Cable and Broadcast Best Served By Working Together in TV System

he delivery of television signals is quickly becoming a national digital broadcast system made up of the cable, computer, broadcast and consumer electronics industries, said CableLabs President Dr. Richard R. Green in a technical keynote speech delivered at the recent National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) convention in Las Vegas.

"We must re-examine old turf battles and recognize that the future will not be reached by each segment of our respective industries continuing to develop techniques and systems in competitive isolation," he said. "The technical needs of our intended services are, in fact, rapidly converging."

"Properly managed, this trend will serve the public interest, whether the consumer wants entertainment, information, instruction, or interaction with others. It will provide these services at the lowest possible cost and with the most capable digital broadcast system."

Green also advised the broadcast industry that it is the cable industry's intention to carry their programming in whatever digital format they select, but also noted that many cable systems are strained for capacity. He suggested that cable operators and broadcasters are well served by working out digital carriage business arrangements in their markets.

The following is an edited version of the speech:

The most important project that we have ever undertaken at CableLabs is digital television. We have been working on that topic since the start of the lab in 1988.

We issued what I believe was the first specification for digital video compression equipment for consumer's homes, seven years ago in March 1991. We have been offering digital video service on cable and satellite for the last three years. Digital television is a technology that the cable industry has taken seriously and is deploying quickly. We are in the process of deploying the first 500 thousand digital set tops and our member companies tell us that a conservative number for year-end '98 deployment is one million units.

Just beyond that is a 15-million unit order, placed on behalf of nine cable operators, for advanced digital set tops. Those units will marry digital programming, high-speed data, and Internet content for display on analog and digital TV receivers.

Right now we stand at the threshold of HDTV broadcasting.

The truth is, none of us is ready for HDTV, even though we have been working hard for the last decade to prepare. There is still a lot to be done, but broadcasting will begin in 10 large markets in November. The cable networks, including HBO and Discovery, are planning to provide HDTV service soon after that. So there will be broadcast and cable HDTV services soon. However, some questions remain:

• the issue of must-carry applied to the digital environment, and
• the related questions of compatibility of transmission standards and timing must be resolved.

I'd like to share some things that we have learned at CableLabs while helping prepare the cable industry for the transition to digital technology:

First: the convergence of industries is real, the trend is certain, and we in the technical professions need to be thinking and working collegially with our counterparts in other industries.

Second: the rate of change of technological development in television keeps increasing and is now approaching Moore's law cadence.

Third: consumers will truly drive the digital evolution. Their interest must be the primary consideration in the introduction of this new technology.

Convergence

The first axiom concerns convergence.

No single industry has a lock on the market for distribution of digital signals. Information can be distributed and manipulated in an unlimited number of ways. Due to the flexibility of digital technology, traditional market barriers have also begun to erode. Now it is possible for providers of traditionally distinct technologies and services to cross into new markets and challenge each other with an impressive array of applications and services. The concept of convergence, this synergy of industries, became evident about four years ago. It then tarnished and fell on hard times.

But there has been a resurrection. The new element is business necessity - in the broadcast, computer, and cable industries.

These industries support very successful businesses and, as businesses, we really need each other. We are mutually dependent. The cable industry needs computer software and hardware to put in the set-top box. The broadcast industry needs this same technology in providing advanced data and television service to the home. The computer industry needs connectivity. If the computer industry is to continue to grow at the double-digit rate, new applications - video, for example - need to be built into the PC.

Who better to provide digital video and data services to computers than the broadcast and cable industries? All of us need the consumer electronics industry. The next generation of TV sets will certainly add to the entertainment value of services with clearer pictures and improved sound. It is likely that television sets will become display terminals for data supplied over the air and through the terrestrial networks.

Rate of Change of Technology

The second point is about the acceleration of technical change. Technical change is like a steamroller: if you're not on it, you're destined to be part of the road!

The technology that all of us are using depends on processors and memory. This means that television will benefit from the same silicon learning curve that powers the microchip development, with its billion-transistor potential. Therefore, like it or not, those of us involved in the distribution of television are now dealing with Moore's Law changes: a doubling of technical capability every 12-18 months.

So we are the buffers between what has been a much slower obsolescence cycle characteristic of the consumer market and the new development cycle which will bring obsolescence every 18 months. The computer industry and the consumer electronics industry are on a collision course bringing this dilemma to the retail market. Will consumers be willing to replace their television sets every 18 months? Will consumers be willing to replace their television sets with computers? I don't know. I do think that we can address this dilemma by moving toward a software-based delivery system. This means software that may be downloaded and upgraded is placed in consumer devices and that is the direction we have taken in the OpenCable set-top specification.

Customer Orientation

The third axiom is that the consumer is going to determine the future. The guiding maxim of our technological efforts must be to determine what the customer wants. There is no business principle more sound than that of keeping an open mind and measuring the customer's needs. Therefore, considering the range of options available for HDTV and digital broadcasting, it seems likely that the preferred course should be to test extensively a variety of different programming scenarios to determine which will ultimately prove most popular with consumers.

The Cable Industry Shares Your Views

In many ways the cable industry shares your view of the future potential of digital broadcasting. As is obvious at this convention, DTV offers incredible flexibility that was not available previously. We can provide high-definition signals for ultimate picture quality, multichannel standard definition for potentially new revenue streams, data broadcasting for new applications, or a combination of any of these. Data broadcasting for high-speed PC downloads and Internet content delivery is an added advantage.

But, as you would expect, making the transition to this new world is not so easy.

There are many issues that must be addressed, such as the creation of larger consumer displays for TV receivers, networks' decisions on program delivery bit-rate and format, conditional access, cable set-top converters, and home recording, just to mention a few.

Those of us in the cable industry would ask that you consider the impact of your new services on cable systems. It is our intention to carry your programs in whatever display format you select, but in many cable systems we are strapped for capacity. A full 19-Mbps HDTV signal will fill a 6-MHz cable channel at 64-QAM modulation. We can pack two 19-Mbps HDTV signals into a 6-MHz cable channel using 256 QAM. But, even at that rate, we will not have sufficient capacity to accommodate all the signals.

I believe that, in all 10 start-up markets, cable coverage is currently arranged under retransmission consent agreements. These agreements have formed the basis for broadcasters and cable operators to work out business arrangements. Perhaps this type of bilateral discussion can result in a win-win solution at the digital start-up. Bilateral discussions between networks and cable MSOs and broadcast stations and local cable operators are in progress.

In conclusion, let me leave you with two points.

• Our industries are becoming increasingly interdependent. We need a unified will to reorient past efforts into the conditions of today. The technical needs of our intended services are, in fact, rapidly converging.
• Instead of thinking as people who operate RF transmitters, satellite transponders, or coaxial cable networks, let's think of the delivery of television as a system.

Based on the convergence of the technology that we are all using and on the accelerated pace of the development of that technology, we are working to build a national digital broadcast system. As individual industries, we each are constructing a component. But the system is made up of many components, including over-the-air broadcasting, cable, satellite, MMDS, etc. The system supplies multichannel television to the people of North America.

The system gives the customer choice, and we all compete on the basis of such attributes as content, price, and quality. From our technology-based platforms, no one of us directly serves all the television receivers. But we are interconnected because we must use the same standards. For example, NTSC has been our interface standard and we are now using MPEG-2 and Dolby Audio for our digital services. Because we have different propagation environments, we use different RF modulations: QPSK for satellite, VSB for broadcasting, and QAM on cable. We do this for technical reasons to optimize our respective distribution.

Competing for viewer attention and dollars is healthy. It builds strong and competitive businesses. Cooperation and collaboration on the technical interfaces within the system build a sound cost-effective infrastructure. Both are in the best interests of the public and our customers. In the competition for viewers, there will be and should be winners and losers. In the development of the digital infrastructure, the interface definitions should be based on a collaborative, win-win philosophy.

On the technical side, we have made considerable progress. The ATSC has served as the forum to discuss and recommend standards. And we have a solid first-generation specification. All those that were part of that effort should be proud of the achievement. We at CableLabs certainly are. However, the next generation of agreements must take into account the convergence of our industries in a more specific way than it has in the past. The interfaces involved now strongly include the interests of the computer and consumer electronics industry as well as broadcast and cable. These industries each have organizations that consider and develop standards which serve their respective needs. Taken in aggregate, many of the technical issues needed to continue the specification of the digital system have been addressed in these organizations. It is now incumbent upon us to develop a dialog among these industry-based standards groups so that we might collectively approach the standardization of these inter-industry interfaces. And if that isn't task enough, the Moore's Law cycle requires that this must be done often and quickly.

There is plenty of work to be done. Fragments of the specification have been completed by various organizations. For example, matters of conditional access and renewable security have been addressed in a CEMA group, copy protection has been addressed by a group of manufacturers working with the motion picture studios, the Open-Cable process has developed a specification for API's which will be released to suppliers next month. It is in everyone's interest to contribute and compile these elements into an integrated specification. I hope that we individually don't reinvent the wheel.

This kind of uncertainty can and should be avoided. Inter-industry agreements are preferable to government mandate. But we must remember that there is a community of interests now. It is not limited to just broadcast and cable. The convergence has eliminated the days when cable and broadcasting interests could get together and develop specifications for the broadcast system.

It is my hope that the cable, computer, broadcast, and consumer electronic industries will all join in this effort, recognizing that the current convergence of technology leads to a convergence of economic self-interest.