Do you think there is a likelihood you will see HDTV proposals come in?

The authorization of the law is over 5 years. Perhaps not in the first year but some subsequent year, I would hope we would have some things along this line. You are the first one who has talked to me about it. I would be personally most excited about it. I think in the '90s we are going to go all to high definition digital signals.

***

Letter to the Editor

Dear Mr. Cripps,

I was quite distressed to read in your article titled "ATSC" Votes in Favor of 1125/60" that you incorrectly reported the Group W position in this matter. Please be advised that Group W supports the 1125/60 standard and voted "yes" in the ATSC vote. I would appreciate you publishing a correction on this matter in the next edition of the newsletter.

Quite frankly I am amazed that you would publish a report of such significance without having checked your facts. As you are aware, this is a matter of some importance in the industry, and accordingly a correct record is highly important.

Yours Truly,

Alton C. Stalker

Vice President & General Manager

Operations and Engineering Group

Dear Mr. Stalker,

We agree that any appearance of carelessness on any of this important issues is deplorable. The ATSC has decided not to release the the specific vote outcome - a policy that is still in effect today. We were misinformed about your vote by another voting member and we must presume not mischievously. We take it as our error in not contacting each voting member directly before publishing an outcome.

Several members did notify us with their vote positions. Perhaps for future accuracy you can include us on any tranmittal list relevant to your ATV activities. In the final analysis it is only with such industry cooperation that we may continue to serve all a dependable representation of the issues and
responses in these very complex and demanding times.

Editor

Bridging the Image

New Consulting Firm established to assit the film oriented into HDTV video

Image Technology, Santa Monica California ahs been formed by 3 well known member of the HDTV 'community'. Don Kline, Director of Research and Development for Panavision, Harry Mathias, well known motion picture and television Director of Photography, author of the book ELECTRONIC CINEMATOGRAPHY: ACHEIVING PHOTOGRAPHIC CONTROL OVER THE VIDEO IMAGE and Leanard Adler, who has served as Vice-President of Advanced Planning at CEI/Panavision Electronics. Adler says the company is geared in helping with strategic planning relating to HDTV. The overlap of movie and television and what that take is the specialty. You need some help in sorting out your road to riches with HDTV, give them a call at (213) 458-5944

Not exactly HDTV stuff but could portend the future: McDonald's is testing a new concept called "Video Theater" - a videocasette recorder and TV set that entertains youngsters with animated short features in its restraurants. "McDonald's got to be No.1 by building brand loyalty among children and then keeping them as customers," offers one industry analyst.

The way we see it, it is only a good projector away from being able to supply a mini-theater to McDonald's or any other franchise - and in HDTV/DBS.

L'Aquila, Italy - SSGR held its second annual workshop on signal processing February 29 th through March 2nd. Main topics discussed by the distguised technical presenters focused upon image pick-up and display, feber optic transmission, space transmission, LSI for signal processing.

Sign Off

Let's talk motives. Basically broadcasters are seeking protection of their assets by being technically competitive. No question, cable is off to the races. It is pretty clear to just about everyone that HDTV is coming. So the reason the broadcaster is going into HDTV is 'cause the other guys gonna do it. Right? But when that is known, what's there to do but to make the best of it and get on with an good offense. Right? Stockholder, operators, programmers and viewers have to be happy.

The public service motive fills the bill. Nobody was ever shot in the street for doing a good deed. What broadcasters or anybody else that face a
sacrafice in entering HDTV may realize is that if HDTV is loved by the people, you who got it to them get the good will credit coming back from that same public. If you don't, you communicators didn't communicate. You might not believe it now, but when you have given the public a new lease on their television world, they just might find the collective way to say thanks.

The truth is most people have really deplorable television reception. We often think of the incremental improvement HDTV is going to be over the guy who keeps his set tweeked. But think of all the people who are really looking at colored radio, if you know what I mean? Those people are going to be the greatful ones. Those people are going to protect you when the going gets tough, and you need the population standing behind you in some congretional fight. Johnny Carson is succesful because he loves his audience and he has made money for NBC for 25 years. If something is too expensive for one to buy... people get to gether and buy it. Go to poor countries like Mexico and tell me where you don't find color TV. Families and friends get together and buy it. A color TV in Mexico cost the average family 45% of one person's annual income. So, don't think that HDTV is an elete device only limited to a handfull of MBAs who got out of the market October 15th.

Go ahead cynics and don't believe it. You also are in ample company. Views like that expressed by Isaac S. Blonder, Chairman of long time TV equipment maker Blonder-Tongue Laboratories are popular. He says in his NOI comments, "There is no pressure from the general public to replace NTSC. Viewers have been polled many times, both formally and informally, and they have ususally expressed their satisfaction with the present NTSC quality level. Only if new rivals such as Super-VHS tape recorders and HDTV DBS appear, will there be a public outcry for change in the broadcast standards."

One could add to Blonder's statement that the public was also content with 78 RPM, 45 RPM, LPs, audio cassette tape, AM radio, Black and white television, etc. The public is responsive to improvements as they come upon the market. They do not have the vision to demand the unseen and unheard. But, once on the market... well, when was the last time you bought a 78 RPM record except for old times sake?

Public trust + public service = best of profits. If you are doing your part of the equation and it doesn't equal profits, than the fault lies on the other side with the public. Don't be cowards. Make sure the public pays his share of the benefits. There is no free lunch on either side, but the meal can be nourishing. Any imbalance left unattented to is just another fault in communications to the public. Broadcasters have to shoot straight to the public and stop putting failures at the head of the class.

Television is headed straight for the golden age - not disentigrating out of it. Live broadcast from the bottom of the Dead Sea are coming to you in
the next 30 days on three contenents from The Discovery Channel in NTSC. HDTV and live events from around the world cannot help but be spectacular and powerful in their ability to inform and entertain. Network television is just feeling the power of real competition and nobody says that group is going to lay down and die. Hang on folks, the best is really about to come. Stay tuned...stay tuned 'cause changes, changes, changes are coming!!!

Dale Cripps

Publisher

A short Paper Contest

TOWARDS THE 21ST CENTURY'S TELEVISION is the title of a contest in Japan for young engineers [40 and under]. the contest is devised to encourage thinking in Japan on what this television world of the future is to be. Prizes rang from $3000 to $1000 plus an invitation to the ITE Convention and publication of the piece in the Journal of the ITE. the subject of the papers were to be from the technical prospects or just the dream one might have about the future of television.

We worry and worry in this country that we are being left in the hands of others destiny path and lament the loss of this and that. One noted television engineer when asked what the root cause of our own decline in industry and in particular industry can be tied to, he responded Harvard MBAs. Dr. Robert Hopkins, recalling his days with RCA studio products recalls that not all of the blame falls. "We often had superior products and even more competitive products." But, Thomson, a French Government owned manufacturer of studio equipment had terms that we couldn't beat."

Hopkins recalls that often minimal down payments were required and that 10 or 15 years financing at 3% interest was available. "The fact is, the customer wasn't required to really pay anything for the equipment," laments Hopkins.

This country has just plain lost lost some of its buisiness, yes. But some of it was stolen by other governments. When is Amerca going to stop dealing with thieves?