American Cinematographer - April 1998 - 16

Digital Perspectives
A DTV Caution

Flag

by Frank Beacham
In the

hype-charged days before the NAB
selling season begins, it's unusual to get
a sobering bit of reality - especially
from a major broadcast equipment
manufacturer. But that's what happened
at Sony's pre-NAB press conference.
New product announcements took the
back seat to an extraordinarily candid
speech on the transition to digital televi¬
sion by Sony's chief broadcast technolo¬
gist, Peter Dare.
Declaring that there are still
"holes to be filled" along the path to
building a DTV broadcast service in the
United States, Dare predicted it will be
at least the end of 1999 before key tran¬
sition issues

are resolved.
These pending issues - ranging
from the lack of common equipment
interfaces to local manipulation of MPEG

bitstreams - will not stop
launch of DTV, Dare said.

the timely
They will,

however, complicate it.
Dare said there is a good reason
for candidly addressing the problems
that lie ahead for the DTV transition. "If
we don't educate the industry to under¬
stand where all of these pitfalls are and
where the terminology fits in, we are

going to be forever talking at cross
purposes and never knowing what the
other guy actually says," Dare said.
Many broadcasters, Dare noted,
will attend NAB '98 expecting to find "all
of the boxes available" to build

a

DTV

plant. "I don't think so," he said. "We are
not quite there yet."
Key reasons for the complica¬
tions, said Dare, are the extraordinary
flexibility of digital technology and the
lack of complete guidance from the FCC
on many pending issues. "The govern¬

have to decode the emergency

messages."
Among the unresolved issues
Dare listed are the different standards
between broadcast and cable television,

incomplete range of equipment inter¬
strategies for adding local
program elements to the incoming
compressed bitstream, incomplete audio
an

faces,

standards, and

even

how urban resi¬

dents might receive DTV transmissions
without an outdoor antenna.
"In the area of digital data broad¬

casting, there's

no standard yet," Dare
said. "In the area of interactivity, there's
no standard yet. In the area of condi¬
tional access, there is no standard yet. In
the area of data carousels, there is no
standard yet."
The ATSC, Dare said, is just

beginning to define specifications for a
multiplexer and encoder. "What are the
interfaces and what shall they do? How
can

the manufacturers build

an

encoder

knowing what the interfaces are
going to be - [and] not knowing what
the encoders and multiplexers have got
not

to do? We can take a stab at it and we

probably come pretty close, but we'd
in some areas. In the early
days, you'll probably have Band-Aids in
the multiplexer and encoder area."
can

be wrong

Issues also remain

on

how to

modify video in the bitstream. Dare notes
that boxes will be available to join two
streams with a cut, insert a station ID or

produce a fade. But, he added, "the issue
is the tradeoffs. Do we buy the box that
does this for $100,000 or do we decode
[the stream] and buy another box that re¬
encodes for $50,000?" Even with these

solutions, he added, it still wouldn't be

ment hasn't said a heck of a lot about

possible to resize the picture

DTV," he maintained. "They tell us we

in the bitstream.
regard to the various raster
formats, Dare suggested that broadcast¬

have to decode the

didn't tell

how to

picture, but they

display the picture.
They didn't actually tell us we have to
decode the audio, but they did tell us
14

we

us

or

do

a

page turn
In

settle on a single house format and
have everything that comes into or out of

ers



American Cinematographer - April 1998

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