A panel advising the US Federal Communications Commission in Washington on Advanced Television Services has urged the Commission to adopt the technology developed by the Digital HDTV Grand Alliance as the standard for the new generation of digital television in the US. The formal recommendation marks the end of the eight-year evaluation process into different technologies and the Commission is expected shortly to start seeking public comment on the standard. Members of the Grand Alliance are AT&T Corp, General Instrument Corp, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Philips Consumer Electronics, the David Sarnoff Research Center – now owned by SRI Inc – Thomson Consumer Electronics SA and Zenith Electronics Corp. As reported here at the time, it was formed in 1993 when the FCC Advisory Panel urged the developers of four digital high definition television systems to work together to develop a system combining the best of the four. The Grand Alliance system would offer large-screen high-resolution displays with a 19Mbps link into consumers’ homes. Pictures would be twice the size and twice the resolution of current television images; alternatively, the system can be used to transmit four ordinary television channels simultaneously, or a mix of programming and data communications. However, the sets, which are expected to start appearing in around two years from now, are likely to cost as much as $2,000 more than existing televisions. Another problem thrown up by the system is whether television stations should be given a second channel to enable them to make the transition to the new technology in parallel with analogue. That was the original plan, but the airwave auctions have demonstrated that the radio spectrum is a very valuable commodity that can be auctioned to raise a lot of money for the Federal government, and many people are jealous about the idea of it being handed over free to existing broadcasters, especially as the enthusiasm for straight broadcast high definition television has largely evaporated. The Commission has also expressed concern that in 10 or 15 years’ time, consumers will have to spend some $75,000m for new television sets as broadcasters shift altogether to the new system.
