Brad Fortner of the Rogers Communications Centre, Ryerson Polytechnic University, Toronto, and promotions advisor for the Toronto Section of smpte, files this report from smpte’s 32nd Advanced Motion Imaging Conference, held Feb. 5-7 in Toronto.

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With the digital convergence occurring across much of the broadcast communications sector, a lively panel discussion on ‘The Future of Television’ highlighted smpte’s 32nd Advanced Motion Imaging Conference.

Moderated by Charles Poynton, the panel featured seven prominent industry engineers currently working in various areas of broadcasting. They presented diverse opinions on technological issues, focusing primarily on the delivery of digital television. It provided a unique opportunity to survey the landscape in this rapidly changing field.

‘Multichannel delivery systems that feature hundreds of channels are the only way of the future,’ opened Terry Snazel of ExpressVu. ExpressVu is Canada’s direct-to-home satellite service and is one of only two systems currently delivering digital television in Canada.

‘Consumers, who have voted with their pocketbooks, want variety and will not go back to 10 channels and rabbit ears even if they have 50,000 scan lines. Instead, they will prefer a single integrated system that provides a single bill,’ he said.

The industry is on the brink of a battle for subscribers between the various competitive delivery systems, said Snazel, who believes success will come to those who deliver the best combination of choice, mpeg quality, system navigation, and value for money and service.

‘Until cable goes completely digital, including a sophisticated set-top box that provides navigation, they will be playing catch-up,’ he concluded.

Digital cable deployment

Roger Keay of Rogers Cable Systems countered Snazel’s presentation by focusing on developments in the deployment of digital cable.

‘It’s been a slow start, but if you take a look in North America it’s rolling along quite well,’ he said.

Keay feels the leader in this area is Tele-Communications in the u.s., which has a major commitment to have 90% of its head ends digitally ready by the end of 1998. He expects to see a million set-top boxes deployed to handle the digital signals cable can provide.

‘It’s not an experimental product, it’s a proven product with interactive guide that allows for channel expansion without having to rebuild the cable system. A lot of work is going on for these boxes to provide full-time Internet access as well,’ he said.

Keay indicated that the cable industry is pinning much of its hope on Cable Labs’ ‘Open Cable’ initiative. Cable Labs is a not-for-profit organization supported by the majority of cable operators in North America. They are currently developing cable interface standards to which all cable operators in North America can work.

‘The reason we have Open Cable is because we don’t want to have a continuation of proprietary standards on our digital cable devices,’ said Keay. ‘The hope and expectation is that by year’s end there will be a set of interface specifications for the development of cable boxes.’

Keay believes these specifications will migrate directly into consumer devices such as tv sets and vcrs, allowing them to access the additional services provided by digital cable.

On delivery of high-definition formats over cable, Keay noted that Thompson has built a direct broadcast satellite feed into its high-definition receivers and Hughes Electronics Corporation is providing the bandwidth for two high-definition channels to be delivered by its direct-to-home satellite system.

To ensure delivery of hdtv is possible over cable, Keay indicated that research is underway to decrypt hdtv signals delivered via cable so they can be delivered to home receivers via IEEE-1394.

Keay closed his presentation noting that hdtv images and interactive data services will merge over time. He feels strongly that high-definition sets are not going to miss interactive services, especially in the ‘early adopters’ marketplace that generally requires all the gadgets.

Pretty pictures vs interactive

services

Tom McMahon of Microsoft supported cable tv as currently having the best business case for delivering digital and interactive services to the home. He suggested that the improved pictures that hdtv delivers may be a tough sell against standard tv with interactive services.

‘I personally believe that this [digital tv] is going to quickly become a business discussion and less of the technical discussion it is now,’ said McMahon. ‘It’s not about pretty pictures. I think it’s about increased services and value to consumers, who will soon be able to start voting with their pocketbooks.’

He wondered if consumers would pay $6,000 for a display that produces pretty pictures or would they choose a standard display that provides for digital reception and interactive services.

‘Recent surveys,’ he noted, ‘indicated that 86% of consumers would not purchase tv sets that lack information services.’

McMahon feels that between Open Cable and cable industry efforts, millions of set-top boxes will be deployed that deliver digital television and Internet via cable tv. Once deployed, business will focus on this method of delivery to the home.

‘The cable opportunity provides the biggest market share that one could possibly go after – 70% of American homes,’ he said.

McMahon also mentioned that on the production side most media will be produced and then converted to various formats for emission. He feels that the 480-line progressive standard will be the first higher definition standard adopted by the tv industry for production.

Forces shaping TV’s future

Ian Tapp of NDS America provided a longer-term view on the future of television. He explained that technology advances, market demand and legislation will shape the future of television.

nds provides compression and conditional access systems for digital television systems. Speaking from the perspective of a technology provider, Tapp speculated, from a sound historical perspective, that over the next 10 years ram will get cheaper, processing will get faster, and transmission speeds will increase.

‘What I think this means is it’s going to become economically viable for viewers to pull content from providers, store it locally, and view it whenever they wish.’

Tapp also noted that increases in processing speeds would add more sophistication to program content.

‘We could be shortly concerning ourselves with what follows hdtv, perhaps 3D tv,’ he said.

Tapp feels the most important technological advance might very well be the ‘Intelligent User Interface’ in the viewer’s home. Not only would it assist in obtaining content from the various push-and-pull sources, but it would learn the individual viewer’s habits and deliver appropriate programming.

Tapp closed his comments observing that legislation is usually designed to increase competition, and in the era of corporate mergers, it will probably continue in that manner for the foreseeable future.

Making the digital transition

Much of the discussion also focused on how existing broadcasters will make the transition into the digital environment.

David Hunter of ctv, speaking on behalf of a national terrestrial broadcaster, talked about the transition and the changing role of national broadcasters.

‘The objective of ctv,’ said Hunter, ‘is to have a fully digital network all across this country.’

Hunter noted that most advances to digital have been in the area of process and production, and the real challenge that broadcasters face is migrating existing facilities to digital.

‘In September we put vtv (Vancouver Television) on the air. It is a completely digital plant from start to finish. The only part that’s not digital is the link from the output of the station to the transmitter and the transmission process. This is a digital-ready station,’ said Hunter.

‘We’re also converting our network origination facility to a digital center that includes digital vtrs, file servers and digital distribution to our affiliates. Eventually our affiliates will convert (to digital).

‘As far as ctv’s concerned, we’ll deliver MPEG-2 dvc via satellite to our affiliates.’

Hunter also noted that part of ctv’s business is changing to a ‘narrowcasting’ scenario and that new technology is changing the production process. Over the last year ctv’s had the addition of Outdoor Life, The Comedy Network and 24-hour headline news channel CTV NEWS 1. These channels have incorporated newer file-server technology that changes the operational mode of a channel.

In the case of NEWS 1, they have moved away from the traditional approach of studio segments going live-to-air.

‘Basically all the segments have been prerecorded including the news story introductions,’ he explained. ‘Working in this manner allows the stories, along with their leads, to be adjusted in each 15-minute segment and the announcer records or updates the leads as required.

‘This way the newscast looks a little different each time around. It’s been a challenge to work using this nonlinear approach and has involved a buy-in period from the staff involved in the process,’ said Hunter, adding:.

‘We’re also integrating Internet teleconferencing in our production. We’ve already used the Internet in newscasts for two way interviews.’

Hunter concluded his presentation by noting that the challenge of converting 4:3 aspect ratio material to 16:9 remains.