HDTV Forum Notebook...

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It’s a common perception, but “not valid,” that over- the-air broadcast is inferior to cable or satellite for HDTV delivery, said Randall Hoffner, mgr.-technical & strategic planning at ABC. “The quality of the pictures on broadcast HDTV is unbeatable,” he said: “There’s no penalty taken for having a broadcast HDTV signal as opposed to a cable or satellite signal, particularly when the cable or satellite signal is starving for bits, as does happen.” Hoffner said CE retailers don’t demonstrate broadcast HDTV “as much as they should,” probably because most HDTV entertainment programming is concentrated in primetime -- not the peak selling hours for a retailer. “The antenna thing” also works against broadcast HDTV, he said. “Everybody goes into cold sweats when they think about having to put up an antenna on their roof. But a lot of times you really don’t have to do that if you live in a major metropolitan area, and you can put a little antenna on top of your TV set.” The broadcast HDTV industry needs a consumer education campaign to debunk the myths, and the NAB is “the logical body” to lead it, Hoffner said. Some 122 of 210 ABC stations are broadcasting in HDTV, representing nearly 89% coverage. All but 3 of the 122 stations are broadcasting in 720p HDTV and about 1/2 are passing Dolby Digital 5.1 multichannel audio with their HDTV video signal, he said. That 720p, at 60 frames per sec., minimizes motion artifacts is a “much-overlooked” reason why it’s superior to interlaced HDTV, particularly for sports, Hoffner said. “You will just about never see a Monday Night Football game where the guy running down the field turns into blocks,” he said.

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USDTV plans a Sept. 20 announcement on 7 new markets to be added by year-end, COO Richard Johnson said. The total of 10 markets by the end of 2004 is half the target of 20 USDTV previously stated -- itself revised down from the original 29. Johnson said the goal is to add 40 more markets before 2006. The company has more than 9,000 subscribers in the 3 markets -- Albuquerque, Las Vegas and Salt Lake City -- where it launched service in March, Johnson said. He said what’s common to the 3 markets is they're all “ATSC-friendly.” Wal-Mart, USDTV’s lone retail partner, has committed to selling USDTV set-tops in all new markets to be added, Johnson said. USDTV has positioned its service as a low-cost alternative to cable and satellite for customers unwilling to pay $40-$80 per month or more for access to channels they don’t watch. For $19.95 monthly, USDTV provides 12 cable networks plus carriage of all local DTV channels. It’s delivered over digital terrestrial in partnerships with local broadcasters. USDTV will ship 4th quarter an all-format ATSC receiver with a 5th-generation LG/Zenith demodulator, Johnson said. He said the new demodulator will allow better equalization and better filtering on the signal, which will expand the coverage area for all subscribers. Also 4th quarter, USDTV will begin broadcasting with the MPEG-4-based H.264 codec, which will make the service more bandwidth-efficient and allow incorporation of “our own HD content” into the service, Johnson said. USDTV also will intro an HD-PVR option first quarter 2005, he said.

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There’s no “harmonized” schedule for a hard switchoff of the analog TV service in Europe, although it’s believed Denmark, Italy and the U.K. favor a date some time before 2015, Adam Brown, head of the media sector at the European Commission (EC), told the Forum. Efforts to build consensus around a unified analog switchoff date “haven’t borne fruit,” and it’s likely individual EC member states will decide such policies for themselves, Brown said. If ever an agreement were reached on a hard date for switching off U.S. analog service, it will require “braver legislators” in Congress than enacted an 85% DTV penetration trigger “loophole” after strong broadcaster lobbying, said Jeffrey Hart, political science professor at Ind. U., an author of several books on the politics of digital TV. Hart said he was among those who believe Berlin isn’t a model for a U.S. analog switchoff because so few German TV viewers rely on terrestrial broadcasting compared with U.S. counterparts. Japan is targeting 2011 for its analog service shutoff, said Yuzuru Haga, pres. of the Japan Assn. for the Promotion of Digital Bcstg. and a 40-year NHK veteran. By 2011, it’s projected 100 million HD-ready DTV sets will be installed in 48 million Japanese households, Haga said. But giving Japanese authorities pause for concern about 2011 is whether the digital infrastructure will be sufficiently developed for the analog switchoff to take place and whether mainstreamed- priced DTV sets will be available to suit the last of the legacy analog holdouts, he said. He said Japanese authorities believe 120 million analog sets will still be in circulation. Moreover, progress will need to be hastened to whet Japanese consumer appetites for bigger widescreen TVs, Haga said, noting that an estimated 60% of TVs sold today in Japan are 21” or less. On DTV content protection, there’s little likelihood EC member states will follow the U.S. example and adopt a broadcast flag solution, Brown said. He said some EC members were taken aback with the discord that pervaded the proceedings of the Bcst. Protection Discussion Group and their aftermath and were likely to favor more comprehensive content protection solutions that could be applied to many forms of digital delivery, not just DTV. Haga said Japan last April began encrypting digital terrestrial broadcasts that had launched in Dec. 2003 in Nagoya, Osaka, and Tokyo. Consumers who subscribed to the service were given credit card sized decoders as a means of identity authentication and to authorize “copy-once” privileges, he said.