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THE WAY I SEE IT By NEVILLE WILLIAMS What's happened to wide-screen high-definition 3D television? Are you happy with the quality of the sound and picture available from a modern TV set? If not, would you be willing to pay two or three times as much for one with better sound, a higher definition picture, a wide screen format or a 3-D image? If a correspondent from Thornleigh, NSW had his way, that's what we could be facing somewhere down the track. Perhaps I should point out that th& letter in the panel was not entirely spontaneous. The position was that, when a decidedly vocal acquaintance got all stirred up about present-day TV standards, I backed off and suggested that he sit down and bash the keyboard rather than my ear! And so he did. lf you haven't already done so, it would be appropriate at this point to read the result of his efforts. You've read his letter? Good! I don't know about you but when somebody clambers on to the proverbial soapbox and proclaims to all and sundry what "they" should do, problems notwithstanding, I find it rather difficult not to assume the role of devil's advocate. The entertainment centre I still have on my shelves a copy of the Panasonic exhibition booklet issued in September 1983 and yes, I recall publicity to do with projection television and high-definition receivers by Sony, Toshiba, Philips and others, about the same time. That didn't happen by accident. Back in 1981, NHK (the Japan Broadcasting Corporation) and a 62 SILICON CHIP group of Japanese equipment manufacturers had unveiled a new HDTV (High Definition Television) system, based broadly on 1125 lines, 60 fields, a 5-3 aspect ratio and the option of picture tubes with much larger screens. Initially, HDTV called for a signal bandwidth of 20MHz but NHK was confident that this could be substantially reduced by sampling/encoding techniques. The real purpose of the exercise was not to launch HDTV there and then but to encourage group research and to grab for the Japanese electronics industry the initiative and the patents advantage that had long been held by the Europeans and Americans. The notion of a mini-cinema in the home has had plenty of exposure since then as, for example, in the "Sydney Morning Herald" Pink Guide section a few weeks back: "Bringing the cinema into the living room". It's a fine heading but how valid is the concept? I have no reservations about investing in the best TV receiver one can afford, or the best VCR and hifi system. Nor do I have reservations about bringing them together in one room as an integrated system, if that fits in with the viewing habits of the family. But the devil's advocate in me insists that it's quite another matter to base one's ambitions on the further assumption that the proper and ultimate role for a living room is as some sort of mini "Regent" fitted out and dedicated primarily to film and TV shows. About the last thing I'd want is for my own living room to be dominated by a 3-metre wide rack of electronic equipment. As a technical writer, I'm no less interested than W. G. in the technology of surround sound and high definition, wide-screen images. But unlike the aforesaid correspondent, I'm not impatient for its introduction and I don't feel deprived without it. The way I see it, Australian urban dwellers in particular are already well served in terms of audio/video entertainment. New technology, when? In due course, some of the developments sought by W. G. will undoubtedly become a reality but for new technology to be successful, it has to be right for the situation. The consumers must either need or want it, or be open to persuasion that they do. The providers must likewisP, be convinced that there is something in it for them. In the case of broadcast television in Australia, all three factors were present and TV won acceptance in this country at a record It's high time they adopted better TV standards! Dear Neville, Some years ago, National Panasonic set up a futuristic display at which we were invited to anticipate, amongst other things, a home "entertainment centre", where state-of-the-art viewing and listening facilities would be brought together tor realistic television sound and pictures. About the same time, Sony and others were carrying on about higher quality TV images with more lines, better definition and a wider picture format, using a wallmounted screen and a TV projector hidden in a coffee table or slung from the ceiling. The ultimate objective: "a cinema in the living room" . In newspapers and magazines, there was speculation about 3-D television being just around the corner. But what's come out of all this? We've got stereo sound, TV sets with bigger screens, Teletext and digital gimmicks, along with improved VCRs, all of which are fine, as far as they go. But where's the real progress? Our TV system is still shackled to the CCIR standards adopted in the 1950s and set in concrete with CCIR/PAL colour in the 1970s. Unless we break out rate, through the major phases of monochrome, colour and home video. But television has faltered at the DBS st/lge (direct broadcast via satellite) because, while there were potential providers and potential users, the Government opted for the radically new "MAC" format (Multiplexed Analog Components) instead of the. established PAL system (Phase Alternate Line) as used by all normal TV broadcast stations. With an eye to improved picture quality and possible future developments, the decision was not necessarily a bad one. However, the cost and complication of the new technology has drastically slowed the adoption of DBS in somewhere along the line, we'll carry the whole antiquated box and dice into the next century! It's high time that the Government and the electronics industry started to take the future seriously - to face up to the need tor more scanning lines and higher definition, a higher field rate to minimise flicker, the option of wide screen presentation and provision for extra video information to support some form of 3-D. Right now, the Government is debating pay-TV and that surely would provide an opportunity to break away from the CCIR yoke. On the assumption that pay-TV will be distributed by fibre optic cable and/or satellite , we should be able to provide tor better picture definition, better chroma information (eg, the Aussat/B-MAC system), surplus bandwidth for extra video components, more versatile sound signals - and a widescreen format. I imagine that new-release films would feature large on pay-TV and what would be more natural than to transmit them in that form? Sure, it would require a wide format film scanner. Live broadcasts would need wide format cameras and modified video tape recorders and so on . Australia, as originally envisaged. The notion of five nationwide networks and thousands of domestic satellite dishes sprinkled far and wide across the continent has simply not materialised. Nor is the Australian experience unique. Similar problem in Britain Readers of the British journal "New Scientist" may have seen an article by Barry Fox [October 22, 1988) detailing a somewhat similar hang-up in the UK. There, playing by the rules, the British Satellite Broadcasting consortium [BSB) had ordered a satellite from Hughes Aircraft in the USA, for launch in August 1989, with programs to begin in September or October. Sure, it would be expensive, as also would be the special receivers and video recorders that viewers would need to buy to take advantage of 21 st century TV. But who is going to support decent pay-TV anyway? People who can afford it! Others could change over as the price comes down . Existing viewers need not be shut out. In these days of digital processing and standards conversion , it should not be too difficult to process the incoming wideband wide-format signal in an add-on adaptor and reassemble it, minus the extra width , as a normal PAL signal for existing receivers. It should be possible for TV broadcasters to include a cueing signal to instruct a standards converter in the home on how best to crop any given scene. To receive pay TV, viewers are going to need some sort of a converter, anyway and an extra chip or two to provide cued standards conversion should be no great hassle. My point is simply that , if we continue to perpetuate the present standards by locking more ana more services into them, they'll still be entrenched long after many of us have ceased to care! W. G. (Wentworthville , NSW). Their plan was (and still is) to broadcast three pay-TV channels direct into British homes, using a MAC type signal format in the interests of improved picture quality and possible future developments. Unfortunately, the projected cost of MAC down conversion/unscrambler kits has escalated to the point where public acceptance of the service is no longer assured. In the meantime - as predicted in Fox's article - a Luxembourg owned satellite, Astra. was launched by a French Ariane rocket in December 1988, with the backing of Rupert Murdoch and others. Astra. however, is set up to broadcast 16 channels in normal PAL format. potentially accessible to British and continental viewers for a projected Al'll /1 . 1989 63 THE WAY I SEE IT - CTD outlay of about 200 pounds ($400) - the price of a 60cm dish and a relatively simple down-converter. But the overall picture is becoming somewhat murky. Initially, the four channels operated by Murdoch and additional channels by the retail chain W. H. Smith will be reliant on advertising and freely available to viewers having the necessary dish and down converter. Later in the year, however, Murdoch's special release film channels will be scrambled using the Palcrypt system, requiring the addition of a Palcrypt unscrambler, accessed by periodically renewable "smart" credit cards. The W. H. Smith channels will also be scrambled but using the Philips Eurocrypt system, requiring a further unscrambler and means of access. When the BSB satellite is fired up at about the same time, it will call for a second dish orientated 31 ° west instead of 19° east, a MAC down-converter and a Eurocrypt unscrambler capable also of handling MAC. As one writer put it: a British viewer seeking full satellite access looks like ending up with two dishes, three subscriptions and four adaptor boxes! So right now, the outlook isn't exactly bright for high-tech DBS in Britain. If W. G. is going to get his much prized wide-screen, high definition, surround sound television, he '11 have to come up with a more compelling reason than simply to make use of the technology we have before a discontented minority is too old to enjoy it! As for 3-D (3-dimensional) images, I can sustain the devil's advocate role without even trying. The basic idea of 3-D and possible ways to achieve it has intrigued would-be inventors for generations but the results have usually been a big yawn. The big screen option Let's solve that problem first and exploit our present CCIR/PAL standards to their logical limit. It will then be time enough to start stretching the screens even wider for those who want it that way. Even so, I still have my reservations about re-styling the living room into a mini-Regent! I can't quite remember the time, or the place or the format but my first exposure to large-screen UHF TV system update Right now, I'd suggest that theatre projection was quite an experience. Australian TV administrators and I do recall that I was rather an- viewers face a much more urgent noyed about the publicity which problem. I refer to the current resuggested that the large, concave deployment to the UHF band as it applies to the NSW Illawarra screen gave its own 3-D effect - a claim that could not be true of an (south coast) region. I had no sooner completed my image that lacked any basic 3-D information. reply to W. G. above than I received But while the fact remained, the · quite a lengthy phone call from a mood disappeared at the moment reader in the Wollongong area. the image flooded the huge screen While he mentioned his name, I am - as I recall, a panoramic shot not free to identify him beyond the from the nose of an aircraft flying fact that he has been well placed to low over a snow-covered mountain observe the emerging situation from the transmitting rather then vista. No sooner had we adjusted to the the receiving side. magnificent scene than the whole Reacting to rny remarks on the theatre tilted forward - or so it subject in the December issue, his seemed - and headed perilously one criticism was that I was still over a ridge into the valley beyond. tending to err on the side of caution. It wasn't 3-D but as far as the auHe emphasised that the saving dience was concerned, it was far feature of VHF transmission in the more compelling. moutainous terrain of the Illawarra Larger screens, if not huge region has been its ability to refract screens, are now routine in over hills, headlands and escarpcinemas and if one wants to in- ments to reach viewers in shadowcrease the impact of TV in the ed areas. home, larger screens are far more What's more, he said, it's still dopractical than any form of 3-D that ing so [at the time of the call) even has so far been devised. though the VHF service from the Given good source material and commercial station WIN-4 has been modern signal processing, I find the downgraded in terms of power and new generation of 70-odd cm pic- propagation, in preparation for the ture tubes most impressive and changeover to UHF. desirable - except for one thing. By contrast, the UHF transmitSome of them desperately need a ters, operating with 10 times or finer pitch colour screen to avoid more the ERP [effective radiated the situation where the once power) are leaving certain shadowtroublesome horizontal scanning ed areas "in a total UHF blackout". lines have been displaced as a proAccording to my informant, he blem by the visible vertical could name 21 spots in Wollongong phosphor pattern. where the UHF transmissions were The saving feature of VHF transmission in the Illoworro region hos been its ability to refract over hills, headlands & escarpments to reach viewers in shadowed areas. 64 SILICON CHIP simply not available from the new UHF transmitters nearby. Viewers in those areas have been receiving VHF signals, in some cases with very modest antennas; when the VHF transmitters are switched off, they'll get nothing. Further out, fading is every bit the problem mentioned in the December issue, except that it often amounts to complete signal loss. But that doesn't seem to have deterred some opportunists from nonchalantly installing UHF beams on the strength of political promises or a personal assurance that "she'll be right in the mornin' !" There seemed little doubt, said the caller, that DOTC planners had not only misjudged overseas experience but had persisted with the notion that, somehow or other, propagation problems could be swamped by extra power. It simply isn't working that way but, in his opinion, they've gone too far down the track to change direction. The only way that anything like the original coverage will be achieved is by providing a complex network of repeaters - maybe 30 or 40 more than originally envisaged. And that's going to cost! Five channels to consider! The way things are heading, he said, the three major commercial networks will ultimately gain access to this and other country areas by reciprocal arrangements involving existing rural broadcasters in this case, through the key stations in Wollongong (9), Canberra (7) and Orange (10). Having largely sat on their hands while WIN-4 has done most of the arguing, the networks will now have to put their money where their ambitions have been. In effect, every repeater installation will have to accommodate up to five channels: the ABC, SBS and three commercially based networks, with costs being shared. Multiply by five the number of repeaters envisaged by my caller and you end up with a startling number of receivers and transmitters sprinkled across the Illawarra area and, ultimately, most of the countryside. The question is whether the broadcasters will willingly wear this level of expenditure, especially for the smaller pockets of population which, to them, are statistically unimportant. My caller fears that they won't and that DOTC's only answer could be as mentioned on page 3 7 of the October issue: viewers disadvantaged by UHF will just have to rely on the satellite. But if the major commercial networks progressively gain access to all but a small minority of viewers by way of terrestial transmitters, why should they go to the expense of feeding the satellite? That will leave disadvantaged viewers with the option of a bill for $2500 to receive just the ABC and SBS. In other words, they will be well and truly up the creek with half a paddle! 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