Breaking ranks from broadcasters, Microsoft, Intel, and Compaq have rolled out their own standards for digital television transmission, which call for using computer monitors instead of new digital televisions. The split is the latest standoff in the fight over how television will evolve over the next 18 months, the deadline dictated by the FCC last week for digital broadcasting. But unless you're sitting far too close to the screen, the battle for the future of TV looks like a war for living room space between PCs and TVs.
The proposed PC standards, spelled out Monday at the National Association of Broadcasters conference in Las Vegas, met with much resistance from broadcasters and consumer-electronics makers who have spent years developing their own system for digital TV. NAB spokesman Walt Wurfel said the PC contingent hasn't won anything yet. "Just because Microsoft would do it a different way doesn't mean we need to go along," Wurfel told The Wall Street Journal. "They can buy their own TV stations and do their own formatting."
The PC camp hopes to adopt the "progressive-scan" format of computer monitors, which allows only 480 lines per screen of live action (720 for film), compared to the broadcasting industry "interlaced" TV design that contains 1,080 lines per screen. But the computer group argues that the broadcasters' system is too large to allow Internet offerings, like Web sites linked to TV programming.
Dennis Wharton of the NAB believes that "the marketplace will resolve this," but with HDTVs priced between US$2,000-$5,000 (expected for Christmas 1998), it's hard to imagine a consumer frenzy for them. Local TV stations will get hit with a large part of costs. "To have local news crews shooting in HDTV," says Wharton," that's going to cost between US$8 million to $10 million per station."
By contrast, Josh Bernoff, senior analyst at Forrester Research, sees the move by Microsoft, Intel, and Compaq as a way of generating more money through PC sales. With the PC market petering out, says Bernoff, computer makers are hoping to create a new reason to buy their machines. But he is hesitant to suggest that either camp will win out. "I have a hard time believing that the key entertainment device [will be] a computer monitor.... God help us, I don't want to worry about re-booting my TV every time it hangs up."
For the PC-makers, the move to computer-based broadcasting from TVs is imminent. "It's not if, but when," Ron Whittier, senior vice president of Intel's Content Group, told the conference. Already, MTV and NBC are experimenting with Intel's Intercast, expected to debut in late April, which can show Web pages during the vertical blanking interval in traditional, analog TV signals.
from the Wired News New York Bureau at FEED magazine.
