IP: DIGITAL COMMERCE / By DENISE CARUSO

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

>          June 17, 1996
>
>          DIGITAL COMMERCE / By DENISE CARUSO
>
>          In Debate on Advanced TV, FCC Can Be Assertive
>
>          [I] n today's escalating struggle for control of the
>              nation's communications networks, the Federal
>          Communications Commission is where the battle between
>          commercial and public interest rages visibly -- and
>          where the winners can be different one day to the next.
>
>          For example, the FCC lost a big chunk of influence last
>          week when a three-judge federal panel in Philadelphia
>          resoundingly rejected as unconstitutional the
>          Communications Decency Act, which was intended to ban
>          so-called "indecent" speech on the Internet. The FCC had
>          been designated as the CDA police.
>
>          On the heels of the CDA decision (which the justice
>          department plans to appeal directly to the Supreme
>          Court) comes another challenge for the FCC, in the form
>          of the long-awaited broadcasting standard for
>          high-definition television, or HDTV.
>
>          A reluctant FCC is under pressure from the broadcast
>          industry and consumer electronics manufacturers to make
>          a final decision on an HDTV standard by Aug. 12 --
>          despite opposition to the proposed standard by today's
>          fastest-growing industries, including the computer and
>          software industries, and those in medical imaging,
>          electronic publishing, graphics and entertainment.
>
>          The result of all this self-interest is very likely to
>          be a half-baked standard for digital television that
>          ignores the potential of today's digital networks -- one
>          that we'll be stuck trying to patch up with baling wire
>          and chewing gum for 20 years.
>
>          How did this happen?
>
>          In 1991 the FCC agreed to allocate a portion of the
>          broadcast spectrum for the transmission of HDTV
>          broadcasts. As part of that decision it also agreed to
>          reserve these channels for existing broadcasters instead
>          of opening up the spectrum to newcomers.
>
>          The theory was that existing broadcasters could bring
>          new, high-definition programming to market more quickly
>          than newcomers -- even though they had no incentive,
>          since there was no demand.
>
>          (Of course, because of the last five years of explosive
>          growth in data networks, this decision now has
>          broadcasters holding deed to a goldmine. Nowhere is it
>          written that they can only use the new spectrum for
>          video services; as a result, once the standard is agreed
>          upon, they can deliver whatever data services and
>          programming they want, to televisions or personal
>          computers.)
>
>          As work on the standard progressed, it became apparent
>          that a Japanese HDTV standard -- a hybrid of analog and
>          digital technology called Muse -- was a shoo-in.
>
>          So a group of companies and researchers, including AT&T,
>          General Instrument, the Massachusetts Institute of
>          Technology, Thomson Consumer Electronics and the Sarnoff
>          Research Center formed what they called the "Grand
>          Alliance," to contribute the best of their research
>          toward a standard that would not only beat Muse but
>          would be fully digital, allowing any kind of data to be
>          piped over telephone, cable and wireless data networks
>          for display on computers as well.
>
>          But the broadcast industry's engineers who were asked to
>          participate in this process were not happy with a number
>          of the features required to make this vision a reality.
>
>          Most notably they were loath to abandon a TV-display
>          technology called interlacing, which paints the screen
>          in two alternating scans, in favor of the computer
>          industry's progressive scan, which sends information to
>          the screen in a steady stream and eliminates screen
>          flicker.
>
>          They put up such a fuss about interlace -- one trade
>          journal wrote that it would be "decades" before any
>          camera would be able to shoot in a progressive-scan
>          format -- that the alliance agreed to leave it in the
>          specification as a "transitional" technology to get the
>          issue resolved.
>
>          Since then, one alliance member -- MIT, in conjunction
>          with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency --
>          has proved that prediction wrong. MIT engineers invented
>          a camera that was capable of shooting 60 frames a second
>          (movies today are shot at 30 frames a second) using the
>          progressive scan format.
>
>          The camera, now manufactured by Polaroid, won a
>          best-of-show award at the National Association of
>          Broadcasters convention earlier this year.
>
>          The timing could not have been better for the FCC
>          chairman, Reed Hundt, who has been looking for a good
>          reason to stop the proposed digital television standard.
>          He's quite cranky about being forced to "enshrine in
>          law" any kind of technical standard in the midst of such
>          rapid innovation.
>
>          "The Grand Alliance was a creation of the broadcasting
>          industry, the primary purpose of which was to make sure
>          they could get the spectrum" for free, says Hundt. "It's
>          not widely reported that way, but that's my opinion."
>
>          In addition, Hundt says, plenty of industries are not
>          buying into the standard already. "I got a letter from
>          Kodak saying, don't do this. I got a letter from Steven
>          Spielberg saying don't do this. Bill Gates came in and
>          said that the standard we've tentatively adopted isn't
>          the standard that the computer industry would like --
>          that it needs progressive scanning.
>
>          "It's not an industry consensus if only broadcasters and
>          manufacturers agree."
>
>          Hundt believes the various industries can come up with
>          an open, nonproprietary standard for digital television
>          that works for everyone, without the FCC mandating a
>          standard now.
>
>          Whether or not this happens, Hundt wants to stop short
>          of mandating a standard now.
>
>          "If there isn't an adequate business plan that addresses
>          reaching PCs and using the power of the digital
>          technology," says Hundt, "the real tragedy is that no
>          one will be able to use the spectrum well.
>
>          "It's the most valuable spectrum that exists on the
>          planet -- it's like Manhattan. I'm willing to give it
>          away for a necklace, but I'd like to build Manhattan on
>          it, not dairy farms."
>
>                 Copyright 1996 The New York Times Company
>
>         ----------------------------------------------------------


Note, movies are shot at 24 frames per sec. (though sometimes tv movies are
shot at 30 fps), but that error doesn't change the argument any. FYI,
television is 59.94 interlaced _fields_ per second, or 29.97 frames per
second. The proposed HDTV GA standards essentially keep this obsolete
frequency pair, which causes flicker, among other artifacts.


At 60 frames per second progressively scanned, the picture is virtually
artifact free -- it looks like a 35 mm slide that MOVES! And it can be
displayed on any of 30-40 million exisiting S-VGA monitors that are already
out there -- no new sets have to be manufactured to hit the ground running.




Adopting a progressive standard would kick start HDTV and put it in the
computer industry's hands. Furthermore progressive is easier to compress
than interlace, facilitating transmission and storage. Adopting an
interlaced standard would probably retard HDTV, which may be exactly what
the broadcasters want so they could use their spectrum for data services in
the "interim."


Richard Solomon