Audio Video News

The rollout of HDTV may finally get rolling, thanks to an agreement reached the first week of November by consumer electronics manufacturers and representatives of the cable television industry.

Long the electronics industry's most-quoted obstacle to developing nationwide high definition television service, cable compatibility may no longer be an issue. Representatives from both sides have agreed to standards for interconnectivity and interoperability that should make the next generation of receivers, tuners, monitors, and set-top converter boxes (STBs) much more user-friendly than they are today. The agreement was widely heralded as the "last hurdle" in the transition from NTSC analog standards to the new digital ATSC format.

The agreement was over five years in development and was a subject on which Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) president and CEO Gary Shapiro hammered as hard as possible at every opportunity in the past three years.

The deal must be approved by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). Once it is rubber-stamped, a three-year phase-in period will commence in 2004. Cable compatibility nullifies the CEA's objection to a recent FCC mandate that new TVs include digital tuners. Soon, retailers will be able to tell their customers "Yes, this TV is HD-ready," according to Dave Arland of Thomson Multimedia, parent of the RCA brand.

STBs may become the industry's dinosaurs once their functions are incorporated into new TVs and digital video recorders. They are not likely to disappear any time soon, however, given the durability of legacy television sets that now populate most US homes. About 72 million of the 105 million TV-equipped American homes get their signals from cable, according to industry statistics. Most of these homes have multiple TVs and will continue to need STBs for years to come. Only 4.8 million homes have digital TVs at present, most of them purchased for use with DVD players.