- 1,405
- XquietSTORM08x
*HDTV
If You Build It, Will They Come?
High definition television was the holy grail a dozen years ago when the digital revolution started. Now it's Homer Simpson's Dixie cup.
"There's been a see-saw of opinion," said Lynn Claudy, senior vice president of science and technology for the National Association of Broadcasters in Washington, D.C. "Broadcasters have gone hot and cold on the idea of high definition."
It's too expensive, say Fox executives. Why have only one channel of HDTV when you can have four or five standard definition channels, asks David Smith, chairman and CEO of Sinclair Broadcasting Group.
Why, indeed?
People expect it, for one reason. They've been hearing about it for years now, and many are finally seeing HDTV demonstrations. Television with clearer, bigger pictures is a concept that anyone can grasp, and the overall consensus is positive. People who see it like it, but not necessarily to the tune of a down payment on a new Volvo. People will buy DTV sets when prices come down and when motivating factors increase. This was the implication of a PricewaterhouseCoopers consumer technology survey, in which fewer than half of the 67 percent of respondents who'd heard of digital television were aware of its capabilities. These consumers said they'd pay only $81 to $90 to convert to digital television, primarily because they hadn't seen any additional benefits.
HDTV is certainly something viewers can certainly see, and for the last 50 years, television has been something people watch, not interact with. It stands to reason that HDTV will drive digital adoption in markets where PC penetration is low, given at least a mid- to upper-income demographic. These will be people who still just want to watch TV, but who would appreciate seeing better, clearer, wider pictures.
Cable network executives and satellite broadcasters appear to be hot on HDTV. HBO, the granddaddy of movie channels launched its own high definition channel in March, and satellite provider USSB started gearing up to carry it. Sister provider DIRECTV is running a 24-hour high definition test signal until it can get enough programming to fill the high definition channel. The Dish Network reportedly acquired two more satellites for high definition broadcasting, Unity Motion has a 24/7 HD feed, and Primestar's HDTV plans are still in the works. The four satellite providers serve about 8.1 million households.
"I think the HBO introduction... is really going to be a litmus test for appreciation for high definition," Claudy said. "I think we can all get pessimistic if that doesn't spawn some interest."
As of February, 51 terrestrial broadcast stations were transmitting a digital signal with at least some high definition programming. Digital capabilities enable at least a pass-through of a high definition transmission from a network. Claudy said individual stations are looking at $750,000 to $2 million to get to that point.
"We haven't talked about demodulation, or monitoring anything that's coming in... Then comes the additional cost. Yeah, I get the network signal, but I may want to look at it, and I may want to insert my logo," he said. "If you want to put in the logo or do any editing that means you have to have high definition editing and insertion equipment. If their aspiration is toward multichannel or standard definition, they can probably get by with what they have... It only becomes a whole different ball game when you go to the type of equipment that isn't in television stations now."
Building out a facility capable or originating high definition material would run between $8 million and $12 million, said Dennis Wharton, NAB senior vice president. Only five or six stations are originating their own material. (For a production perspective, see Do-it-Yourself High Definition)
"The assumption of broadcast stations was always 'we're going to pass though the network signal,'" Claudy said. "That's not what happened. CBS has done football games and one episode of Chicago Hope. NBC's done nothing. ABC's [done] a couple of movies a week, but that's all."
High definition broadcasting does present a quandary to broadcasters who see greater prosperity in other uses of the bandwidth. Depending on the scanning format and frame-per-second rate, a compressed high definition program can take up almost all of the bandwidth of a regular 6 MHz broadcast channel, which has a bitrate capacity of 19.4 Mb per second.
According to The Guide to Digital Television, Second Ed., the following formats roughly require the corresponding bitrate. Both 480i and 480p are considered standard definition television. Only 720p and 1080i are officially considered to be high definition by the Advanced Television Standards Committee:
480 interlace, 30 fps: 2-6 Mbps
480 progressive, 60 fps: 4-10 Mbps
720 progressive, 60 fps: 6-16 Mbps
1080 interlace, 30 fps: 10-18 Mbps
The heavy bitrate of high definition television is not so much an issue with cable operators and satellite broadcasters. U.S. cable systems have a transmission bandwidth anywhere from 350 to 750 MHz, with most falling in the 400 to 500 MHz range, and satellite providers typically have as much or more.
Even with 10 times more bandwidth than broadcasters, however, cable providers insist their systems are too full to carry additional signals from broadcasters. Their contention lies with the FCC-enforced period during which broadcasters must transmit both an analog and a digital signal simultaneously. Broadcasters want cable operators to carry this second signal, but cable operators argue they would have to bump revenue-generating channels to accommodate the broadcasters.
Adding channels would require an upgrade, and upgrades to cable systems are costly. Beefing the typical 450 to 550 MHz system up to 750 MHz costs about $400 to $500 per home, said Mike Luftman, head of corporate communications at Time Warner, Inc.
Nearly 27 million cable homes are reportedly on systems that cannot be upgraded beyond current capacity.
Roughly 39 million households could capture at least some free high definition programming over the air today, but only 10 of them do so, goes the tongue-in-cheek estimate. The price of receivers-still in the $5,000 to $10,000 range-is certainly a factor.
"We're in a place right now that's an awkward part of the transition," said Ann Saybolt, communications staff director for CEMA. "We're going from the technology part into the business part."
The technology part included an estimated $1 billion investment over the last decade to bring the current 12 brands of DTVs and various set-top boxes to the market, Saybolt said. The business part consists of the 13,000-plus DTVs that made it to market-mostly showroom floors and professional facilities-since fall, 1998. The number of those sets purchased by non-professional consumers is unknown. Based on previous new technology adoption, CEMA projects sales of DTVs to reach 150,000 in 1999; 600,000 the following year; and 10 million a year for the following three years. Saybolt said high definition programming is one of the driving forces of digital television.
"Consumers are impressed when they see the sets," she said. "They've told us in the research that better picture and sound quality would be a primary reason to make a purchase. Multicasting and datacasting came in secondary as a driving force."
Just when set prices will reach the threshold of public desire for better pictures and services remains to be seen.-
Do-it-Yourself High Definition
Is high definition production prohibitively expensive?
"If you'd ask me this about one year ago, the numbers would have been horrendous, because the equipment was very expensive," said Randall Paris Dark, president and chief executive officer of HD VISION, Inc. in Dallas, Texas. Dark has more than 200 high definition productions to his credit.
The necessary basics were more than $1 million just a year ago, he explained. An HD camera cost around $360,000, he said. A 40-to-1 lens was $360,000, a digital one-inch deck was $340,000 and a 28-inch monitor was $40,000.
"Up until a year ago, high definition was very, very expensive. However, that has changed dramatically for a number of reasons. We're now in our fifth generation of high def gear."
An HD Sony camcorder with a lens is now about $100,000, he said.
"Now, when we're doing apples-to-apples cost analysis, where does high definition fit in cost-wise?"
Shooting in high definition, for example, is still more expensive than shooting in standard definition, but cheaper than using film, he said.
"We're now attracting clients that couldn't afford film but can afford high definition," Dark said. "Anything we do now we can convert to any format;" tape-to-film and vice-versa. "I think people will be caught off guard at how many feature films will be originating in high definition. If HBO has already committed to high definition, what does that mean to the creative community? You're not going to want to upconvert all these special events that they do. Upconverting looks awful. It's going to put a lot of pressure on the creative community to create HDTV programming."
Not only is HD production equipment cheaper than it was just a year ago, it's becoming easier to use.
"I used to talk about the first high definition gear as being user-hostile," he said. "When we shot the Albuquerque ballon festival [for PBS] two years ago, I couldn't go up in a balloon because I was hooked to a cable."
PBS allowed Dark to reshoot the event when portable cameras became available. He inadvertently performed a crash test on his camera when he dropped it during a balloon ride and the gondola landed on it.
"It was still recording when they uncovered it," he said.
And now a word from your sponsors...
Don't expect to rake in premium prices for high definition program advertising just yet, says Proctor & Gamble's Jim Gosney.
"Initially, there's a relatively modest number of people with digital receivers..." said Gosney, who heads P&G's Digital Television Task Force. "I think right now, it's premature to think we would pay a premium charge, and as you know, we pay for eyeballs, so I think that's where it's at at the moment."
The company started running high definition commercials about a year ago by taking some NTSC spots and repurposing them for HDTV-essentially film-to-HD video transfers. The first was broadcast last March during a Texas Rangers versus Chicago White Sox game broadcast in HDTV. P&G also ran HD ads during the John Glenn space shuttle launch broadcast in October, '98 and now airs high definition commercials in various HD network broadcasts. The cost for converting film to a high definition video format is estimated to cost between $15,000 and $50,000 an hour, depending on the format.
Gosney didn't disclose P&G's specific costs associated with creating high definition commercials, but he did say there were no incremental costs in production "since P&G already shoots most of its commercials in 35mm film, they are inherently high definition."
"We do see a little incremental cost in the post production, and maybe in the distribution, but the greatest expense is always production," he said.
Why bother at all when no one can really appreciate the effort?
Proctor & Gamble is a media pioneer, Gosney said. The company was among the first to advertise in print, radio and television. It had an Ivory Soap commercial in one of the first over-the-air broadcasts during the 1939 World's Fair. Red Barber narrated.
Last summer, Proctor & Gamble's marketing team held a summit on Internet technology and new media.
"We very quickly learned there were aspects of digital TV that would enable us to more effectively communicate with consumers," he said.
High definition, for one, he said. "It has clearer, richer, more detailed pictures of our products and their benefits, and a wider screen for more interesting story telling and composition, and the ability for more life-like sound."
In the future, and dependent on market saturation of HDTV sets, a premium rate for high definition ads is a possibility, he said, but the bottom line is eyeballs.
"That's how we buy media today, and I'm not sure how much that's going to change," he said.
If You Build It, Will They Come?
High definition television was the holy grail a dozen years ago when the digital revolution started. Now it's Homer Simpson's Dixie cup.
"There's been a see-saw of opinion," said Lynn Claudy, senior vice president of science and technology for the National Association of Broadcasters in Washington, D.C. "Broadcasters have gone hot and cold on the idea of high definition."
It's too expensive, say Fox executives. Why have only one channel of HDTV when you can have four or five standard definition channels, asks David Smith, chairman and CEO of Sinclair Broadcasting Group.
Why, indeed?
People expect it, for one reason. They've been hearing about it for years now, and many are finally seeing HDTV demonstrations. Television with clearer, bigger pictures is a concept that anyone can grasp, and the overall consensus is positive. People who see it like it, but not necessarily to the tune of a down payment on a new Volvo. People will buy DTV sets when prices come down and when motivating factors increase. This was the implication of a PricewaterhouseCoopers consumer technology survey, in which fewer than half of the 67 percent of respondents who'd heard of digital television were aware of its capabilities. These consumers said they'd pay only $81 to $90 to convert to digital television, primarily because they hadn't seen any additional benefits.
HDTV is certainly something viewers can certainly see, and for the last 50 years, television has been something people watch, not interact with. It stands to reason that HDTV will drive digital adoption in markets where PC penetration is low, given at least a mid- to upper-income demographic. These will be people who still just want to watch TV, but who would appreciate seeing better, clearer, wider pictures.
Cable network executives and satellite broadcasters appear to be hot on HDTV. HBO, the granddaddy of movie channels launched its own high definition channel in March, and satellite provider USSB started gearing up to carry it. Sister provider DIRECTV is running a 24-hour high definition test signal until it can get enough programming to fill the high definition channel. The Dish Network reportedly acquired two more satellites for high definition broadcasting, Unity Motion has a 24/7 HD feed, and Primestar's HDTV plans are still in the works. The four satellite providers serve about 8.1 million households.
"I think the HBO introduction... is really going to be a litmus test for appreciation for high definition," Claudy said. "I think we can all get pessimistic if that doesn't spawn some interest."
As of February, 51 terrestrial broadcast stations were transmitting a digital signal with at least some high definition programming. Digital capabilities enable at least a pass-through of a high definition transmission from a network. Claudy said individual stations are looking at $750,000 to $2 million to get to that point.
"We haven't talked about demodulation, or monitoring anything that's coming in... Then comes the additional cost. Yeah, I get the network signal, but I may want to look at it, and I may want to insert my logo," he said. "If you want to put in the logo or do any editing that means you have to have high definition editing and insertion equipment. If their aspiration is toward multichannel or standard definition, they can probably get by with what they have... It only becomes a whole different ball game when you go to the type of equipment that isn't in television stations now."
Building out a facility capable or originating high definition material would run between $8 million and $12 million, said Dennis Wharton, NAB senior vice president. Only five or six stations are originating their own material. (For a production perspective, see Do-it-Yourself High Definition)
"The assumption of broadcast stations was always 'we're going to pass though the network signal,'" Claudy said. "That's not what happened. CBS has done football games and one episode of Chicago Hope. NBC's done nothing. ABC's [done] a couple of movies a week, but that's all."
High definition broadcasting does present a quandary to broadcasters who see greater prosperity in other uses of the bandwidth. Depending on the scanning format and frame-per-second rate, a compressed high definition program can take up almost all of the bandwidth of a regular 6 MHz broadcast channel, which has a bitrate capacity of 19.4 Mb per second.
According to The Guide to Digital Television, Second Ed., the following formats roughly require the corresponding bitrate. Both 480i and 480p are considered standard definition television. Only 720p and 1080i are officially considered to be high definition by the Advanced Television Standards Committee:
480 interlace, 30 fps: 2-6 Mbps
480 progressive, 60 fps: 4-10 Mbps
720 progressive, 60 fps: 6-16 Mbps
1080 interlace, 30 fps: 10-18 Mbps
The heavy bitrate of high definition television is not so much an issue with cable operators and satellite broadcasters. U.S. cable systems have a transmission bandwidth anywhere from 350 to 750 MHz, with most falling in the 400 to 500 MHz range, and satellite providers typically have as much or more.
Even with 10 times more bandwidth than broadcasters, however, cable providers insist their systems are too full to carry additional signals from broadcasters. Their contention lies with the FCC-enforced period during which broadcasters must transmit both an analog and a digital signal simultaneously. Broadcasters want cable operators to carry this second signal, but cable operators argue they would have to bump revenue-generating channels to accommodate the broadcasters.
Adding channels would require an upgrade, and upgrades to cable systems are costly. Beefing the typical 450 to 550 MHz system up to 750 MHz costs about $400 to $500 per home, said Mike Luftman, head of corporate communications at Time Warner, Inc.
Nearly 27 million cable homes are reportedly on systems that cannot be upgraded beyond current capacity.
Roughly 39 million households could capture at least some free high definition programming over the air today, but only 10 of them do so, goes the tongue-in-cheek estimate. The price of receivers-still in the $5,000 to $10,000 range-is certainly a factor.
"We're in a place right now that's an awkward part of the transition," said Ann Saybolt, communications staff director for CEMA. "We're going from the technology part into the business part."
The technology part included an estimated $1 billion investment over the last decade to bring the current 12 brands of DTVs and various set-top boxes to the market, Saybolt said. The business part consists of the 13,000-plus DTVs that made it to market-mostly showroom floors and professional facilities-since fall, 1998. The number of those sets purchased by non-professional consumers is unknown. Based on previous new technology adoption, CEMA projects sales of DTVs to reach 150,000 in 1999; 600,000 the following year; and 10 million a year for the following three years. Saybolt said high definition programming is one of the driving forces of digital television.
"Consumers are impressed when they see the sets," she said. "They've told us in the research that better picture and sound quality would be a primary reason to make a purchase. Multicasting and datacasting came in secondary as a driving force."
Just when set prices will reach the threshold of public desire for better pictures and services remains to be seen.-
Do-it-Yourself High Definition
Is high definition production prohibitively expensive?
"If you'd ask me this about one year ago, the numbers would have been horrendous, because the equipment was very expensive," said Randall Paris Dark, president and chief executive officer of HD VISION, Inc. in Dallas, Texas. Dark has more than 200 high definition productions to his credit.
The necessary basics were more than $1 million just a year ago, he explained. An HD camera cost around $360,000, he said. A 40-to-1 lens was $360,000, a digital one-inch deck was $340,000 and a 28-inch monitor was $40,000.
"Up until a year ago, high definition was very, very expensive. However, that has changed dramatically for a number of reasons. We're now in our fifth generation of high def gear."
An HD Sony camcorder with a lens is now about $100,000, he said.
"Now, when we're doing apples-to-apples cost analysis, where does high definition fit in cost-wise?"
Shooting in high definition, for example, is still more expensive than shooting in standard definition, but cheaper than using film, he said.
"We're now attracting clients that couldn't afford film but can afford high definition," Dark said. "Anything we do now we can convert to any format;" tape-to-film and vice-versa. "I think people will be caught off guard at how many feature films will be originating in high definition. If HBO has already committed to high definition, what does that mean to the creative community? You're not going to want to upconvert all these special events that they do. Upconverting looks awful. It's going to put a lot of pressure on the creative community to create HDTV programming."
Not only is HD production equipment cheaper than it was just a year ago, it's becoming easier to use.
"I used to talk about the first high definition gear as being user-hostile," he said. "When we shot the Albuquerque ballon festival [for PBS] two years ago, I couldn't go up in a balloon because I was hooked to a cable."
PBS allowed Dark to reshoot the event when portable cameras became available. He inadvertently performed a crash test on his camera when he dropped it during a balloon ride and the gondola landed on it.
"It was still recording when they uncovered it," he said.
And now a word from your sponsors...
Don't expect to rake in premium prices for high definition program advertising just yet, says Proctor & Gamble's Jim Gosney.
"Initially, there's a relatively modest number of people with digital receivers..." said Gosney, who heads P&G's Digital Television Task Force. "I think right now, it's premature to think we would pay a premium charge, and as you know, we pay for eyeballs, so I think that's where it's at at the moment."
The company started running high definition commercials about a year ago by taking some NTSC spots and repurposing them for HDTV-essentially film-to-HD video transfers. The first was broadcast last March during a Texas Rangers versus Chicago White Sox game broadcast in HDTV. P&G also ran HD ads during the John Glenn space shuttle launch broadcast in October, '98 and now airs high definition commercials in various HD network broadcasts. The cost for converting film to a high definition video format is estimated to cost between $15,000 and $50,000 an hour, depending on the format.
Gosney didn't disclose P&G's specific costs associated with creating high definition commercials, but he did say there were no incremental costs in production "since P&G already shoots most of its commercials in 35mm film, they are inherently high definition."
"We do see a little incremental cost in the post production, and maybe in the distribution, but the greatest expense is always production," he said.
Why bother at all when no one can really appreciate the effort?
Proctor & Gamble is a media pioneer, Gosney said. The company was among the first to advertise in print, radio and television. It had an Ivory Soap commercial in one of the first over-the-air broadcasts during the 1939 World's Fair. Red Barber narrated.
Last summer, Proctor & Gamble's marketing team held a summit on Internet technology and new media.
"We very quickly learned there were aspects of digital TV that would enable us to more effectively communicate with consumers," he said.
High definition, for one, he said. "It has clearer, richer, more detailed pictures of our products and their benefits, and a wider screen for more interesting story telling and composition, and the ability for more life-like sound."
In the future, and dependent on market saturation of HDTV sets, a premium rate for high definition ads is a possibility, he said, but the bottom line is eyeballs.
"That's how we buy media today, and I'm not sure how much that's going to change," he said.
