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 January 15,
2005
Riding the High-Def Wave I can’t say exactly when I first saw a demonstration of high-definition television, but I know it was more than 25 years ago. Panasonic mounted a display of futuristic technology at the Consumer Electronics Show in Chicago back in the late 1970s, and one of the items on view was a prototype HDTV system. It was a knockout, but it seemed more like those driverless "cars of the future" everyone had envisaged in the 1950s than a product we would see anytime soon. I thought it would never happen in my lifetime. With dreary regularity, such demos were mounted year after year, but no one seriously suggested that anything concrete would come of them -- not in North America, anyway. A workable hi-def system was introduced in Japan, where a considerable volume of programming was produced for it. I’m not sure how the public took to it, but when I attended an electronics show in Osaka in the early 1990s, the only TV displays to be seen were 16:9 hi-def jobs, even if most were tiny direct-view models. I even saw my first widescreen PC monitors at that show. But the chances of that trend migrating across the Pacific were scuppered by the fact that the Japanese had adopted a perfectly workable system that used analog technology, and the powers-that-be in the US had decreed that no HD system would be approved unless it was digital. Then began a predictable dance in which a number of different standards were proposed. Fortunately, a format war was averted when the principals joined in a "Grand Alliance" to develop a single standard. Still, nothing happened for years. In 1996, in an article discussing the hesitant moves that had been made up till then, I wrote, "all of this would seem to be a step forward, a natural technological advance to bring the preeminent medium of the twentieth century into the twenty-first. But even if it does happen in my lifetime, it’s unlikely to affect more than a tiny segment of the population any time soon. So for now, perhaps it makes sense to ignore the HDTV prospect and upgrade to what’s available now in advanced television display devices." Even as this bit of prophecy was hitting the stands, however, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) came out with a pronouncement that basically ordered the US broadcast industry to get on the HD bandwagon, and to do so by 2006. That deadline still may not be met, but it’s remarkable what progress has been made. There are various reports on how many stations are now broadcasting HD signals, and where from, but I can go only by my own experience. Although I live beyond the authority of the FCC ruling -- in Canada, where there has been no such government mandate -- I can get some 16 HD channels, plus another half dozen should I choose to pay extra for them. True, the implementation has been somewhat variable, with some broadcasters upconverting from standard 480i signals, and many sending their HD signals in the old 4:3 aspect ratio. But I think these will prove to be temporary measures. Upgrading production and transmission facilities must be spectacularly expensive; the TV industry is to be commended for the moves it has made. And they’re just a start. I wasn’t kidding when I speculated that I might not see HDTV in my lifetime. (I’m not all that old. Really.) To be able to head to my family room and fire up a crystal-clear version of Fear Factor is definitely an unexpected pleasure. Okay, maybe not Fear Factor. ...Ian G. Masters
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