Interesting People mailing list archives
HDTV and the Olympics
From: David Farber <farber () central cis upenn edu>
Date: Thu, 1 Jul 1993 06:15:56 -0500
From a source.
___________________________________________________________________________ The EIA, led by Sid Topol, CEO Scientific Atlanta, has been lobbying the Whitehouse to support rolling out an American HDTV at the '96 olympics in Atlanta. John Sculley referred an EIA letter for me to answer on his behalf. Here's the letter I sent with John's approval: June 18, 1993 Mr. Gary J. Shapiro Group Vice President Consumer Electronics Group Electronic Industries Association 2001 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW Washington, DC 2006-1813 Dear Gary, I am writing you at the request of John Sculley's office. I have been principally responsible for Apple's contributions to the development of an American ATV (advanced television standard). Apple Computer does not support the goal of transmission of commercial HDTV broadcast by the 1996 Olympics. To do so would require the use of existing interlace scan technology. Apple believes that incorporation of interlace scan technology would seriously compromise the value and benefits of a digital advanced television system. America has a historic opportunity to develop a fully interoperable television system benefiting a larger community of stakeholders within the national information Infrastructure (NII) . Such a system, based on progressive scanning technology could have a significant probability of becoming a worldwide standard. We believe a compromise system, based on interlace scan, would most certainly become quickly obsolete by any number of competitve systems currently under development, and therefore of little value. I have enclosed for your consideration a letter endorsing this view signed by the Chief Executive Officers of America's 13 largest computer companies. I hope you and EIA will join the larger community of Americans working towards a universally useful advanced television system based on sound technical principals rather than artifically imposed deadlines. Yours truly, APPLE COMPUTER, INC. Michael Liebhold Senior Scientist Media Architecture Research Advanced Technology Group Enclosures cc: John Sculley Statement of Mike Liebhold Senior Scientist, Media Architecture Research Apple Computer, Inc. Hearing Before the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Science, Space, and Technology Subcommittee on Technology, Environment, and Aviation Washington D.C.. 20515 June 24, 1993 Apple Computer, Inc. 20525 Mariani Avenue Cupertino, CA 95014 Advanced Television and the National Information Infrastructure. Michael Liebhold June 24, 1993 The development of a U.S. Advanced Television System (ATV) within the FCC standards process offers a rare and historic opportunity to establish a technical framework that will accelerate U.S. leadership in information technologies and stimulate the creation of the National Information Infrastructure (NII). Interoperability of applications and technologies across a variety of industry sectors is the key to successful implementation of the NII. A well designed ATV standard that will allow interactive information to be easily conveyed, viewed, and manipulated across a variety of consumer and professional settings and applications is essential to the development and wide deployment of the applications that will bring the benefits of the NII to individuals and institutions. An interoperable ATV standard will accelerate the development of a wide range of new societally valuable information-based products and services based on new combined functionalities of Televisions, telephones and computers. One of he key technical components of an ATV standard is the image format. Using progressive scan transmission, entire picture frames are transmitted sequentially. Interlace scanned pictures are transmitted scan line by scan line alternatively. In it's final report 2/12/93, to the Federal Communications Commission, the special panel of the Advisory Committee on Advanced Television agreed that: "progressive scan / square pixel transmission is considered beneficial to creating synergy between terrestrial ATV and national information initiatives." Also, In a letter 5/20/93 to the Federal Communications Commission The Computer Systems Policy Project, (representing the Chief Executive Officers of America's 13 largest computer systems companies urged the commission ". . .to support maximum interoperability for ATV by adopting a standard based on progressive scan transmission and square pixels. On the other hand, powerful video equipment companies are are quietly lobbying for an interlace-scan specification. An early, interlaced, format ATV would allow these companies to sell their existing product line of older generation equipment to American broadcasters and cable companies. The computer industry tried to use interlace scan years ago, but found that the display flicker produced on fine text, lines, and graphics rendered it unusable. We have subsequently learned that ergonomically acceptable information displays require progressive scan. In an apparent attempt to compromise, The Grand Alliance has announced a preliminary intent to support both interlaced and progressive scan transmission. A serious protest from MIT (One of the members of the 'Grand Alliance') is included in the agreement and press release: "MIT believes that digital video broadcast that exclusively uses progressive scan from the beginning is in the best interest of the United States." The Grand Alliance is proposing to include a wide variety of formats. These include interlaced and progressive scan, square and non-square pixels, and frame rates of 24, 29.97, 30.0, 59.94, and 60.0 Hz. Such an approach is claimed to be "interoperable" with all of these formats. However, if all of these formats are used, any given receiving device will need to decode all of them. This adds cost to every receiver by requiring that all formats can be decoded. If a lower cost receiver is offered which only decodes some of these formats, then any programs or services originated in the other formats could not be received. This is the opposite of interoperability. True interoperability would require that each receiver be able to receive all services and programs. A lower cost receiver should be able to receive all services adequately but with reduced quality. A premium receiver should be able to receive all services at their highest available quality. Of particular concern are the proposals to include non-square pixels, and interlace. Also of concern are the frame rates of 29.97, 30, 59.94, and 60 Hz, which are somewhat incompatible with the needs of computer displays which require rates in the 70 to 80 Hz range. The computer industry and other imaging industries -- including suppliers to the health care industry and the education community -- are willing and able to invest immediately in high resolution technologies. Many of these communities are already using or adopting high resolution systems well in advance of the television industry. The wide application of such systems in broadcast ATV will generate economies of scale that will reduce or eliminate the high cost of converting signals across disparate environments. If the Commission establishes a standard broadcast image framework that will allow many communities to share the benefits and economies of scale of sub-component systems, such a system will be widely adopted. In it's current form, the Grand Alliance compromise could result in a defacto interlaced standard. The new standard will clearly benefit video equipment manufacturers, but offer little value to the many stakeholders of the National Information Infrastructure: ~ Educational media and computing ~ Medical image communications ~ Publishing and page graphics ~ Business image communications ~ Scientific and Defense image communications A progressive scan ATV system could provide substantial economic and qualitative advantages in areas that are of critical importance to the future of the United States in the areas of education, health and human services, commerce, and U.S. competitiveness -- and even to the defense of our nation. These communities are already using or adopting high resolution systems well in advance of the television industry. An interlaced- scan ATV standard would inhibit the sharing of the economies of scale of subcomponent technologies. In Kindergarten through 12th Grade (K-12), computers are becoming a significant tool for improving the efficiency of the educational system. The current computer capabilities include text, color images, interactivity, and some motion video on the screen. A progressive scan ATV could augment these existing capabilities with high quality video images as ATV develops. Classroom computers will increasingly incorporate video connections for remote learning, and text accessed from remote libraries. These improvements can yield a significant improvement in the quality, breadth, and economic efficiency of education. An electronic textbook in a K-12 classroom is an excellent test for the Interoperability of a proposed system. There is growing evidence that a 'multimedia' textbook will be an effective instructional tool. We can envision a page of text (requiring progressive scan, ) a video illustration, and a scientific image (progressive all displayed on the same screen). Educational media includes both 'popular' media and 'professional' media. An all-progressive scan ATV would minimize the cost of converting formats. On the other hand an interlace standard will pass costs on to schools and parents. Interlace and problems with frame rate can result in significant increase in cost for every receiving device. Each classroom receiver would need to do expensive processing to de-interlace and to convert frame rates. The frame rates of 29.97, 30, 59.94 and 60 Hz are intended for a screen display rate of 59.94 or 60 Hz, which has far too much flicker for long-term classroom use. Computer screens must operate at refresh rates in the 70 to 80 Hz range in order to have acceptable flicker for long-term educational use. For such rates, ATV frame rates which are compatible are needed. The rates currently being proposed by the Grand Alliance are not compatible. If This is not changed, there will be a substantial increase in cost and degradation of quality for computer use in the classroom. Estimates of cost increase for each classroom receiver range from 20% to 50% increased cost, if the ATV proposal is not adjusted to be more interoperable. Further, the quality of presentation is significantly reduced, even with the higher cost. The Grand Alliance claims that channel limitations requires them to transmit interlaced scan. Yet, two weeks ago, at the NCTA (National Cable Television Association) , Zenth Corporation demonstrated two HDTV progressive-scan signals delivered over one 6mnz video channel. There is clearly enough channel capacity in cable systems serving a majority of Americans to eliminate any need for interlace-scan. The broadcast channel does , indeed, suffer from greater signal interference - but it currently serves a diminishing audience of viewers. The Process: The existing Advisory Committee on Advanced Television must carefully consider whether it is really a good idea to require viewers, cable companies and broadcasters to invest billions in an interim ATV implementation that is already considered obsolete by a very significant majority of technical experts. The costs of interoperability need to be justified by the Grand Alliance. The current Advisory Committee on Advanced Television is not equipped in any way to evaluate the benefits of the Grand Alliance System to NII constituencies.The Advisory committee is dominated by equipment vendors, and has no representation whatsoever from NII stakeholder communities. ~ Educational media and computing ~ Medical image communications ~ Publishing and page graphics ~ Business image communications ~ Scientific and Defense image communications This committee anticipated the need for a separate independent advisory. Late in 1991, Congress passed legislation (authored by this committee) instructed the President to form an Advisory Commission on High Resolution Imaging Systems. within the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. On Jan. 19, 1993, (a day before the Clinton Inauguration) President Bush appointed a list of people to serve on the Advisory. As far as I know that group has never convened. Summary The Grand Alliance makes things simpler - there's the private interest of 'the commercial proponent' and there's the public interest. I urge this committee to quickly investigate and advise the president on how to re-form and empower the Advisory Commission on High Resolution Imaging Systems to investigate and report on costs of interoperability of the Grand Alliance System to NII constituencies as well as ensuring the role NII stakeholder communities in the design and testing of a US ATV. There should be no question that interoperability is an essential element of the U.S. Advanced Television Standard.
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