PBS says Value Adding VBI may compete with future HDTV
HDTV launches,
plagued by major
concerns
By Robert Lemos
10/30/98 08:51:00 PM
Digital TV arrives on Sunday, but
despite its high-quality picture,
high-definition television's future is
extremely fuzzy.
The problem? Companies are discovering
quickly that there are better ways to use
their precious allocated frequency
spectrum than producing an ultra-crisp
picture.
"The consensus is that HDTV -- to a large
extent -- is going to be put on the back burner," said Josette Bonte,
vice president of new media and entertainment practice at media
researcher Ryan Hankin Kent Inc. "The trend seems to be towards
broadcasting regular digital TV and then using the rest of the
spectrum for other types of content." On Sunday, at the behest of
the Federal Communications Commission, 23 stations in the top 10
broadcast markets will start transmitting high-definition digital TV
signals. The Nov. 1 rollout marks the beginning of the move to digital
TV, due to be completed in 2006, at which time analog TV spectrum
reverts to the government.
What's wrong with this picture?
Even with the FCC prodding the industry with a regulatory spear,
industry players have doubts about the medium.
It's a matter of money, said Steve Guggenheimer, product manager
for Microsoft Corp.'s digital TV group.
The bandwidth is free, but the cost of the equipment is not. "Every
camera, every broadcast tower and every receiver in the home has
to be changed," said Guggenheimer. Total tally: about $100 billion
over 10years.
Facing that hefty number, the industry needs a product that is
guaranteed to make money -- and Guggenheimer maintains that
HDTV is not it. "If you are only providing more definition, you are not
giving the advertiser any more value," he said.
One analyst disagreed. "More realistic ads could be worth more,"
said Josh Bernoff, an analyst at market watcher Forrester Research
Inc. "If the medium can show what it is like driving in, say, a Ford
Explorer, then that may be worth something."
Still, the audience is not biting. To date, only a handful of
consumers have actually shelled out the $7,000 to $15,000 for an
HDTV. "It's like the tree falling in the forest -- no one is around to
hear it," said Cynthia Brumfield, senior analyst with new media
watcher Paul Kagan Associates Inc.
Less definition, more vision
PC industry giants Intel Corp. and Microsoft (Nasdaq:MSFT), which
abandoned independent plans, are now working with the TV industry
finding ways to capitalize on the move to digital. But their plans
don't necessarily support HDTV, which takes up the entire spectrum
with video, and does not allow for other kinds of information to be
transmitted simultaneously.
Last Monday, Intel (Nasdaq:INTC) announced that it would be
working with public TV network PBS to stream more than 300MB of
additional data during the Nov. 10 and 11 broadcast of Ken Burns's
documentary on Frank Lloyd Wright.
The additional content will include interviews with Wright by CBS
correspondent Mike Wallace, recorded in the 1950s; virtual tours of
three historic Wright creations: Fallingwater, the Guggenheim
Museum and Unity Temple; and additional footage and other content
not included in the documentary.
"The marriage of broadband digital delivery and powerful computing
devices enables something better than TV and better than the
Internet," said Ron Whittier, senior vice president, Intel's content
group, in a statement.
"The PC companies have always been a proponent of adding
interactive content to digital TV," said RHK's Bonte. "If HDTV fails to
take off, they win."
The lion that squeaked
Even if HDTV fizzles out, digital TV is destined to be everywhere.
"TV stations gain a host of benefits from digital TV," said Brumfield.
"Primary among them is flexibility." TV broadcasters can add
interactive content to the broadcast, compress the programming to
fit multiple channels in a single allocated piece of the TV spectrum,
or create additional services such as video-on-demand.
Which way will they go? So far, not even the broadcasters know.
"We are working with a variety of formats," said Kevin Dando,
spokesman for public broadcaster PBS.
For the next few years, bet hedging will be the sport of choice
among broadcasters.
"It is too early to tell if high-definition TV will be more successful
than interactivity on the TV," said Guggenheimer. "For the next few
years, there will be trials of all the formats |
