Backchannelmedia

BusinessWest

By Bednar, Joseph

A congressionally imposed deadline of Dec. 31, 2006 for full conversion from analog to digital television, or DTV, will not be met. Already, the House and Senate are debating new timetables - either late 2008 or early 2009. But despite the delay, due largely to limited consumer interest in the new technology, the revolution in television is certainly underway. And as they say in this business, viewers should stay tuned for new developments.

For a technology that has been so pervasive and influential in society, television has undergone strikingly few changes in the past half-century.

Sure, black and white programming gave way to color early on, picture quality has gradually improved and most viewers now have a cable or satellite connection. But at its essence, the equipment consumers install in their homes has undergone little change which is why a television set produced decades ago can still work today.

Perhaps that partly explains why consumers have been slow to embrace the next big thing - digital broadcasting. But the tide is finally starting to turn.

"Analog television is the technology we've used for the past 50 years, and it has served us very well," said Bill Pepin, general manager of WWLP-TV 22, an NBC affiliate in Springfield. "The format provides an excellent-quality picture, beautiful color, and stereo sound. We're able to do quite a bit with it."

But he and other industry experts say traditional analog doesn't come close to the picture and sound quality of digital television. Now, pushed by a combination of market forces and government mandates - specifically, a requirement that broadcasters switch to digital signals by the end of 2006 more viewers than ever are experiencing the difference for themselves.

"It's a brave new world of television," said Will Meyl, the recently named general manager of WGGB-TV 40, Springfield's ABC affiliate. "Analog has been around for 50 years, and now we're switching to digital. That brings with it a lot of changes and a lot of opportunities."

The 2006 deadline will probably not hold, for reasons having to do with the marketplace, but the digital revolution won't wait forever. This issue, BusinessWest examines the coming changes and what television viewers have in store for them.

Get the Picture?

When shopping for digital television sets, the first difference buyers notice is the screen size. Traditional analog sets feature an aspect ratio of four units high to three wide, but most digital television (DTV) screens have a ratio of 16 to 9 - more like a movie screen.

But that's hardly the only difference. Analog signals are carried on a 6-MHz signal and contain 525 horizontal scan lines that refresh the screen image every 30th of a second. Digital television is transmitted on a constant digital data stream and includes more scan lines (the exact number can vary), drastically improving picture quality. The Dolby digital surround sound is an auditory upgrade as well.

Meanwhile, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) claims that DTV, as it's called, is a more flexible and efficient technology than analog broadcasting. Instead of being limited to one analog channel, a broadcaster will be able to provide either one super-sharp high-definition (HDTV) program or multiple standard DTV programs simultaneously - a practice known as multicasting. In addition, digital television allows programmers to develop interactive video and data services.

Pepin envisions a day when NBC viewers have the option of, say, the network's prime-time fare, a sporting event, or a movie from the same channel, with the touch of a remote control button.

"I believe there's a certain portion of the audience who will hold onto their old set until it dies," he said, "but another portion wants to have the latest and greatest equipment, and these are the people buying digital sets."

The only problem is, not enough of them are being purchased to make the 2006 conversion deadline realistic, mainly due to the high initial price of digital sets. But that cost is coming down, and the market is showing a definite trend toward digital. In 2005, for the first time ever, more digital televisions between 15 million and 20 million of them - will be sold in the United States than analog sets.

"The majority of Americans have already purchased their last analog television set," John Taylor, vice president for public affairs for LG Electronics, said at the National Assoc. of Broadcasters' annual convention last spring.

Some might ask, then - instead of instituting a deadline to convert all signals to digital, why not let the marketplace determine when digital broadcasting becomes the norm instead of a luxury upgrade?

Simply put, the issue for the FCC is one of the overall public interest. Broadcast and wireless services all depend on the use of the airwaves, and digital technology has proven more efficient than analog technology, allowing for the broadcast of more material over fewer channels.

The conversion to digital, the FCC claims, will free up those resources for other functions, from cellular channels to public safety services.

A Gradual Revolution

The December 2006 deadline for full conversion to digital programming could be postponed in any given region until 85% of televisions in that market can receive a digital signal. The actual deadline to turn off analog signals could be pushed all the way to January 2009, said Joseph Turbolski, director of marketing for Thales Broadcast & Multimedia, a Southwick firm that develops digital broadcasting technology.

"Obviously, 85% is a large penetration rate, and hence, most TV stations assumed that 2006 was an unreasonable target," he said. "But the FCC needs to bring closure to this issue."

For those who opt against buying digital sets, converter boxes - devices that receive DTV signals and change them to analog will be available for traditional TVs. But considering that DTV sets will still be necessary to receive the full digital picture quality, most industry watchers feel the big retail opportunities will be in the television sets themselves.

Dave Loughman, manager of Manny's TV & Appliances in Wilbraham, said sales of large-screen digital televisions are indeed on the rise, but how effectively customers can use the technology depends partly on their cable company. For example, he said, Comcast currently offers more channels in HDTV than Charter does.

"It depends on where you live," Loughman said. "In some areas, it's like buying a high-performance car, but you live on a dirt road with potholes. Yes, they're coming to pave the road, but it's not there yet."

He added that the difference in picture crispness between analog and digital TV is more apparent with a larger screen. Therefore, people who aren't ready to drop thousands of dollars on a large- screen digital set, preferring to go with a 27inch or 32-inch screen, might want to buy an inexpensive analog model and wait for prices to come down across the spectrum, while broadcasters and cable companies continue to pave the road.

"The transition from standard analog technology to digital technology will improve the picture and sound and afford us to do additional things with the programming, but there are some equipment changes, both on our end and at home," Pepin said. "You don't have to do anything if you don't want to, but if you want to experience the new digital technology, you have to get a digital set."

Viewers are increasingly doing just that - and not because of any governmentunposed deadline, of which most people may not even be aware. Meyl says the surge in digital purchases and his own station's move to digital technology - have been hastened simply by demand for a better product.

To that end, channel 40 will be rolling out HDTV - or highdefinition television, a form of digital broadcasting - by the end of this month. An HDTV picture is comprised of up to 1,080 horizontal lines, as compared to 480 with analog equipment, allowing for striking detail and clarity.

"In lay terms, it's a higher-quality signal, with more lines in the picture producing higher definition," said Meyl. "It's pretty amazing - there's a dramatic difference between what you're seeing now and a high-definition picture."

The year-end move to HDTV comes in time for ABC's airing of a Patriots-Jets matchup on Monday Night Football on Dec. 26, followed by the Bowl Championship Series - college football's biggest four bowl games - on Jan. 2, 3, and 4, and then the Super Bowl on Feb. 5.

Those events are significant, Meyl said, because the biggest demand for HDTV seems to involve sports programming.

"The first market is in sports," he told BusinessWest. "There are a lot of hardcore sports fans who are interested in seeing a high- definition signal, and with all these big games coming up, we needed to respond to our community and get the signal out there."

Ready to Launch

Most TV stations are, in fact, obtaining the necessary equipment to be ready for the conversion to digital, Turbolski said. Meanwhile, Thales continues to develop new products to ease that transition, recently introducing new, high-power transmitters that increase efficiency and lower ownership costs for broadcasters.

And the costs are falling on the consumer end as well, with some digital sets starting to creep below $1,000 and expected to continue to decline.

"The migration from an analog signal to a digital signal wi\ll happen over several years, not overnight," Pepin said.

"Most people at home don't have this equipment, and it takes years to evolve in the marketplace. It's pricey right now, but if I remember correctly, when VCRs first came out, they were expensive, but when they became more common, the price dropped like a rock. That will happen with this technology."

For now, Meyl said, stations will continue to operate in both analog and digital until the FCC pulls the plug on the former. The technological upgrades are costly, but the improvement in the product - what viewers see on the screen - also creates marketing opportunities for broadcast stations and cable companies.

"We've made a commitment to oblige our viewers and deliver a high- definition signal to the market," he said. "From where we sit, there's a very strong consumer voice asking for that, so we've responded to it.

"Many innovations in our business are consumer-driven," Meyl continued. "Sometimes there's a government mandate, but you also have to be in touch with your consumers and deliver the product they're asking for."

And what they're asking for is the type of picture detail afforded only by digital television. American consumers might not always agree with mandates from the government, but in this case, they're increasingly tuning to the same highdefinition channel.

Copyright BusinessWest Dec 26, 2005