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To: Scott Lerner who wrote (4406)	2/10/1998 9:27:00 AM
From: Robert Utne	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 6570

Consumers to get HDTV receivers this Fall. 'Gizmos' to follow: Electronic Engineering Times: New York - Several holes remain to be filled in the technical specifications for digital high-definition TV on both the production and receiver sides, a senior Sony executive warned here last week. As a result, the market's first digital-TV receivers, slated to arrive this fall, won't support such well- publicized services as conditional-access (pay) TV, data broadcasting and interactivity, he said.... But some players downplayed the importance of the incomplete specs, asserting that first-generation digital TV was not expected to offer support for all envisioned services and that TV receivers can be designed for upgrading to various services as those become available... ATSC chairman Robert Graves said the loose ends are not cause for undue concern. "It was never guaranteed that the initial receivers would have the capability to receive [interactive, datacast and pay] services," he said. "No one will be offering pay services by this fall anyway. We'd have to wait five years to introduce a receiver if we were going to wait for everything to be rolled out, and we can't do that." The FCC mandates that TV broadcasters begin digital broadcasting of at least some content by the end of 1998. NBC has promised to provide some high- definition and some converted standard-definition TV programming at its DTV rollout in late fall; PBS has said it plans to take full advantage of HDTV features and to offer such service as datacasting and multicasting as early as possible. But most broadcasters have referred to datacast and other services as "niche" markets, for which they expect a slow ramp. Graves asserted last week that the industry is "marching rapidly down the road toward the fall DTV introduction. There are a number of stations that are already broadcasting, and 24 stations are committed to be on the air by Nov. 1. "I think we'll see receivers in the September-October time frame. The digital transmission standard has been nailed down since 1995, and that's what companies are building receivers to." ......