HDTV and the Olympics

[David Farber <farber () central cis upenn edu>]

> 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.