FYI: HDTV: Successful American Industrial Policy

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

I find this interesting. I do wonder however where the " The U.S. competitive 
secret is to develop long-range R&D" is being sited

------ Forwarded Message
Date: Sun, 30 May 93 21:55:29 -0400
From: rjs () farnsworth mit edu (Richard Jay Solomon)
Message-Id: <9305310155.AA01285 () farnsworth mit edu>
To: aree () dg13 cec be, interop () farnsworth mit edu, moredohrs () farnsworth mit edu
Subject: HDTV: Successful American Industrial Policy

The following is a paper prepared by the DOHRS staff for Rep. George
Brown, Chairman of the House Space, Science & Technology Committee,
upon his request. In the rush of events during the past couple of
weeks, it may not have been circulated to some of you, so we are
re-sending it. Please accept our apologies if you receive more
than one copy.

================================================

America's Approach to HDTV: a government-industry success story

Program on Digital Open High Resolution Systems
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

The U.S. approach to HDTV really is a success story. However,  there are 
misconceptions about the Federal and industry roles in the process. The 
Economist exemplified this confusion in its Feb. 27, 1993 issue:

"Japan and the European Community have poured huge amounts of taxpayers' 
money 
into developing their own versions of HDTV, in an effort to give their firms 
an
 edge in what could be one of the most important technologies of the next 20 
years. America's government resisted calls for subsidies. Instead it acted as 
no more than the referee for a contest financed and organized by industry 
itself to find the best HDTV system."

There are two central arguments here, both false:

1) Industry can do it best. Keep the government out of funding or designing 
technology. 

2) The current American leadership position for all-digital HDTV came about 
because government wisely kept its hands off. 

The first is ill-considered, the second ill-informed. We feel it is important 
to set the record straight.

The path-breaking American proposals for all-digital HDTV did not develop 
only 
in the commercial sector, as is often touted, but originated from a uniquely 
American partnership. For the past 20 years, ARPA, DoD, NSF, and other 
Federal 
agencies have explicitly supported work at U.S. universities and research 
centers. This technology forms the basis for the U.S. digital HDTV proposals. 
The critical work includes image compression, highspeed computing, 
communications, encryption, flat panel displays, and viewer requirements. 

In their haste to rush to market, Japanese and European firms designed HDTV 
systems which failed. Their primary intent was to serve and protect existing 
consumer electronics industries and not to advance technology. The United 
States took a longer term view 

Under pressure from their consumer electronics companies, European 
governments 
subsidized but did not direct technical work on HDTV. It was the 
short-sightedness of the existing European television manufacturing 
industries 
that led them to focus on the same obsolescent analog interlaced techniques 
which are employed by all current television systems. These techniques were 
state-of-the-art fifty years ago. They were abandoned by the computer 
industry 
more than a decade ago as inadequate for high-resolution imaging. 

Similarly, Japanese firms aimed at a short-term boost for their stagnant 
consumer electronics market and persuaded their government to coordinate over 
a
 billion dollars of corporate funding to develop NHK's analog MUSE system. 

Both the European and Japanese efforts were in vain.

Europeans and Japanese are now trying to copy U.S. technology, but they still 
do not understand that it is our process of involving government and academia 
with industry that is our main advantage. The U.S. competitive secret is to 
develop long-range R&D and allow private industry to compete on ideas -- 
centralized decision-making by government-backed private monopolies produces 
old solutions for new problems. 

The threat posed by foreign dominance of consumer electronics in the U.S. 
might
 have extended into the computer arena had our government not taken a more 
innovative course with digital HDTV. However, the distribution system in the 
U.S. for both professional and consumer video products is still dominated by 
foreign manufacturers. Therefore, it is very hard for U.S. firms with 
advanced 
and superior equipment to compete in future digital imaging markets. 
Government
 can help most here by leveling the playing field and giving American 
entrepreneurs a chance to enter the new marketplaces. 

ARPA spent approximately $200 million from 1988-1992 with very good results 
for
 future flat panel manufacturing, high-density recording devices for HDTV, 
compression technology superior to anything in Europe and Japan, and 
high-performance computer networking. This long-range, $200 million 
investment 
bought much more than the $2 Billion or so spent by the Europeans and 
Japanese 
for short-term solutions.

It is still likely that the U.S. will import tens of billions of dollars of 
consumer electronics in the foreseeable future. The need to develop 
manufacturing capacity to ensure that U.S. workers benefit from U.S. 
technology
 must be a principal motivation for Federal funding. 

Government investments can be good or bad. In the United States, HDTV is an 
example of a successful, good government investment.  


May 10, 1993

C. Johnson, L. McKnight, S. Neil, R. Neuman, R. Solomon
MIT DOHRS Program
E40-218, Cambridge, Mass.

------ End of Forwarded Message




Date: Mon, 31 May 1993 16:24:15 -0500
From: Dave Farber <farber () central cis upenn edu>
Subject: Internet Bureau of Tourism -- request for email address from SU
To: interesting-people () eff org (interesting-people mailing list)

Article 53481 (6 more) in rec.travel:
From: kav () support spb su (Andrey Kulik)
Subject: Address E-mail Internet Bureau of Tourism in USA
Message-ID: <AA2rW2iah5 () support spb su>
Date: 31 May 93 13:50:58 GMT
Sender: news-server () newserv kaija spb su
Reply-To: kav () support spb su
Organization: SUPPORT JSV (St-Petersburg)
Lines: 7


 Dear Sir!

I finding E-mail address offices and bureaus of tourism in USA.

Thanks.
Kulik Andrej e-mail kav () support spb su