I recently had the honor of attending 14th
annual Iowa DTV Symposium in Des Moines, IA. A product of Iowa Public
Television, this conference has quietly grown into a major event with 27
exhibitors, recognized keynote speaker and presenters, and perhaps the best
kept secret – the conference, meals, hors d’oevurs, and cocktails are all
free to the over 150 attendees thanks to the platinum sponsors
Avid/Sundance, Harris, and Sony.
While a majority of the attendees came from Iowa and
its neighboring states, a significant number of attendees traveled greater
distances from states including California, Florida, Massachusetts, New
Mexico, New York, Ohio, Oregon, and Tennessee. Attendees represented mainly
senior technical people from broadcast television stations,
telecommunications providers, students, and other interested parties.
The keynote address was given by Gary Shapiro, CEO of
the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) who described his 20 years of
experience with Television starting with the evolution of High Definition TV
(HDTV) in this country. Gary’s charismatic speech covered several key
decisions and events along the way that were instrumental in shaping this
country’s digital HDTV service including:
- The decision for HDTV to accept every format and
display whatever the television manufacturer chose to display.
- The decision to test the first all digital HDTV
even though all the other proposed systems weren’t all digital so much
of the tests to do so didn’t yet exist.
- Creation of the first Mono HDTV station – WRC-TV
Thanks to these, the first HDTV rolled off the trucks
in 1998. However unlike the introduction of Color to televisions which
required over a decade to sell one million units, one million HD televisions
sold in just 5 years. As Gary points out, “its interesting as color TV was
being introduced Time Magazine proclaimed it as a resounding industrial flop
– many have said the same things about HDTV.” Companies like Fox, ESPN, HBO
were all less than optimistic about HDTV – in fact some had even bet that
standard definition TV would dominate.
The biggest surprise in rolling out HDTV was that over
the air broadcasting didn’t drive sales. Rather, HDTV sales came mostly from
an unsuspecting source – the DVD player. To a slightly lesser extent it was
also broadcast HD content from Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) and
specialty HD programming providers like HDNet who provided a majority of the
HD programming early on – these players remain the most experienced in
delivering all-HD content. Now with the upcoming DTV transition on February
17, 2009 comes yet another significant event in broadcast television in the
US. “This has been a phenomenal 20 year transition and we are now at the
finish line… and as people look beyond the present and begin looking at the
big picture, we have a pretty good future ahead of us.” Gary predicts:
- There is convergence going on to the extent that
the Internet gets connected to the television as this is what research
shows consumers want. So, you will have Internet television – there is
no question about it, products are coming, and it’s not the most
difficult thing to do from a technology point of view. This will happen
over the next few years.
- There will be great growth in mobile television.
There is rapid development of standards and CEA is working to ensure
consumers can take their television on the go with them. In 2010, mobile
TV products will be at trade shows in full force. With the growth of
wireless networks, you will be able to get the programming you want
where ever you want to watch it.
- Homes will become true media centers that get
information from a variety of platforms as television becomes
interactive and fully connected.
- Consumers are going to begin demanding all HD.
Similar to the way people turned away from black and white in favor of
color programs, the need for all HD packages is upon us.
- The audio experience of HDTV will become
increasingly important as quality sound will begin to differentiate one
HD service from another - this technology will advance significantly in
the coming decade. The audio experience is so much more important than
the visual experience as generally people would prefer to watch a bad
picture with good sound, than a good picture with bad sound.
As it is only a matter of time before HDTV will become
just TV and the industry will move on to the next great television
innovations. Some of the most promising innovation candidates include OLED
technology and 3DTV where the standards work is pretty intense right now. Of
course Internet will continue to evolve to the point where every device that
can receive a signal will be able to have an Internet address thanks to IPv6
and we’ll see a growing collection of Internet content is HD video. Expect
to see the mobile space take over as the dominate consumer of HD content
where handhelds and even cars will become some of the most widely used
consumers of TV content.
Clearly we have come a long way in the television
industry - from color, to stereo sound, to HDTV. Even more so today, the
future of television is influenced by disruptive technologies surrounding it
(Internet, wireless, etc.) which provide the best evidence that the best is
still yet to come - so stay tuned.
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