The lowest resolution setting for a computer screen now is right around 640 x 480 dots per inch -- giving a picture which is still a higher quality than the highest quality analog television picture available, which has a horizontal resolution of only 500 dots. And right now, the United States has the technology to provide a television picture for all consumers that rivals that of a computer screen. \nBut to use this technology, mainstream consumers need to have access to a digital picture on their screen, rather than the standard analog picture available everywhere now. From that digital service, consumers can also get a high definition digital picture -- and its resolution is equivalent to that of a computer monitor. While this high-definition television is currently the highest quality picture and sound that money set aside for your cable bill can buy, few people today can afford this luxury. \nThough the U.S. government does have a substantial interest in changing the nation's current analog television broadcast signal to a digital signal, which would standardize digital television and eventually drive down prices on digital service and televisions, multi-faceted political issues and laws have clouded digital television's otherwise clear future. \nThese tangled issues caught the eye of IU political science professor Jeffery Hart, who has mapped out the unfocused future of HDTV in his new book titled, "Technology, Television and Competition: The Politics of Digital TV." In it, Hart claims compromises between industry groups as well as incompatible standards for digital television, made both by the Federal Communications Commission and Congress, have resulted in public confusion and missed opportunities to develop digital technology.\n"The FCC thought going digital was in the interest of the American consumers and computer industry," Hart said. "There were compromises to keep all the parties involved happy and it created a lot of confusion for consumers."\nHart means that the conversion from analog to digital television involves parties from producers to broadcasters to consumers -- thousands of people are involved, and all of them want the most efficient, low-cost solution to switching. \nHowever, there's no centralized movement occurring toward HDTV, as there was when the nation switched from vinyl records to compact discs, for example, when Sony and Phillips bought the records libraries and converted all the music to CD format.\n"They made sure that the price of the CD player was quite low, quite soon," Hart said. "People had an incentive to buy sets and change their record collections over."\nBasically, a paradigm shift has to occur in the marketplace to give consumers an incentive to buy and make this technology mainstream. Hart said there have been similar transitions in technologies in the past, but none exactly comparable to the analog-digital conversion.\n"Black-and-white to color television is sort of comparable," he said. "It was a slow transition. People had to buy color televisions, and at first advertisers wouldn't broadcast in color."\nHart said it's a luxury when a dominant player can lead the way when they are involved in a transition, such as when Microsoft led from one operating system to another.\n"It just means the transitions are smoother because they're so dominant," Hart said. "That's not the case in television. It was in the past, when RCA was the No. 1 television maker. But right now we have so many different kinds of players."
Issues in switching
In the Telecommunications Act of 1996, the FCC mandated that all the nation's television stations make the transition from analog to digital transmission by the end of 2006 -- or until 85 percent of homes are able to access and watch digital television programming.\nThese two issues are connected, but often confused as being the same. The first issue is the conversion from analog signals to digital signals. Converting these signals, which might be broadcast over the air or transmitted via cable or satellite to a decoder for a digital television set, is the intended goal of the 1996 law.\nHart said he estimates the full transition from analog to digital will be delayed from its target date of 2006 by at least a year.\nThe second issue, an offshoot from the first, is obtaining a television which decodes these digital signals into the best possible quality. HDTVs, for example, are the most popular digital televisions, as they give the highest resolution and best sound. \nTo function properly and to ensure the best picture and sound, the transition will require new production and transmission equipment to film and record television shows so they can be broadcasted in digital quality, as well as new equipment consumers must purchase for optimal reception and display in their homes.\nThe televisions involved must undergo an evolution. A conventional analog TV, popularized since the 1950s, uses a cathode ray tube to deliver images. According to www.howstuffworks.com, an informational Web site run by Convex Group, Inc., the screen resolution of an analog TV contains roughly 210,000 pixels. HDTVs instead use a digital display, similar to computer monitors, and the screen resolution produces a crisper, clearer picture which contains about 2 million pixels.
Compromising the technology
Because so many parties are involved in the analog-digital conversion, a broad array of compromises had to be made, which further complicate the process.\n"The political system produced a compromise that technologically speaking wasn't so realistic," Hart said. "Congress, in its wisdom, made this 85 percent rule, which doesn't quite create the right incentives for the broadcasters to give the digital signal out."\nLegislators aren't technically savvy and are being lobbied by the special interests, which might not necessarily be looking at the public's best interest, Hart said. It has stalled the conversion. The broadcasters and public have been slow to act on the potential of digital television. \nMany broadcasters received an additional channel for HDTV, but the FCC did not mandate this channel be used exclusively for HDTV. As a result, broadcasters have been using the channels for alternative purposes, further slowing the conversion process.
High prices concern consumers
For consumers, the price is still too high, Hart said. He estimated less than 9 percent of television sets in the U.S. are digital, and 2 percent or less are getting digital television signals. \nFlat panel televisions with HD-ready capabilities are among the most expensive on the market. Depending on the screen size, an HD-ready flat panel can cost thousands of dollars. Larger, bulkier televisions, similar to the cathode ray tube televisions most people own, are less expensive than flat panels -- but still costly.\nA lot of people argue that consumers are perfectly happy with the definition they have and that they're choosing to use their leisure time in different ways, Hart said. However, like any new technology, as the demand and production for HDTVs increase, the highest mark-up prices may start to come down.\nCurrently the least expensive way to obtain HDTV shows is to buy an HDTV converter for an analog TV. The picture quality, however, resembles a DVD. \nLocally, consumers have access to HDTV stations "on the air" out of Indianapolis, and currently Insight Communications in Bloomington provides high-definition programming for ABC, NBC, CBS, HBO, Showtime, PBS and Bravo. The demand for this, part of what Susan Marshall of Insight Communications calls the "latest, greatest" entertainment technology, is most popular in affluent Bloomington neighborhoods.
Digital television's future
While there is a concern that there hasn't been enough of an incentive given to make the transition from analog to digital quicker, Hart said it could have been disastrous if the transition were forced.\nThis would force members of the industry to rapidly change overnight, buying brand new cameras and editing equipment; it would change the way transmissions are physically sent to consumers, and it would change the way consumers receive their images. \nThe whole world as we see it through a screen will change, but when and at what cost is still debatable.\n-- Contact senior writer Tony Sams at ajsams@indiana.edu
