Future watch: A look ahead (part 2)
Jerry Whitaker
12/30/97
Broadcast Engineering
Copyright 1997 Intertec Publishing Corporation, a PRIMEDIA Company. All rights reserved.
What does all this mean? Well, from this observer's perspective, it means that broadcasters are far out in front of consumers with regard to DTV implementation. How far out? Not 10 years, certainly, but perhaps five. This situation is a problem only insofar as economics is concerned. It is this point that speaks to the Sarnoff factor.
In 1953, RCA was in the unique position that it could influence program production, distribution and reception. The company owned NBC, which owned programs and made TV sets. RCA could afford to lose tens of millions of dollars on its color TV ventures because Sarnoff believed that he would make the money back a hundred-fold, which he probably did. Sarnoff also had the power to stay the course in the face of a business line that was an embarrassing loss center.
Today's business environment is far different than it was in the 1950s and '60s. What company today can control content, distribution and reception? What company today can afford to lose money - big money - on a project for years in the hope of turning a profit on it sometime after the year 2000? To use the '90s catch phrase, "Where is the business model in this?" There is none. Not now, anyway.
There are, however, individuals and companies who see a future and are willing to put their money where their goals are. Few, however, share the broadcast-oriented perspective of a David Sarnoff. Bill Gates and Microsoft come to mind. Clearly, stations and networks wading into the DTV waters need to plan for the long haul and need to have the deep pockets to stay afloat.
The foregoing would argue for a conservative approach to DTV. But that's not what the FCC has decreed. Why has the commission insisted on a fast-track approach to DTV? Why the urgency of implementation? Politics, of course.
Political considerations In an ideal world, the design and direction of a new transmission standard would be determined by the technical merits of the proposed system. As has been demonstrated, technical considerations may not be the first priority. During the late 1980s, when concern over foreign competition was at near frenzy levels in the United States and elsewhere, the ramifications of HDTV moved beyond technology and marketing and into the realm of politics. The political questions raised by the push for HDTV promised to be more difficult to resolve than the technical ones.
One of the related political questions is that of resources. TV broadcasting consumes an enormous chunk of the VHF and UHF spectrum. There are many good reasons to recapture spectrum now used for terrestrial television for other applications, such as public safety. In politics, everything has a price. In this case, the price of DTV was rapid deployment and subsequent release of existing TV spectrum for other uses. If you want something new, you've got to give something back.
Future shock However, make no mistake about it: high-definition television via the Grand Alliance DTV system is coming to a station (or two) near you. Industry critics notwithstanding, HDTV will eventually be to NTSC what FM was to AM. Both cases represent a fundamental change in the competitive landscape. That's the good news.
The bad news is that there is no such thing as a free lunch, especially where the government is concerned. What is this "new viewing experience" going to cost broadcasters? Plenty. Problems include:
Reduced coverage, relative to the existing NTSC signal, in many cases. Replicating NTSC service with DTV is a laudable goal but, for most VHF NTSC stations that are assigned UHF DTV channels, it will likely be impractical. In almost all cases, exact duplication is technically possible, but you probably wouldn't want to be the one to pay for it. This situation can be summed up succinctly: Coverage costs money - how much coverage do you want? How much can you afford?
Fast-track implementation scenarios for major-market stations that will strain the ability of equipment vendors to design, build and install the necessary systems. Tower companies, for example, have said that there just aren't enough climbing crews to meet the FCC timetable. Consultants are scrambling to answer the calls for help. If you know anything about DTV, you're busy.
A licensing nightmare for stations in the unfortunate position of having to erect a new transmission tower. The problem is not so much from the FAA or other federal agencies, but from local governments, some of which have built reputations on being difficult to deal with. Do you want to tell your city council that you need to put up a new tower? I didn't think so.
An extremely steep learning curve for everybody involved. From the director of engineering to the news department set designer, widescreen operation in general, and DTV in particular, will require more than just a little retooling and reschooling. Problems begin right at the camera. How do you shoot a program intended for 16:9 and 4:3 viewing? There are three choices: 1) make the 4:3 look bad by using pan-and-scan, 2) make the 16:9 look bad by keeping all action centered on the screen, 3) equally compromise the 4:3 and 16:9. (It should be noted that Option 2 is known as the "Twilight Zone effect," because the characters in the scene are clustered in the center of the picture as if they're afraid of something.)
Oh yes. It will also cost a boatload of cash. Give us your checkbook; we'll give it back when we're done. In our quest for a business model for DTV, try this one on for size: "Please pay now. We'll let you know later if you're going to make any money."
The race is on
Key points of the FCC DTV implementation timetable include:
By late 1998, 26 TV stations in the country's largest cities _ representing about 30% of U.S. TV households - must begin broadcasting the Grand Alliance DTV system.
By mid-1999, the initial group is to expand to 40 and by 2000 to 120 stations.
By 2006 all of the TV stations must be broadcasting a digital signal or risk losing their FCC license.
Few industry observers believe that the timetable can be met. Fewer believe that the deadline will stick. Here again, politics triumphs over technology. Who among us is going to tell our grandmother that she has to buy a new TV set, and that on Jan. 1, 2006, her old, trusted television will cease to function? Believe me, the "Granny factor" is one of the more powerful forces in Congress.
Digital technology will continue to reshape television during the remainder of this decade. It will not take over the world. Case in point: the Internet.
Information superhypeway During the mid-1970s, a debate raged in sociological circles about a problem that experts feared would grow to dangerous proportions by the mid-1990s. Concern over this coming problem was carried in newspapers across the country and discussed on news programs over a period of some years. The best ways to tackle the problem were discussed and a number of potential solutions devised.
Are you wondering which problem I am referring to? No, it is not acid rain or overpopulation or destruction of the rain forests. The debate I am referring to revolved around what Americans would do with their expanding leisure time. Remember? The press found experts on the field to offer their concerns and proposed solutions. The futurists of the day expected that by the 1990s, we would have a four-day work week and shorter work hours per day to boot. They predicted that as the number of hours spent on the job shrank, Americans would be hard pressed to find enough activitiesto keep them happy and healthy.
The good news is that we don't have to worry about excessive, burdensome leisure time. The solution - missed by all of the futurists of the 1970s _ was increased competition from abroad, increased expectations of employers and employees and corporate downsizing.
Do you have more leisure time than you did 20 years ago? I didn't think so.
Now, let's talk about the Internet and television (read: DTV). It's not that I don't expect America and the world to be wired with fiber-optic cable and have data flying from here to there. But folks, let's be realistic.
If you believe the hype, the World Wide Web will permit businesses and at-home consumers to fling data (including audio and video ) from one place to another as simply as we make phone calls. The TV set in the living room will be transformed into a computer-driven multimedia center for entertainment and information. All of these dazzling services will be in place at some unspecified date for some unspecified price with unspecified program content.
The news media has this tendency of exploring and exploiting a story to the point that everyone is sick and tired of the subject. Such has been the case with the Internet. Reality can't keep up with the hype over what wonders are to come. Wiring communities and regions with fiber will take years or even decades; getting most TV stations in the United States on the air with DTV could take nearly as long. Figuring out how to cost-effectively use these technologies will take even longer.
Maybe I'm old fashioned - or maybe just old - but the new technologies of tomorrow have to fit into the template of what individuals and businesses do today. New technologies for video and data transfer hold tremendous potential for the future, but let's be realistic about the implementation and understand that focusing on the promise of tomorrow may cause us to miss the opportunities of today.
In short, if it looks like hype, sounds like hype and acts like hype, it's probably hype. The chances of it coming to pass are about as good as you needing therapy because of excess leisure time.
Hotel California Perhaps the best way to take stock of where we are is to view it from the perspective of history. Twenty years is a nice, round number, so welcome to the Hotel California. Twenty years ago the Eagles were flying high and Jackson Brown was Running On Empty. Disco had not yet reared its ugly head. Rap - or at least the popularized version of it _ was 15 years away. Gunsmoke had just ended a 20-year run on CBS. In Atlanta, Ted Turner had put his small-time independent station up on satellites and called it a "super station." (Yea, right. Sorry, Ted, no future there.) And Coca-Cola was badgering our senses with that annoyingly catchy jingle, "I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing."
Yours truly had just graduated college. My first job was at KCRA (Channel 3) in Sacramento. Back in those days, TV scripts were typed on five-copy carbon paper stock. The talent got one copy, the director another, the producer another, and so on. I had heard about this invention called a word processor. Wouldn't it be great to be able to rearrange text right up to an hour or so before air time? For a producer, that was the stuff dreams were made of.
In 1977, the PC did not exist. An on-location shoot meant 16mm film. The only Mac around was a hamburger. The IBM AT and its torrid 6MHz clock speed was eight years away. A laptop was where you put your kids. The concept of linking satellite programming to cable systems was just beginning to take off with the launch two years earlier of Home Box Office.
Warning: Millennium approaching The majority of you have been a part of the broadcast and video business for most or all of your professional lives. It is a business that - each day - challenges professionals to reach for new heights in the art of visual communication. Despite the many hurdles that lie ahead in 1998, despite the looming economic pressures that are being felt at all levels of broadcasting, despite the fast-track implementation of DTV, and despite the continual triumph of politics over technology, the broadcast business will survive - and even prosper. This is, after all, show biz. |
