Those waiting and hoping for that thing they call high-definition television got a step closer to heaven last week. Two major cable networks vowed to start programming in the super-sharp HDTV format as early as next year. Now even broadcasters, who drove development of the technology a decade ago but have had to be dragged toward implementing it, are beginning to come on board.
Home Box Office and the Madison Square Garden Network last week touched off the latest hopes for an early HDTV rollout by announcing dates for the new format - next summer for HBO, 1999 for the sports network. As the cable companies made their announcements, CBS chairman Michael Jordan said in a speech that broadcasters must transmit HDTV signals to differentiate themselves in the marketplace.
But many broadcasters have been reluctant to publicly embrace the high-definition format. Part of that reticence has to do with how much HDTV sets will cost at first - as much as US$5,000. At first, this will limit the new sets mostly to sports bars, where TV plebeians will get a chance to develop a craving for the new toy. When prices come down, the thinking goes, they'll be ready to buy.
Some stations are convinced there will probably be a lot more demand for - and certainly more money in - a different format: standard digital television. The simple part of the equation is that SDTV sets will be cheaper for consumers - starting off in the $1,000 to $2,000 range.
The more complex part of the calculation entails the industry looking for ways to compress more signal into the 6-MHz slice of bandwidth the FCC has given to each of 1,600 stations around the country. Regardless of compression, HDTV requires more bandwidth because much more picture and sound data is being carried. Currently available compression might allow two HDTV channels in the allotted bandwidth. With the leaner SDTV - the product is better than analog but far inferior to HDTV - broadcasters can use their digital bandwidth to broadcast between six and 10 channels simultaneously. Pay-per-view reruns of The Jeffersons, anyone?
Caught in the middle are consumers. News of the coming digital TV age have mostly left them confused and uncertain whether it's smart to buy a new TV that could quickly be obsolete.
And the uncertainty doesn't end there.
For one thing, the broadcasters are still working on Congress to let them hang on to their analog spectrum assignments past the planned surrender date of 2006. As part of the deal to get free digital spectrum, the FCC and the Clinton administration have planned an analog-spectrum auction in 2002 or so to help raise money to balance the federal budget. But just last week, the House budget bill was amended to allow broadcasters to hold onto the analog spectrum past 2006 in markets where more than 5 percent of the population still relied on analog over-the-air broadcasting.
Take an almost impossible task of quantifying the number of people out there still reliant on analog TV sets, add the broadcasters' resistance to giving up spectrum, and throw in politicians' tendency to avoid irritating even a small number of voters or powerful lobbyists. Logic suggests the 2006 cutoff is a pipe dream.
But as all these complications run their course, a snowball effect may still bring HDTV to home screens in the (kind of) near future.
Even before last week's HDTV news, some in the broadcast industry were predicting a high-definition telecast of the Super Bowl within a couple of years. Cable Television Laboratories Inc. - the industry's research and development group - has given the HBO and Madison Square Garden announcements a strong endorsement. Other recent testimonials have come from Comcast Corp., Cox Communications Inc., and Time Warner Cable.
But ... but: As of today, no cable-TV operators or broadcasters have made a specific commitment to how many HDTV hours a week they'll broadcast, or which shows will get the high-definition treatment. The TV forecast for the next decade, then: Some digital clearing expected, but analog static, with occasional political gusts, will continue well past the weekend.
