Summary

Editor Dale Cripps argues that HDTV's launch requires coordinated commitment from both manufacturers and broadcasters, warning that half-hearted adoption risks disaster. Without a champion like David Sarnoff and genuine market enthusiasm, digital television may arrive without true high-definition quality.

Source document circa 1999 preserved as-is
 

Quality is Job Number One

Dale E. Cripps
Not a day passes that HDTV doesn't suffer another blow to its future. Usually the wham is struck for reasons related to the business problem of getting it started, a problem we have discussed for years. Keep in mind that in starting a new television service there must be an orchestration of events so that new receivers won't languish unsold in showrooms for the lack of some signal sources. Signal providers don't like the idea of converting their plants at considerable expense when there is no hard proof that people will turn on to quality more than they have to choice. Nothing, of course, could be worse than entering half hearted with cold feet. Poor programming or scarce and marginal receivers...you have spelled accurately with that combination the word "disaster".

To insure that cold feet were held to a warming fire, the manufacturers had lobbied Congress and the FCC for a mandated use of the new spectrum, i.e., that broadcasters first of all get it, then use it for HDTV, or else! But neither Congress nor the FCC bought that view that they know better than does the marketplace. "Let the marketplace decide." Back to cold feet. Neither broadcasters nor HDTV set makers have confidence that the market will decide for HDTV, and no one wants to put up the big bucks that huge promotions cost. It is one thing to launch a new product like the DSS satellite system, where the consumer must pay for part of the equipment to receive the service. The consumer buys a dish and decoder box, but its 150 programming choices can run every television set in the house, as well as the VCR. The consumer is already equipped, at least partly, for receiving a new service.

With HDTV the consumer must acquire either a receiver or outboard decoder, but there are only limited programs being sent because of the expense in both TV plant equipment and bandwidth. DSS is about choice. Nothing could be clearer, er, unless it was the picture. And when the decoder box is hooked up to the S-Video or PrYpb port the picture is quite acceptable, many thinking that it is high-definition. From the usual viewing distance with a modern set you might be one to join the chorus singing, "So, What's The Big Deal With HDTV?"

The big deal has always been the image size. Blow up interlaced NTSC, digitized or not, and you are going to be in artifact hell. It is less so with laserdisc, but that is not the totality of one's viewing in the 90s. There are other things and they are more spectacular when the image is superb.

So, what are we to do to insure that HDTV gets to your home and mine? Pray that the manufacturers come to their senses and accept the story we have laid out over the last seven years. Without the function of the next David Sarnoff there is not going to be HDTV, maybe digital TV, and certainly there will be a lot of good old NTSC as far as one can see.

How about the internet? Is it a factor in this business?

Without the wholehearted acceptance of an audience, HDTV is doomed. A public enthusiasm must be preceded by excitement from both signal providers and the manufactures. While the manufacturers have been hoping over the last six years that the FCC would mandate the use of the new digital channel for HDTV, the new free-market Democrats of the 90s think that any forcing of it is out of the question. It must be, in the end, market driven.

Keep in mind that the digital world emerging is one that everyone wants to get into, but few know what to do once there. After all, television is that institution built by civic minded people who are more interested in their local community chest than to any technical innovations. The technology to them was done long ago and is just fine the way it is.

© 1995 - 1999 Dale E. Cripps
All Rights Reserved

Up To Date, Up to the Minute: HDTV News Online

Menu

Home | Contact

© 1995-2001 All Rights Reserved