NIST Industrial ImpactHDTV Broadcast TechnologyConsortium Participants: Business: High-Definition Television For most of the 1990s, high-definition television (HDTV) was an expensive promise. Now it’s a reality, and it promises to be affordable enough that even smaller, non-commercial TV stations will be able to implement the digital-quality programs. The industrial equivalent of a cast of thousands—a consortium of nine companies in three industries brought together by NIST’s Advanced Technology Program (ATP)—was needed to find ways to work efficiently with the massive amounts of data in HDTV images, achieve interoperability among various network types, and develop the requisite software tools. Although it will not end until the fall of 2000, the five-year ATP project promises to hasten the proliferation of HDTV and the attendant economic benefits estimated in the billions of dollars. It already has produced:
Only 120 of 1,600 U.S. television stations currently broadcast HDTV, and they tend to be mostly large and wealthy, but these figures are bound to change, according to Frank Marlowe, who manages the ATP project for consortium leader Sarnoff Corp. “The success of the ATP project will be in the large number of smaller stations that will have this technology available to them,” he says. The ATP project is intended to accelerate the adoption of HDTV by U.S. broadcasters by enabling dramatic reductions in the cost of equipment. The project anticipated the 1996 establishment of digital television transmission standards and broadcast mandates by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). All public TV stations must begin digital transmission by 2003; until 2006, broadcasters will be required to broadcast both analog (the traditional mode) and digital bands. All TV broadcast stations are expected to convert to the digital format over the next few years. The suite of technologies developed to date is being tested at NJN Public Television in Trenton, N.J. The station points out that, in addition to offering greatly enhanced picture clarity and superior audio, digital TV will enable the simultaneous broadcast of four or more programs, thus enriching the resources available to the public. The ATP project will accelerate the station’s provision of full digital service by three years. In the meantime, numerous components designed in the project already have been commercialized with industry funding. MCI WorldCom, for example, performed research on critical timing information and developed the capability to transport theater-quality digital video over standard digital telecommunications facilities based on the know-how and hardware (digital interface technology) acquired in the ATP project. The company’s digital video transport service is being used by a major cable TV programmer at a 40 percent savings (saving tens of thousands of dollars monthly), according to Fred Huffman, an MCI WorldCom senior engineer. “This is the kind of barrier-breaking stuff that we talked about when we envisioned and planned our work in the NIST project,” he says. “We thought this would be a quick and efficient way of getting a knowledge base in video technology,” Paul Donaldson, another MCI senior engineer, says of the ATP project. “It looked like an attractive consortium of companies and it was a good time to get in early to find out what would make digital video a success ... Rubbing shoulders with the team members provided us with valuable knowledge of digital television and enabled us to meet potential customers.” Thomcast Communications, Inc., meanwhile, has captured one-third of the global digital transmitter market with a product based on the ATP-funded technology. At the time of its commercialization, the Thomcast transmitter was believed to be unique in offering auto-mated correction of distortions caused by amplification and in the extent of the corrections. The latter feature produces precise transmissions with no spillover into adjacent channels—thus enabling compliance with FCC requirements for both analog and digital transmission. The early success “swayed customers into our camp,” says Chris Shea, director of contract operations. At least 38 stations are on the air with Thomcast’s digital transmitter, including 28 in the United States and 10 elsewhere (Spain, France, Brazil, and the Netherlands). Also developed by the ATP team is a software and networking system that controls equipment and schedules, and also creates and shares vast archives of video content over a geographically distributed network. An industry group is basing a standard on this technology, which, according to Jim Janniello, manager of IBM Corp.’s digital television lab, is unique in the marketplace because it integrates control and content management. IBM is working with Connecticut Public Television to apply this technology to a statewide network linking museums, universities, and other institutions. A number of technical innovations are applicable in other contexts, Janniello says. For instance, to provide studio timing and synchronization over existing networks, the team developed a new approach for distributing timing information and a novel algorithm for allocating network bandwidth. They also developed new technologies for searching video libraries. One search engine used speech recognition technology to generate transcripts of audio tracks; this technology has been incorporated as an enhancement to IBM’s voice recognition software—one of many unforeseen benefits of ATP’s investment. “When we started this project, it really wasn’t clear where HDTV was going,” Janniello notes. “Without NIST, we really wouldn’t have risked it.” Another commercial product based on ATP-funded research is Thomson Consumer Electronics’ digital encoder, which provides a good compression ratio (50 to 1) as well as high image quality. The new encoder uses the same chassis as a standard definition encoder, enabling “on the fly” switching between image types, says Michael Isnardi of Sarnoff, which designed the electronics. Finally, the ATP team reduced the costs and picture degradation associated with the cycle of compressing HDTV signals for transmission and then uncompressing them in the studio. A number of technologies for working directly with compressed images— overlaying text on video, synthesizing video or converting it from one form to another, modifying pictures for artistic effect, inserting commercials—are being commercialized by AgileVision Systems, a new company formed by Sarnoff and Mercury Computer Systems of Chelmsford, Mass. The products will enable studio operations to be performed entirely by one piece of equipment instead of half a dozen pieces, thus reducing hardware costs by approximately 50 percent, Marlowe says. May 2000 |