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Having recently returned from a trip of just
under 14,000 miles; extending from coast to coast, covering 31 venues,
of which the top 19 television markets in the US were included,
visiting television facilities, vendors and the like, it is unlikely
that there are many people in this industry who have a better idea of
the condition of the transition to digital television here in America.
At each of the 31 venues, I was able to share
the technology that ten companies, who chose to underwrite my venture,
had to offer the industry – A Taste of NAB. The Road Show, as it was
also called, was structured as an educational opportunity; not a sales
pitch. I made it a point not to know the prices of any of the
equipment or services: that was up to the sales people the attendees
would contact, if they were interested.
What prompted the Taste of NAB Road Show were
the various responses to my question, early on in the year: “Will I
see you at NAB this year?” As a writer for several trade magazines,
host of a broadcast technology based website and publisher of an
on-line newsletter, I like to put a face with the voice at the other
end of the phone. The response to that question was shamefully
negative, for the most part.
With most of the major networks estranged from
NAB, most engineers wishing to attend do so out of their own pocket.
That has not always been the case. The tariff for an engineer or
technician, irrespective of their location here in the US, to attend
even a day or two is equal to a week or two’s pay.
NAB (National Association of Broadcasters) and
the International Broadcasters Convention (IBC) is an educational
opportunity for both technical and non-technical television personnel
alike. These two events are the only place an engineer can, in one
location, see the preponderance of latest technology our industry has
to offer and have the golden opportunity to speak with many of the
engineers who developed it.
Then at those stations that do send some of
their personnel to either of these events, it’s usually only the top
brass that get to go; and then, many of them are sequestered away in
corporate meetings when they should be out finding out what is going
on in the world of television technology. It is just simply stupid for
a television facility not to send their people to events like these.
You can not make informed decisions if you are not informed.
There are societies, such as the Society of
Broadcast Engineers (SBE) and the Society of Motion Picture and
Television Engineers (SMPTE), who have as part of their regular
meetings, programs and presentations from various manufacturers and
service providers on the latest wiz-bang technologies that each have
to offer. The sad part is that these meetings are not all that well
attended. Many managers are reluctant to give their technical staff
the time to attend: the really good managers will encourage their
staff to attend and even see that their dues, fees and even meals,
etc. are covered by the company, but these are few and far between.
So simply put, this is the current dilemma
facing the engineers here in the US; they don’t, or are not permitted
to avail themselves of educational opportunities. This is especially
true in the larger markets. Don’t think for one minute that the
engineers and technicians here in the US are not smart. Television
engineers come in all shapes and sizes with varying degrees of
knowledge. I had the fortune to meet the brighter caliber of engineer;
the dumb ones don’t go to educational opportunities like our road
show.
It was interesting to see the various
facilities across the country. We had some really great hosts. I was
particularly impressed with two television stations: WKYC-TV in
Cleveland, Ohio and KEZI-TV in Eugene, Oregon. Each is very well laid
out, opulent in many respects, while being very functional. WKYC
certainly was the eye catcher. KEZI, a very small market TV station,
was producing a syndicated television show for national distribution,
while I was there. A very impressive feat in a medium market.
As for the transition to digital (DTV) from
analog television, if you look at the numbers, it isn’t going all that
well. There are approximately 1600 full power analog television
stations currently on the air here in the US. Less than one quarter of
the full power stations are classified as non-commercial. All
commercial analog television stations are supposed to have had their
parallel digital transmission equipment up and on the air as of May 1st
of this year. As of August 4th, there are only 450 stations
in 135 markets (there are 210 US markets) delivering digital signals
and many of them are non-commercial. The non-commercial stations have
until May of 2003 to be on the air, digitally.
The full power stations that don’t have their
digital facilities up and working have requested extensions from the
Federal Communications Commission (FCC). Some have even asked for a
second extension. The FCC has not looked too kindly on these second
extensions and has recently denied some fifty stations’ request for
additional time, saying that they will impose fines if things don’t
turn around, and soon.
What is really interesting is this number,
1600, does not include all the low power (LPTV) stations dotting the
country side, much less the plethora of translators that extend the
coverage of the full power transmitters into areas that would
otherwise not be served. There are ten states, only one of which is
east of the Mississippi River (sort of a half continent North/South
dividing line), that have over 300 translators and of those, a couple
have over 600. Many cable companies take their feeds from these
translators; some from second and third translator hops. Most all of
these, LPTV stations and Translators, have not addressed the
transition to DTV.
There are a number of other issues compounding
and impacting this seeming quagmire. I’ll only be able to address a
couple of the more serious.
Let me start out by saying that the modulation
issue, 8VSB (eight level Vestigial Sideband) vs. COFDM (Coded
Orthogonal Frequency-Division Multiplexing), is virtually mute at this
stage of things here in the US. 8VSB works, and works quite well. It
takes less power to cover the same area as COFDM, but there is one
problem; multipath. Multipath kills any chance of the signal being
decoded in today’s receivers, despite Motorola and NxtWave
Communications’ claims to “Solves Multipath Problems.”
There is one glimmer of hope that was on
display at NAB 2002: CASPER, by Linx Electronics, Inc. of Palatine,
Illinois. Instead of trying to cancel, or kill, all but one of the
multiple signals in a multipath environment, CASPER uses all the
signals, aligns them into one signal that the decoder can deal with.
In the early days of UHF, the FCC required set
manufacturers to include a UHF tuner along with the more popular VHF
tuner. Needless to say, that is one of the keys that gave UHF
television a kick start and you can see where it’s at today. The same
thing needs to be done with DTV. Until that happens, the DTV industry
is at a loss.
Statistics indicate that some 85% of American
homes are connected to a cable franchise. Cable companies are adamant
when it comes to the subject of carrying both the analog and digital
channels of local broadcasters during the transition phase of the DTV
implementation. Don’t confuse this with cable companies who say they
are delivering digital signals. That only means that they’ve digitized
the local TV station’s analog signal. And don’t confuse high
definition television (HDTV) with DTV. HDTV is only an enhancement
that may come with DTV, as do data services etc.
Another issue that will be coming alive soon is
the converter box market. There are a lot of legacy analog TV sets out
there that will be useless once the transmission has been made and
analog goes away. One Japanese company is offering their solution with
a price tag in the US$450 (~£287) range. Another, WOW-TV in Salt Lake
City, UT has targeted their box to this same market for under US$200
(~ £127), but it hasn’t hit the market yet.
Copyright is said to be one of the delaying
issues in the transition to DTV. The greed and avarice of the money
people in Hollywood, despite them seeming to have the world’s largest
money magnet, is unequaled anywhere. Hollywood’s money people have
whined and squealed over this issue since the beginning of DTV, saying
that its quality is too close to what they have to offer and want
HDTV’s quality diminished so people will be less likely to copy
movies. The US Congress is even entertaining a massive copyright law
that should be scuttled, if we’re fortunate.
There is no amount of education that can cure
Hollywood’s problem, but there are opportunities, on a local level,
similar to those I took with me across the US. Those engineers and
other broadcast personnel who take advantage of these educational
opportunities will have a reasonably safe future in this industry;
those who don’t will one day be looking at the call letters on the
outside of the building, wondering why they don’t have a job inside.
In conclusion, it appears that there are folks
hard at work solving the problems with our DTV system. DTV is here,
and here to stay. It’s only a matter of time now. Many of the answers
to these questions will come from the kinds of folks I met during the
Road Show.
Would I recommend anyone else doing a Road
Show? Only if they like to see people walking away with gratitude in
their hearts, on their minds and faces for the efforts you put into
making it a professionally beneficial experience. I certainly have
learned a lot from the Taste of NAB Road Show. Will I do it again next
year? We’ll see.
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