The Politics of HDTV in the United States

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Policy Studies Journal, Vol. 22, No. 2, (213-228)

Jeffrey A. Hart

Policies adopted by the United States government between 1987 and 1993 regardinghigh definition television (HDTV) were made primarily by the Federal Communica-tions Commission (FCC). A brief effort by members of Congress and their bureaucratic and industrial allies to link HDTV to broader industrial policies was thwarted by the George Bush Administration between 1988 and 1990. The FCC's policies with respect to simulcasting and digital signals reflected the concern of that agency to protect the interests of consumers, broadcasters, and electronics manufacturers. The first two interests traditionally were protected bythe FCC, whereas the protection of electronics was somewhat unusual and was influenced by perceptions of declining United States competitiveness. In addition, United States policymaking in this area depended strongly on the framing effect of
policies adopted in Japan and Western Europe.


Introduction

The politics of high definition television (HDTV) provides a window into the world of business-government relations in a new international economic environment of intense competition among the advanced industrial nations.  HDTV involves a set of advanced technologies that arise out of a growing convergence between entertainment television and digital electronics. These new technologies include new types of advanced semiconductors, high-resolution displays, and digital recording and transmission technolo-gies.

The public unveiling of working HDTV technologies by the Japanese public broadcaster NHK (Nippon Hoso Kyokai) in 1981 was a shock to the global broadcasting, television, and electronics industries. Japan appeared to be far in front of the rest of the world in what many saw as a set of critical new technologies not just for consumer electronics but for information technology in general.

In the 1960s and 1970s, there was a rapid retreat of United States firms from consumer electronics markets under intense competition from Japan. The United States consumer electronics industry was in a very weak position in the early 1980s. As a result.the United States semiconductor industry was having increased difficulty competing with the larger and more integrated Japanese electronics concerns. When the European Commu-nity reacted negatively in 1986 to a Japanese effort to have its version of HDTV technology recognized as an international standard, many Americans in information technology industries looked to the United States government to respond with special industrial policies for HDTV. Why such policies were proposed, but for the most part not adopted, in the United States is one of the questions to be addressed here.


What is HDTV?

HDTV differs from the current generation of televisions by doubling the horizontal and vertical resolution of video images, and by providing a wider screen and digital stereosound.
Wider screens and digital sound are included in the practical definition of HDTV because market studies indicated that these have strong appeal to consumers. The high Policy Studies Journal, 22:2 definition part of HDTV is more important than wider screens and digital sound technologi-cally, however, because adequate handling of high definition images requires a greater advance in technology.

Definition in television refers to the sharpness, or resolution, of the picture transmitted and received. Potential resolution is affected by the number of horizontal lines scanned onto the video screen, which is why one sees "number of lines" featured in advertisements for many new TV products. Actual vertical and horizontal resolution is measured directly using a test pattern to determine what degree of detail can be displayed on a TV monitor. Actual resolution may vary widely for monitors with the same number of scanning lines. The monitors used in TV studios, for example, display much sharper images than one can get on a TV set at home, partly because they are more expensive and
higher quality devices, but also because they are not subject to the errors and distortions introduced in the transmission of TV signals.

The two main standards families in color TV today, NTSC (the American standard) and PAL/SECAM (the European standards), have 525 and 625 scanning lines respectively.'
Another difference between the two systems is the number of fields displayed per second: in NTSC it is 59.94, in PAL/SECAM only 50. The maximum theoretical resolution of an NTSC image is 360 by 360 pixels; 2 PAL/SECAM resolution theoretically can be higher because of the greater number of scanning lines. The greater frequency of fields per secondof NTSC cuts down on various artifacts, however, such as flicker and moird effects. HDTV production cameras will have 700 or more scanning lines and HDTV images will have atheoretical resolution of at least 700 by 700 pixels. This makes the theoretical horizontal and vertical resolution of HDTV sets at least double that of NTSC or PAL/SECAM sets.


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