Ya, that looks like a good seat and, oh, excuse me... excuse me.. pardon me... excuse me... Ahhh there... opps, pardon me... pardon me. Boy, that was tight. But at last I am in my favorite seat in my favorite theater just where I like it - half way up and center. From here the image is the right size so I can really feel a part of the action and the audio is just perfect. Ahh, here comes the picture and... hey, get your big mit out of my popcorn. Who the... Oh well, this cost me a small fortune with parking, the tickets, not to mention that pizza, and I am not going to let this big ox ruin an expensive evening and... Oh no! I saw this picture last week! Im in the wrong auditorium and these palukas wont let me change without buying another ticket.
In the future when you find yourself in that predicament reach for your remote control and call up another movie instantly from your telephone company. What? My telephone company? Well, not yet. In the very near future though you will call up or insert a tape or disk with the movie of your choice displayed in full theatrical quality from the best seat in the house - your house. That is the promise of high definition television. Invite in a few neighbors if you must have popcorn munchers.
HDTV is the most significant development ever for the electronic visual medium. Thats what the government and industry leaders say. Some may argue that color was the big step in television but to many professionals HDTV is vastly more significant. The reason... it is the theater in the home. Properly installed and viewed HDTV provides a far greater stimulation of the human visual system. Viewers will take a greater part in the video programs. HDTV also opens vast new markets for video with larger and larger screens a potential.
But just what is HDTV? Is it just more lines? Is it a bigger picture? It is both and much more.
The work on bringing the theater electronically home started in Japan some 18 years ago. It is now being readied for international commercialization. But before that can happen standards must be set That activity is one of the most complex events on earth.
From the camera signals, transmission paths, and receivers, the chain links must be understood by each to set standards. Every portion of the chain linkage has its own ideas and economies not always understood by others in the chain.
As if technical decisions were not enough strong international political undercurrents remain attached to the standards setting process. Who and where the many pieces of the television system will be made has stirred heated and emotionally charged international debates. Europe and even the US have taken projectionist stands against Japan. This makes murky any international technical consensus required for solid standards setting.
The design philosophy of early HDTV work was focused on creating a television system to match the best of a theatrical experience. Numerous psycho-visual and aural test were completed and electronic parameters were chosen. It was determined that there should have no visual impairments when viewed at a distance of 3 times the height of the picture. That would provide a 130 degree field of vision. It was agreed in international conferences that to meet those requirements the television system would have to scan at least 1000 lines and have an aspect ratio of 16:9
The wider aspect ratio is usually thought the most important feature of HDTV. The aspect ratio adopted mimics the aspect ratio of commercial movies. That is only partly true. Movie aspect ratios have ranged over the years from the 4:3 to over 2:1, and even occasionally greater.
The reason to develop HDTV in the first place was less related to the consumers end use than you might think. The original goal of a single worldwide electronic production standard was foremost on everyone's mind then. Arguments for it said a universal standard would make better economies for program making and exchange.
The world today is divided into three television systems. Those differences, when created, had much more to do with trade protection than technical conclusions. However, technical reason were certainly there. The world is divided into two power frequencies - 50 Hz and 60 Hz. The US operates at 60 Hz mains frequency, Europe on 50 Hz. The NTSC development was the first compatible color system in the world and developed in the United States. It was unthinkable in those days to be in disagreement with the power line frequency as everything locked to them. NTSC is used in Japan and some other countries. Another system for Europe, known as PAL, was developed in the early 1960s and is used widely there. Still another system, SECAM, was designed around the same time by the French and is used in France, Russia and elsewhere. These systems locked to 50 Hz line frequency and therefore have 50 Hz field rates. 625 scanning lines are used for European PAL & SECAM systems and NTSC scans at 525 lines. All systems use interlace of the scanning lines where line 1 is scanned followed by line 3. On a second pass of the scanning beam line 2 is scanned followed by line 4 and so on. The frame rate or the number of pictures appearing per second for motion are different with PAL and SECAM systems using 25 frames or 50 fields per second and NTSC 30 frames or 59.94 fields per second. [The odd number of 59.94 fields is the result of color being added to the monochrome system.] Fifty field systems transcode poorly to 59.94 fields producing jerky motion - really only annoying in sports. The only common image capturing system to date around the world has been film at 24 frames per second. This frame rate matches neither the 25 nor 30 frames of the respective systems and suffers artifacts in transferring to video. Film, of course, is out of the question for live events.
After vast research and hot international debate the technical decision reached by Japans NHK for the studio production parameters was 1125 interlace scanning lines and a field rate of 60 Hz. This development is more commonly called the NHK 1125/60 system. That system gained recognition because of ease of transcoding to all existing standards, and was put to committee in the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers [SMPTE] for standards setting. It passed through the SMPTE standards process in August of 1987, then moved up to the Advanced Television Systems Committee in Washington, D.C. There it was also passed [but with less enthusiasm]. The ATSC is the body that recommends television standards to the U.S. The State Department then supports them in international political organizations. Canada and Japan also accepted the standard officially.
Japan, along with the U.S, made a formal proposal in 1983 to the world standards organization - the CCIR - for the 1125/60 as a world production standard. This standard was widely promoted and debated but rejected by many members of the CCIR in a contentious meeting held in Dubrovnik, Yugoslavia in May of 1986 . Europeans could not accept for a domestic production format anything not having the same frame rate as their current transmission systems, i.e., 50Hz. Many supporters from the US Canada, and Japan of the 1125/60 system said the real reason is to protect European manufacturing and to kill any Japanese head start advantage they had.
With little agreement on the 1125/60 the US broadcasters decided a more friendly production standard to NTSC would make better sense. Technically, the HDTV production standard that would be easiest to transcode to NTSC is made up of 1050 lines with a field rate of 59.94. Others think a 525 line progressive scanned picture (59.94) delivers the same quality as a 1050 line interlaced picture. They think that approach is superior. In either case sticking to the 59.94 field rate was claimed crucial.
So, what does all of this technical confusion mean to the consumer? Are we going to have our HDTV? The bet is in favor that consumers will have some form of HDTV in their living rooms in ten years. What form it takes is still a red hot debate. The consumer hasn't been intiveted into the debate. Some think it is high time to do so. Others say it is not valuable since the consumer cannot possibly make any of these technical decisions. What will the consumer want? What wil the consumer be willing to buy? Such questioning will soon begin at the Advanced Television Testing Center in Washington, D.C. Consumers will be shown demonstrations of various picture size and quality and asked multiple question as to the perception of their performances. Purely scientific tests will be performed first to determine the visual impact of picture clarity and aspect ratio. The outcome of those test will strongly influence which system will be adopted.
The topic of home delivery of HDTV hit a front burner quite unintentionally. Work was going on quietly behind the scenes on a studio standard. The land-mobile businesses, however, were expanding rapidly in every direction. They said they7 needed more electromagnetic spectrum for essential services like ambulance and fire alerts. Underused portions of the broadcast spectrum looked particularly good. They requested the FCC to grant it to them. That alerted the broadcast community. They had seen HDTV down stream and thought they would need more spectrum to transmit it.
In alliance with other broadcast-related organizations, the National Association of Broadcasters quickly made arrangements with the Japanese to hold a transmission demonstration of HDTV the end of 1986. The sole purpose of the demonstration was to set the stage for a request to Congress and the FCC to freeze broadcasters spectrum until they knew what it would take to transmit HDTV to the public. The result of the demonstration was a Notice of Enquiry issued by the FCC in mid-1987. The Notice resulted in blue ribbon committee formed by a former Chairman of the FCC, Richard Wiley.
The FCC offered a tentative ruling guideline the 1st of September of this year saying that the spectrum assignment for broadcasting would remain the same as today. Broadcasters would be required to provide their advanced television service in either a compatible signal in 6 MHz channels, or in a separate non-compatible HDTV signal within a 6 MHz channel, or use a 3 or 6 MHz helper or augmentation channel for the added picture information. No provision was made to use a wider-than-6 MHz channel.
Several transmission proposals have surfaced over the last 18 months for hustling HDTV terrestrial signals to the home. They range from sort-of HDTV systems to those being completely free from picture impairments. Conservation of spectrum is a prime consideration in these proponent designs. HDTV production standards use 30 MHz at the camera. Those signals must be compressed while not degrading the picture. HDTV cannot be lost. That is no slight trick. As of today 20 proponents of various systems have been identified. Not all have the funds to advance their system, so some are dropping out. The major players left are NHK from Japan, Thomson Consumer Products (with David Sarnoff Research Center, NBC), Philips, MIT, the Del Rey Group, Faroudja Laboratories, and a late entrant, Zenith.
Each of the proponents have designed systems they think will win in the marketplace. Both consumer and delivery factors must be taken into account. If signal services cant afford an approach and holds back on signals, the consumer will not buy sets with no programming available. If the consumer is faced with a complex and expensive choice inhibiting buying of new sets, the program provider will suffer. The movement hinges upon program availability and affordable receivers.
Nothing would be more depressing to television than to have their audience base dispersed beyond recovery while adding production and transmission costs in their plants. That is the worry from broadcast, cable, and the VCR segments.
Terrestrial broadcasting is losing audience share to cable. They have realized that programming is their key for preservation. Revenues are down. Program acquisition is higher. HDTV may not be as easy to transmit over terrestrial as it is with Cable, VCR, and DBS. If those services outperform terrestrial broadcasting in picture quality, broadcasting could be in real trouble. NBC says real trouble is their official position.
Just when cable thought it was in fat city, the telephone rang. The NTIA urged congress and Judge Greene to get out of the way of the BOCs provision for a fiber optic baseband HDTV delivery system. This new development is sending shock waves through the cable industry. They are responding with a quick rebuild of old substandard cable systems using a fiber backbone tying them together and extending down the street. They face a huge investment for doing it. The telephone company say they wants fiber-to-the-home. They claim publicly that they must transport video to justify that. Others say that plain old telephone service (POTs) will justify fiber-to-the-home.
What does all of this mean to the consumer? It means the best darn television you can imagine is coming. Ultimately the consumer is going to have clear-cut choices as to how much picture and sound quality he/she can afford and want. The consumer will have a vastly wider range of program choices. They will be able to substitute of replace the flexibility found with the VCR using video-on-demand from their telephone company. Premium programmers, like HBO, will start HDTV program service with the first HDTV sets sold. The VCR will survive, even thrive because the home movie camera will be one day HDTV. The video recording equal to 35mm film will be in the hands of consumers. Amateur C.B. DeMills will pop up all over the place. Software for HDTV is being readied for the Japanese market. It can translate to this country with some cultural trouble. It will take a large installed base of HDTV receivers to encourage tape rental stores to carry yet another expensive format.
DBS is on the threshold. Getting it started is expensive. Some think a billion dollars is required. There are 128 DBS channels authorized by the FCC. It will take just one success to get the high powerws-DBS services going. Small flat panel dishes [they are already used in Japan] will capture a ghost-free image. Stan Hubbard (Hubbard Broadcasting in Minneapolis) is striding towards his long-standing DBS goal. HDTV is what makes his plan work. If C-Band is DBS to you - DBS has already started, and with HDTV plans coming from the new 10 channel Touchtone movie service.
It is a brave new world. In part we can thank the Japanese for it. Thanks is not given freely, however. Just when understanding of it all was enough to justify ones PHD, the protectionists jumped up with a bundle of new issues saying, You cant allow this HDTV to be foreign dominated. The Electronic Industry Association, the American Electronics Association, and other notables said HDTV will be a very big world-wide market [$20 billion per year ++), and it is about time for the U.S. to get off its butt and do something about it. The trade issues are serious for the whole of the U.S. economy. Representative Ed Markey [D-Mass], chairman of the telecommunications Sub-committee, held hearings in Washington on September 7th. He questioned and listened to industry spokesman on the expected impact of HDTV. Markey asked what role government should play. , the developer of the VCR at Redwood Citys Ampex, Richard Elkus, decried the loss of consumer electronics infrastructure saying the growth of consumer electronics in Japan has threatened the U.S. semiconductor industry. Such a threat to the only remaining strong U.S. industries-- the computer and telecommunications. Elkus sees the merging of HDTV with the computer. With a foreign dominance of HDTV could signal a further decline of the U.S. He who controls the capital, controls earned income he offers. Zenith said they must have help in finishing their HDTV proposal. Sid Topal, former chairman of Scientific Atlanta, joined the chorus of those saying that government intervention is a must.
To defuse strong anti-Japanese sentiments NHK sent to Washington their new Chairman, Mr. Shima. His message, supported by the Japanese Prime Minister, was that all technology NHK has relating to HDTV would be offered with equal access, and with minimal licensing arrangements. Joint ventures are sought by the Japanese with American electronics manufacturers. An NHK spokesperson said that the Japanese electronics manufacturers have pledged to make all HDTV sets targeted for U,S, consumers in the U.S. This met with eyebrow raising and disbelief. Another point of view is that the ownership of a technology is the most important thing, not where the product is made.
Americans have entered the playing field.
Zenith, the last remaining U.S. owned and run consumer television manufacturer, has presented a highly plausible HDTV approach. Los Angeles-based Richard Iredale of the Del Rey group also provides an American approach and is receiving American financing to advance his system. People with no stake in those particular companies still call for more American involvement. Thomson and Philips have major R & D, manufacturing, and marketing presence in the U.S. but do not meet the test of being American controlled.
To be continued...
