Standards Are Set Up On Sharpness of HDTV
nytimes.com
After 10 months of debate, shifting alliances and back-door lobbying, the nation's major television manufacturers have finally agreed on a series of revised definitions for digital television sets.
And the agreement requires two companies — Hitachi and Toshiba — to notify potential buyers that some of the television sets the makers have been advertising as high-definition TV's provide lower-resolution pictures than HDTV's sold by some other manufacturers.
In 1998, the consumer electronics industry agreed on a rule specifying that for a set to be called an HDTV, the screen must provide 1,080 lines of resolution (compared with the 480 lines on conventional sets).
In addition, the set must achieve that resolution on a wide, or "letterbox" shaped, screen.
Last year, Hitachi and Toshiba began selling digital sets with conventional nearly square screens and calling them HDTV's. When high-definition signals were displayed full screen, the sets showed them with 1,080 lines of resolution. But when the image was flattened down to a letterbox format, only 810 lines were displayed.
In December, the video board of the Consumer Electronics Association passed a new rule that would force Hitachi and Toshiba to cease labeling these sets as HDTV's. But complaints and lobbying by the two companies eventually persuaded two other manufacturers, Zenith and Sharp, to change their votes, overturning the rule. It was probably no coincidence that Zenith and Sharp buy some equipment from Hitachi and sell it under their own names.
The industry has been debating the issue since then, and finally this month the association approved a new rule.
Hitachi and Toshiba can call their sets HDTV's (a Hitachi set is shown above). But they must also prominently disclose that when high-definition signals are shown in a letterbox format, only 810 lines of resolution are being displayed.
Under the new rule, manufacturers are no longer allowed to call any sets "HDTV- ready." They are to be called high-definition sets — if they come with a digital receiver — or high-definition monitors, if a buyer must buy the digital receiver separately, as is usually the case.
JOEL BRINKLEY
New York Times
Sept. 11, 2000 |
