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TODAY
11/17/97- Updated 08:45 AM ET
Lines blur between TV and PCs
It's 1999: While watching Suddenly Susan on your digital TV (DTV),
you inexplicably grow curious about Brooke Shields' early career.
No sweat: Click on her face with your remote control and a box
appears with her resume.
Your spouse, meanwhile, is checking the family's investments on the PC
when the stock market crashes. Presto: A live presidential news
conference pops up to calm frayed nerves.
The lines between TV and PC, already blurring, could disappear with
the arrival of DTV. After all, digital TVs will basically be computers
with chips, software and memory. With the addition of a chip and tuner
card, a PC can become a TV.
"All this stuff is coming together," says Zenith spokesman John Taylor.
Already, some tuner-card-equipped PCs can receive TV shows, albeit
with less-than-sharp images. And TVs can tap the Internet via products
such as WebTV and a $5,000 PC Theater, offered jointly by RCA and
Compaq. With those devices, however, the Internet flows through
phone lines and a separate computer while TV signals fly through the
air; they simply share a monitor.
In a digital world, ultra-clear TV signals and data can be broadcast and
thus received by the same computer/TV. NBC beams player statistics
along with the World Series, linking the two. Or, click on an icon to
summon a World Series site on the World Wide Web.
High stakes battle
That prospect has some observers predicting a multibillion-dollar brawl
between TV and PC makers over viewers' eyeballs and pocketbooks.
It already has spawned a debate between the two industries over signal
standards.
In TV's favor: Some digital sets rolling out next year will receive the
highest-resolution images, or true HDTV. PCs initially would capture
digital images sharper than today's analog TV picture, but not as clear
as HDTV.
Then, of course, there's the matter of lifestyle. "People want to watch
TV on a big screen from across the room in a La-Z-Boy, not in a
straight-backed chair on a 14-inch workstation," says Martin Franks,
senior vice president at CBS.
The computer industry isn't waving the white flag. Some 20% of PC
users will indeed want to switch to relevant TV programs while they're
surfing the Web or sending e-mail, says Bob Stearns, senior vice
president of Compaq, the No.1 computer maker.
What's more, he says, PCs can be hooked to larger monitors that look
just like TVs.
"But that doesn't mean I'm willing to move my PC to the living room
and sacrifice my personal workspace," argues Craig Tanner of the
Advanced Television Systems Committee.
PCs may have edge
Still, TV-equipped PCs might have a big advantage over HDTVs, since
there already are about 40 million households with PCs. Consumers
could get digital TV by tacking a few hundred dollars onto a typical
$2,000 PC price, industry officials say. HDTVs, on the other hand, will
likely start at twice that much; few are expected to be sold at first.
While the first HDTVs likely will boast the snazzier picture and sound,
PCs would sport more features such as e-mail and countless software
programs.
If it does come to a face-off between the two, don't bet against the
boob tube, says Dale Cripps, publisher of HDTV Newsletter.
"If you have nine people in the house to watch the Super Bowl and
your teen-ager has homework and wants to use the TV, the kid's going
to wind up in the hospital," Cripps says.
Nonsense, Compaq's Stearns says. Large-screen TV-capable PCs, he
says, could revolutionize personal computing.
"Mom wants to come up with recipes, dad wants to shop for a car and
the kids want to send grandma an e-mail together," he says. "With a
small computer screen, those things are not convenient, but they are
with a large screen."
The main problem for PC makers is that some broadcasters plan to
beam signals PCs may not be able to decipher.
The TV industry uses an "interlaced" format that paints every other line
across the screen, then returns to draw the lines in between. It's fast
enough (30 interlaced frames a second) that the eye sees it as a
continuous single image. PCs use a "progressive scan" format that
draws every line in order, which offers a naturally more detailed picture.
Digital technology will let TV broadcasters and manufacturers switch to
the progressive-scan format. But when buying digital cameras,
recorders and switches, "interlaced is much less expensive," CBS'
Franks says.
Also, some of the major TV networks plan to broadcast high-definition
signals, at least during prime time. Affiliates may or may not retransmit
that potent signal.
Bottom line: Hundreds of network affiliates and independent stations
may broadcast progressive or interlaced formats, at different levels of
picture quality.
TVs will translate
The good news: TVs will be able to translate the patchwork. A fancy
digital TV set will be able to display lower-grade signals.
And a low-end digital TV will capture higher-grade signals, though it
won't display them in high definition, Zenith's Taylor says.
But PCs won't be able to make the most of those conversions, industry
officials say. So your computer might get some channels and not others.
Such a scenario would dumbfound consumers who are used to
uniformity in electronics products, Cripps says.
The Federal Communications Commission has specified only that
broadcasters send out digital signals starting next year. It's up to
broadcasters and manufacturers to make it all gel.
Avram Miller, vice president of Intel, which is developing digital TV
hardware for both industries, says broadcasters would be foolish to
send out high-grade signals in the early going.
He says they would work at their optimum level only on very expensive
TVs that few consumers would buy. And they would leave PCs at least
partly in the dark.
"There are millions and millions of personal computers and if
broadcasters target the high end, there's not going to be much of an
audience for that," Miller says.
By Paul Davidson, USA TODAY
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