|
 |
|
 |
 |
| HDTV: TRANSFORMING TV | |
 August 11, 1998 
|
||
|
|
With twice the resolution of current television sets and endless possibilities, high-definition television sets recently hit the market. Following a background report, Joel Brinkley, author of Defining Vision, discusses HDTV. The NewsHour Media Unit is funded by a grant from the Pew Charitable Trusts.
|
|
SPOKESMAN: Look at that picture. You're watching the new Panasonic -- KWAME HOLMAN: True -- most of those who stood and waited several hours were there to take advantage of the coupons and giveaways the store had advertised. But the promotion did serve its purpose -- to draw a crowd to HDTV's retail debut. SPOKESMAN: It up-converts the analog signal to digital. |
|||||||||||||||||||
| Similar to the advent of color television | ||||||||||||||||||||
|
KWAME HOLMAN: HDTV is considered the most significant BRUCE MILLER, Program Director, WHD-TV: What you will notice here is
first of all the aspect ratio is now 16 units wide by nine units high
KWAME HOLMAN: And not only a much-improved picture but CD-quality sound as well. But none of it is available right now, though a handful of television stations scattered around the country is test broadcasting digital HDTV signals. SPOKESMAN: We're getting a picture. Everything is working fine. KWAME HOLMAN: The largest broadcast networks -- ABC, NBC, BRUCE MILLER: By the end of May of 1999, the FCC requires that the top four affiliates in the top 10 markets -- so that would be 40 stations -- must be on the air; in September of '99, the top 30 markets and the top four affiliates in those markets. So now we're talking 120 stations, and it's going to continue to grow every three to six months until we reach 2003 when all the stations will have at least one digital channel associated with it. |
||||||||||||||||||||
| The cable issue | ||||||||||||||||||||
|
KWAME HOLMAN: Subscribers to direct satellite service can expect high
definition programs to begin in December or January. But in a major
setback for digital, it was revealed recently that the 65 percent of
television viewers who subscribe to cable will not be able to get HDTV.
That's largely because most cable systems' channel capacities already
are filled. In order to make room for the digital information needed
to provide high resolution pictures and sound, cable companies would
have to knock some current cable channels off the air or increase BRUCE MILLER: It means rebuilding your entire distribution plant to get the additional bandwidth -- to get you from maybe three dozen channels up to 500 channels. KWAME HOLMAN: Meanwhile, consumers have their own decisions to make.
Should they spend seven to eight thousand dollars to be the first in
the neighborhood with an HDTV, even though program choices initially
will be very limited? Should they wait until HDTV set prices drop and
digital programs become more available, or should they spend a few hundred
dollars on a box that will convert the new digital signals |
||||||||||||||||||||
KWAME
HOLMAN: Hundreds of potential customers lined up outside a San Diego
electronics store early last Thursday morning. And when the doors opened
at 10 o'clock, the first high-definition television sets in America
went on sale. 
improvement
in the television image since color was introduced 45 years ago. Digital
technology now has made it possible for broadcasters to transmit pictures
with dramatically increased clarity, offering twice the resolution of
current television sets and a bigger picture as well. Bruce Miller is
program director at WHD-TV in Washington, D.C., an experimental station
created by television broadcasters and manufacturers to test the new
digital equipment. 
rather
than a 4 by 3, which is your current standard system. This more closely
approximates the 35 millimeter movie industry, which runs closer to
18 by 9. But now in translating a film like this you no longer have
to pan and scan to where the action is occurring. You can reproduce
virtually all of it on the screen.
CBS
and Fox -- have committed to broadcasting limited HDTV programming beginning
November 1st. Some two dozen local stations in America's top 10 television
markets say they will be ready to send those digital signals along to
viewers at home.
their
system's capacity. 
and make them compatible with the TV sets already at home? Consumers
may have only until the year 2006 to decide. That's when all television
signals are mandated to become digital, and the system used for the
last 60 years is set to become obsolete.
