[opendtv] Sensory overload at broadcasters' bash in Vegas

From: "Manfredi, Albert E" <albert.e.manfredi@xxxxxxxxxx>
To: "OpenDTV (E-mail)" <opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Wed, 27 Apr 2005 17:20:36 -0400
Sensory overload at broadcasters' bash in Vegas

Rick Merritt
(04/25/2005 10:00 AM EDT)
URL: http://www.eetimes.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=3D161500977

Las Vegas - The conference officially begins like the
broadcast day in some small Alabama hamlet. A Marine
Corps color guard ushers a woman in a neon-purple dress
and elaborately flipped hairdo to the stage. She belts
out "The Star-Spangled Banner" as if she has three
lungs. Then a Las Vegas minister - think you have a
hard job? - leads us in prayer.

To the jaded tech conference goer, the spectacle is at
once bizarre, stiff, phony and strangely moving. I
check to see if I am still in my pajamas as the stage
lights flash.

Three days later, I am leaving Las Vegas feeling as if
my standard-definition head has been hooked up to a
high-definition video feed and I'm dripping in pixels.
It's my first trip to the National Association of
Broadcasters' annual conference.

Even before the conference kicks off, the unofficial
start of the program finds the tech execs of six top
studios sitting onstage in loose-fitting jeans and
acting chummy, as if they had just come from a party
or a guest spot on The Tonight Show.

They are congratulating themselves in a sort of
laid-back SoCal way about their work in defining the
digital cinema specification. The final standard had
been delayed several months while the industry beefed
up its anti-piracy provisions. In later panels, two
NorCal technologists describe the group as "in abject
terror" and "paranoid beyond belief" about their
high-def digital masters floating around as bits.

The moderator states from the outset that the panel
will take no questions about business models. He
doesn't say this, but I know from earlier research
that the digi-cinema spec promises to save the
studios millions in distributing film reels to 10,000
theaters worldwide - if only the theater owners will
shell out a few million bucks for new digital gear.
The theater owners want to talk about business
models.

Later, someone asks about the rumors suggesting that
the two next-generation DVD standards will be
consolidated into one. Members of the panel laugh as
if Jay Leno had just told a good joke.

Next question.

Over coffee one morning in the press room, Lynn
Claudy, senior vice president of science and
technology for the National Association of
Broadcasters (NAB), says there are 1,700
TV-broadcasting stations in the United States and
1,500 of them are broadcasting in digital today.
However, most of the stations are still using tape
for storage and FedEx for sending content to their
affiliates.

This year NAB looked closely at the hard-disk arrays
on the show floor. Next year, it will buy them,
Claudy said. As high-def cameras come down from tens
of thousands to a few thousand dollars, it is also
starting to buy high-def gear - a little here, a
little there. Eventually, NAB will get its core
broadcasting systems up on the Net, too. It's a lot
to do while still putting on the six o'clock news.

One of the hot things at the conference was the
broadcasting of video to cell phones. The show floor
had many demos of cell phone TV using the European
DVB-H and South Korean DMB standards. It's cool
stuff, but broadcasters aren't interested yet, said
Claudy.

"Their digital TV transition is basically over,"
Claudy said, "and they are waiting for the receiver
transition to kick in so they have something new to
sell. When it does, maybe they will be able to find
some money for a joint venture for something like
mobile video that won't pan out for a while."

But the tech guys over at the Advanced Television
Systems Committee exhibit were poking around the
European and Korean booths and comparing notes.

"There are a lot of people talking about enhanced
VSB [vestigial sideband] and advanced receiver
technology to provide mobile data and video
streams," said Claudy. "It's at a very early stage.
The path is not yet set."

Jay Leno stops in town for about 45 minutes to
graciously receive an award and tell a few jokes
as The Tonight Show is inducted into the NAB Hall
of Fame. He says President Bush has no plan to
attack Iran but will do so anyway - lack of a plan
didn't stop him the last time. He says President
Clinton has problems getting enough blood to his
heart - because so much of it is going to another
organ.

Leno gives a short, mainly straight thank-you
speech in which he expresses his philosophy about
his job. "I just don't want to mess it up for the
next guy." He suggests that Jack Paar was too
political for mainstream America, which just wants
a late-night parody of the 11 o'clock news, an
eyeful of J-Lo and a couple of bawdy jokes.

On the same stage a day earlier, NAB president
Eddie Fritts announced he was stepping down after
more than 20 years heading what John McCain once
called the most powerful lobby on Capitol Hill.
Fritts noted that at the start of his career, Bob
Packwood said that NAB "couldn't lobby itself out
of a paper bag." I wonder about measuring a
career achievement based on a dig from Bob
Packwood.

NAB faces four big issues, said Fritts: the digital
TV and radio transitions, the threat of regulation
over indecency and a pending rewrite of the telecom
bill. Of the latter he said, "Some have said this
could be the mother of all legislative battles, as
it has the potential to reshape every
communications company on the globe."

Fritts said he plans to remain active in the
industry after he steps down from NAB. He shared a
quip from President Reagan: Politics is the
second-oldest profession in the world, and has
close ties with the first. I think about Leno and
the lady singing the national anthem.

I bump into a Microsoft Corp. exec in the hall and
ask him what's up. Among other things, he mentions
that the digital radio spec has just been finished,
but it does not reference the Ibiquity codec at its
heart. Indeed, an HD Radio maker tells me the
Ibiquity license is the single most costly
component of his system.

The Microsoft exec said the Federal Communications
Commission may decide to make Ibiquity reveal
details of the codec that it has so far kept
secret, supposedly because of legal entanglements
with licensee and competitor Sirius Satellite Radio.
The codec is thought to be a modified version of
AAC+.

The FCC might also open up the spec to multiple
codecs, though systems have been shipping for a
while, the exec said. Apparently he's concerned
about the government not being tough on a
monopolist.

The radio spec also fails to spell out advanced
datacasting features, but a work group will tackle
that in May and expects to finish in the fall, said
Claudy of NAB.

Initially, the devices are sold like DTV, primarily
on the basis of their sound clarity. Later,
Ibiquity will roll out features such as an ability
to store and rewind radio, TiVo-style, and a "buy
button" to purchase a song or get more information
on something being broadcast.

Startup Radiosophy launched at NAB a $250 boom box
as the cheapest HD Radio system currently available.
CEO Richard Skeie noted that the current codec and
chip sets are so far too power hungry for
battery-driven devices.

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[opendtv] Sensory overload at broadcasters' bash in Vegas

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