Zenith supports FCC mandate that DTV tuners be included in analog sets, beginning with largest sets and working down, it said in ex parte filing at Commission. “Phasing in integrated ATSC reception over time… will provide the best way to provide consumers with cost-effective products while achieving the national policy objectives,” Zenith Senior Vp Richard Lewis said: “But we cannot act unilaterally.” Company said cost of adding DTV tuners was “less than $200 and falling,” and fall was faster than decline in overall price of DTV sets. “By the time ATSC reception gravitates to small-screen TVS,” it said, “the cost of producing a digital receiver can be about the same as an analog tuner.” Zenith said mandate was necessary to allow sets that included DTV tuners to compete with low-cost set manufacturers: “The extremely price-competitive consumer electronics market demands a level playing field.”
House Commerce Committee Chmn. Tauzin (R-La.) told more than 20 members of broadcast, cable, satellite, motion picture and CE industries Mon. that he planned to introduce bipartisan, omnibus digital TV bill in fall addressing most all outstanding issues involving transition to digital TV. Although he encouraged industries to try to resolve issues among themselves, he said he no longer would stand by and wait for them. Speaking at private DTV roundtable, Tauzin said he was directing his staff to draft bill to resolve conflicts among various industries over DTV cable carriage requirements, equipment functionality and interoperability, particularly cable systems, over-air DTV tuners, ability of affiliates to broadcast network-generated high-definition programming, content protection. Tauzin spokesman Ken Johnson said, “We've made a lot of progress in a lot of areas, but it’s clear to us now that legislation will be necessary in order to complete the transition to digital.” He didn’t indicate how those issues would be resolved and which industries might fare better than others. FCC Chmn. Powell attended Tauzin’s 6th DTV roundtable but also met earlier with Tauzin for about hour, Johnson said: “They agreed that an aggressive approach is now necessary.”
FCC Chmn. Powell took second swipe at CE industry in as many days Fri., saying that its latest response on digital TV tuners “is so limited, and loaded down with so many conditions, that I believe it amounts to no commitment at all.” On Thurs., Powell had commended broadcasters, cable, satellite and others -- all except CE industry -- for moving forward with plans to comply with his voluntary plan to jump- start national DTV transition. Just hours before Powell made his latest comments, CE industry announced it was asking each of its members who sell digital TV products to include over- air DTV tuner in all digital cable-compatible TVs within 18 months. But catch was that commitment would have to follow implementation of “open, national and fully featured ‘plug- and-play’ cable standard,” which currently doesn’t exist. CE industry said most manufacturers voluntarily planned to market and promote at least one set-top box that could receive and decode digital TV signals by Dec. 31, 2003. CEA said some manufacturers were “moving aggressively” to integrate digital tuners in their TV lines -- digital, analog and/or both -- within next 2 to 3 years.
FCC should begin setting rules for single frequency networks, or Distributed Transmission (DT), NAB, MSTV, APTS and 14 other broadcasters and equipment makers said in ex parte filing. In Distributed Transmission, broadcasters use multiple lower power transmitters operating on same channel as primary transmitter, rather than trying to cover entire area with one high-power signal. Cell-like transmitter network can be used to replace some translators and satellites and to provide more uniform coverage of reception area at lower overall power. DT takes advantage of adaptive equalizers built into DTV tuners to avoid problems caused by signals from multiple transmitters arriving on single channel. Equalizer chooses best signal and simply blocks out others, negating impact of interference. Advanced TV Technology Center has been working on DT for years. First multiple transmitter system is under construction in State College, Pa., area under FCC experimental license. Ex parte filing said DT could: (1) Provide more uniform and higher power signals over wider area while causing less interference outside reception area. (2) Fill in signal gaps. (3) Solve other interference problems. (4) Enable more set-top antennas to receive DTV. (5) Potentially allow pedestrian and mobile reception of DTV. Group said it understood FCC was about to open rulemaking on digital operation of LPTV and translators and said DT should be considered as part of rulemaking. It said ATSC already was developing technical standards for DT. Key issues to be resolved in rulemaking, it said, are granting primary status for DT transmitters (rather than secondary status for LPTV, translators and boosters), setting interference rules, handling other technical issues. Groups signing ex parte filing said that, while they supported general concept of DT, “they may differ on the specifics of how it may be implemented.”
Cross-section of industry executives said they had reached consensus on how to protect digital broadcast content from unauthorized retransmission over Internet. But it was apparent from report they released Tues. that consensus was far from unanimous on subject. Many companies and groups that were part of negotiating process objected to final agreement, citing problems with almost every aspect. Report by Broadcast Protection Discussion Group (BPDG) -- composed of movie, TV, consumer electronics and other executives -- said there was “substantial agreement” on use of redistribution control descriptor established earlier by Advanced TV Systems Committee (ATSC) for signal protection for digital TV (DTV) content. Report was sent to Copy Protection Technical Working Group, which is expected to submit it to Congress for possible legislation. BPDG said it didn’t think it was appropriate venue to address enforcement issues, so it recommended establishing parallel group to work on those questions.
NCTA pitched “common ground” in speech Wed. to Advanced TV Systems Committee (ATSC) annual meeting in D.C. ATSC has worked for development of voluntary specifications for advanced TV systems used by terrestrial broadcasters on DTV, data broadcasting, other technologies. “Nowhere is the need for consensus -- for finding common ground among our industries -- more important than in the transition from analog to digital television,” Pres. Robert Sachs said. “Our businesses are converging in ownership, in content and in technology. And while we compete vigorously in the marketplace -- for ad dollars and viewers -- we also must work together to make the next stage of advanced television a reality.” Sachs said digital transition was “not as simple as saying that if every cable operator carries every broadcaster’s digital TV signal,” goal would be achieved quickly, pointing out that 16 million noncable TV households would have to buy integrated DTVs or DTVs with set-top decoders just to get to 85% digital threshold. Sachs said cable was first to fully support FCC Chmn. Powell’s DTV plan, and that cable’s digital capacity wasn’t unlimited, saying high-speed Internet, cable telephony and other services must compete for space on cable plant. NAB Pres. Edward Fritts said broadcasters were leading DTV transition, with 410 stations on air and another 700 DTV transmitters on order. In top 30 markets, 113 of 119 network-affiliated digital stations are on air and that number would be higher were it not for terrorist attack in N.Y. that knocked off some DTV signals there, Fritts said. He said more than 86% of homes in U.S. had access to at least one DTV signal and nearly half were in markets with at least 4 DTV signals. He said NAB was first to support Powell plan, although he said it would seek amendments and modifications if Congress were to adopt his plan as blueprint for legislation. He said NAB would continue to insist that manufacturers include DTV tuners in sets, that cable operators provide full carriage of all free, local DTV signals in their entirety, and that cable MSOs not be allowed to meet their pledge to carry 5 channels of HDTV by carrying Discovery 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5. “Cable stripping out or degrading the quality of a free broadcast signal should not be an option,” Fritts said.
WOW Digital TV is touting its DTV service as low-cost solution to lack of DTV receivers and as inexpensive way for DTV stations to use signal to provide more content and generate new revenue. Plan is to offer DTV receiver boxes to consumers for $199, which is $400-$600 cheaper than other boxes for displaying DVD-quality DTV signal on analog sets. Boxes also can display all 18 ATSC video formats on DTV- capable display device that lacks DTV tuner.
ATSC is expected to conduct field trials of rival enhanced VSB (E-VSB) technologies from Philips and Zenith- NxtWave alliance and set standard by midyear, Zenith CEO Tookjoo Lee said. ATSC had been expected to establish standard by spring and now is setting up field trials at 2 locations, one of them Washington, D.C., Zenith spokesman said. E-VSB is slight alteration of now-standard 19.4 Mbps data rate for HDTV. E-VSB slows data rate to 14-15 Mbps so signal-to-noise ratio is reduced to 9-11 dB from 15 dB. Philips and Zenith-NxtWave alliance are last competitors remaining in field that once had 8 proposals. Zenith and NxtWave signed agreement last fall under which former will administer licensing program. License is free for companies with existing VSB pacts, Zenith spokesman said. Zenith and NexWave will divide royalty revenue, although former is expected to receive majority, industry sources said.
Advanced TV Systems Committee approved new standard for next-generation broadcast TV datacasting, it said. Standard allows transmission of IP protocol Internet-type data via multicast TV signals. It “truly establishes a bridge between Internet protocols and ATSC protocols,” said Regis Crinon, principal architect of standard -- www.atsc.org/standards.html.
Consumer electronics makers shipped 1,459,731 DTV products to dealers in 2001, of which 97,157 were integrated sets and 196,564 were set-top decoders, CEA said. Volume of integrated DTVs and set-tops shipped in 2001 was up 1,455% and 434%, respectively, from comparable 2000 span, CEA said. DTV products shipped since introduction through Dec. 31 totaled 2,498,347, including 361,828 integrated sets and set- tops, said CEA, which estimated that 16% of DTV products sold since launch had ATSC reception capability. By comparison, CEA said, only 9% shipped through 2000 were ATSC-capable. CEA projected 2.1 million DTV products would be sold in 2002, 4 million in 2003, 5.4 million in 2004, 8 million in 2005, 10.5 million in 2006.