What Is The Promise of HDTV? — Dale Cripps on the Forces Driving the HDTV Transition

What Is The Promise of HDTV?
by Dale Cripps

Many have viewed the HDTV movement with financial dread--a long and costly transition with little apparent payback to those forced by government decree to enter the digital world. Why are we doing HDTV? What is the driving force? Why are we as far as we are? but not as far as we want to be? When will we see the explosive growth that every successful product enjoys? Who will most benefit from it? What is its greater promise to all?

HDTV is the biggest question mark to have entered the marketplace since long distance telephone services were proposed. It all sounded like a good idea until the costs were tallied, and then financiers said, "Who needs a voice connection when we already have the telegraph?" HDTV also sounded like a bad idea destined only for a small portion of our public and hardly worthy of a public policy debate beyond some spectrum concerns. Over the forty years since it first stirred to life in the Japanese laboratories of NHK the high profile forecasters of our times have scoffed at it. Nicholas Negroponte from the Media Labs and George Gilder have both nothing positive to say about it. It was to them a waste of bandwidth and only had meaning, said Negroponte in interviews with me, for a few event programs. Forecast after business forecast from Forester and others have predicted that HDTV would give way in the marketplace to some lesser product requiring less bandwidth and saving the public from the fate of paying for expensive displays.

But HDTV has had a mystical life which no mere mortal has been able to stop. Its defiant progress is now driven by the enormous appeal it has to the American public who have seen a good demonstration or, better, who own it. They simply love it. Every television executive who sees its potential value courageously looks beyond his or her next quarterly report.

Clearly, not everyone is yet aware of HDTV. That fact alone holds the transition back. Much more needs to be shown and encouraging information delivered to those yet unaware. Not all publicity has been good about it either, and this retards growth along with unresolved issues in copy protection and cable readiness in TV receivers. But at the core of this movement are several hundred thousand highly influential citizens who, as early adopters, have both monitor and receiver. They are like yeast in bread transforming their communities every day with their expressed enthusiasm for the experience they have all had with it. This enthusiasm is proving boundless and has translated into an endless number of phone calls, emails, and faxes to broadcasters, cable companies, satellite companies, the FCC, and other agencies of the government urging that all obstructions to progress be addressed and removed. I personally have made more than 56,000 phone calls on behalf of the HDTV movement over the last 20 years, all inspired from just one superb demonstration in the laboratories of CBS in Stamford, Connecticut.

In what has been a surprise to many the traditional television networks have leaped into the breach with a high proportion of their prime time programming available in the HDTV format. They deliver this content not only through their traditional affiliates but, in some cases, directly from satellite. While it may be said that their participation is entirely due to the fear of severe measures coming to them from Congress and the FCC, there are others in broadcasting with the recognition that their product cannot be less then the best in the marketplace. The fact remains that they know that there is not one law on any book that forces anyone to broadcast or transmit in any way one second of HDTV programming. The fact that we are this far into the transition with so many doing HDTV programming--CBS, ABC, NBC, PBS, The WB, HBO, Discovery, Showtime, and HDNet--is testimonial to the high value placed upon it by the leadership in television today. Tomorrow more channels will appear with Sports taking a center stage as ESPN makes their HDTV debut. You can be sure that every cable channel programmer is looking to see how they are going to win coveted carriage of their own HDTV offering in the limited bandwidth within the modernized cable system. And cable, once declared the prince of laggards in the movement, has now become the poster child for its advancement. All of the major cable companies have a forward looking HDTV policy, though constrained by bandwidth limitations. It will likely help them in their own painful transition from analog to all digital. The incentive to have more SDTV channel has limited appeal in their own conversion and just as is the case with over-the-air HDTV is seen as being only available in digital.Satellite, the first to show aggressive behavior towards it, has fallen behind as merger talk paralyzed their decision making and now new suitors come with little history in their love for HDTV. There is a small discussion among very powerful lovers of HDTV suggesting that a bid for DirecTV be made with the idea of transforming it entirely to an HDTV platform.

So, what is the promise that keeps all of this moving forward beyond the reason of seasoned analysts? Let me make a bold statement which only a publisher might make without blushing. I say that the promise is like the hope in an advertiser who is out to remake his world-- the transformation of a present reality into a new and better one. The heightened enjoyment which each owner of HDTV reports to me, when accumulated over the next 100 or more years, has to have a very positive impact to our social environment. The happier is the home, claim those who portend to know these things, the happier is the commonwealth. That is the bottom line promise that is far exceeding any economic or technical promise, though these too are great.

Everything is renewed when viewed in HDTV, meaning there is a revaluation going on in the minds of viewers for all existing film content, both new and old. This heightened appetite caused by HD's enthralling appeal can only carry over to new demand for older programs. Their values will rise correspondingly. Business and artistic imaginations must soar to the heavens once the critical mass is reached and it is evident that, under no circumstance, is there a going back. That day is not far off, though difficult to still reach. In spite of teetering economies and war threats, HDTV marches on with huge dollar growth reported each month since its launch on November 16, 1998.Only a little of it is driven from public policy but rather it moves from public demand.

HDTV, or its kissing cousin, will populate not only the home but the theaters of the world. An era in which $ 500 million dollar budgets are the norm for movie making will grow out from an era of instant global distribution without the restraint of film's outmoded replication, handling, and corresponding cost. It is easily seen that the first run motion picture viewing experience is moving closer to the home, if not to the home and with more fidelity than is found in most theaters today. Those of you reading this who have HDTV will nod in silent agreement. This fact will spur motion picture exhibition into an entirely new form where program services are born to operate like public viewing television networks designed for the big screen. Customized content can be tailored to serve all parts of the world being no more difficult than laying another language on a DVD. It would not surprise me to see tens to hundreds of thousands of electronic theaters operated by franchisers, much as McDonalds of fast food fame does today. It's a natural.

Another promise from HDTV may be more subtle. As we define and denounce the errors from past ages we must transition from their costly hold upon our cultures to new ways hardly imaginable today. They will be costly transitions in both spirit and material--how do we deal with new power sources? How do we insure enough water to the populations of the world? How do we avoid famines and other things which are terrifying headlines today. As we enter this last gasping hour of the industrial age the new age of knowledge --real and provable--will rise above traditional politics and set into motion the fundamental cures for the many ills of our times. We have fewer and fewer options left open to us if we don't and no government that is not technically supreme in a technically-driven age is going to remain relevant for long. Nothing can shed more light on the plights which destiny has assigned us to fix and nothing will more inspire the hearts of those responsible for initiating and completing their own titanic transitions than will a successful transition to HDTV--the once impossible dream fully realized. Indeed, I see many such transitions ready to catch this rising brass ring and illustrate with it their own purpose during the graceful unfolding phase of HDTV across every nation. Is HDTV a unifier? I believe it has that potential. Please excuse me for saying that no potential for HDTV should be squandered for any reason. That places a heavy burden upon us all, but remember what is at stake. Once we see the success of one "impossible" transition we are less likely to shrink in spirit and mind from others with less obvious returns. In some respects HDTV is a political movement of the greatest possible order and succeeds by rising above present partisans and representing a new politics of clear action.

Of course, it could be something less. HDTV is either a good or a stumble into a monstrous evil. What it is is a neutral. If it is declared a good for the world it is then the forum for many, if not all future good movements. I doubt a difficult challenge could survive without the support coming from an expanding coverage in HDTV and the correspondingly help from the good people who seem to first concentrate themselves around it. Why would you believe in any movement that cannot warrant using the finest tool of the communication's age and its audience to get its message across?

It can, of course, be made little more than a mess with none of these things realized. That is not the trend I see today, however. I see Today very high level executives in both signal provision and set making crowing over its success in the marketplace and believing that 2003 is the watershed year for HDTV. I am now arranging for a large conference in Hollywood in June and the network chiefs are slatted to stand up there and declare that the HDTV experiment is successful and the transition to it is an irreversible course and the right thing is to make the very best of it by doing all that can be done to hasten and complete the transition.

The achievements made so far will continue to begat still more until we all recognize what Paul Allen has said on his web site: "We have only begun to invent what will be possible."

Dale Cripps, Publisher
HDTV Magazine
President High Definition Television Association of America

Copyright 2003
HDTV Magazine

Home