OTHER TECH

Depending on the event, HDTV's widescreen 16:9 aspect ratio can be used to accommodate a pair of close-ups approximating the traditional 4:3 aspect ratio. This was best demonstrated when pairs of competitors were electronically placed next to each other just before the start of each speed-skating bout.

On the Receiving End

To get a sense of what the average viewer thinks, I checked out an Ultimate Electronics store in Murray, Utah, where customers sat in leather chairs and watched the Olympics coverage on a pair of 47-inch rear-projection HDTVs strategically set up at the front of the TV section. A salesman who'd seen the opening ceremony on an analog TV and then in high-definition thought he was watching two different programs - which he was:

"The regular NBC broadcast kept cutting away for commercials, so that you couldn't see the encores by the Dixie Chicks and Robbie Robertson that were on the high-def version. Also, the announcers kept yakking throughout the extravaganzas. The HDTV version was the show that you saw from the stands, and when they fired up the Olympic rings on ice, that was really something."

I also saw an extraordinary demonstration of 3-D HDTV by the Japanese broadcaster NHK in a darkened room at the International Broadcasting Center. The image on the big screen was blurred until you put on a pair of polarized glasses, which caused the controversial figure-skating pairs competition to come into focus. To achieve this, the images from two Hi-Vision HDTV cameras were recorded to separate pro VCRs. There seemed to be several layers of depth to the images, with the skaters standing out in relief against the audience. When Canadian David Pelletier lifted and swung out his partner, Jamie Salé, I ducked instinctively as her blades seemed to jut from the screen. Don't hold your breath waiting to see this effect on your own HDTV set, though - 3-D for conventional analog TV was demonstrated many times in years past without becoming more than a curiosity.

What's not in doubt, though, is the buzz created by those who saw the Olympics in high-def. "It may have been only 17 days," HDNet's Garvin noted, "but the reality is that people watched a lot of TV every one of those days. The Olympics pulled them into stores or into the homes of neighbors with high-def sets. From the feedback I've been getting, I know they came to the same conclusion I came to when I saw my first football game on HDTV. Compared with HDTV, regular TV looks broken."

Crazy Like a Fox: Why is it the only network not broadcasting in high-definition?

New York, NY - More Americans watch the Super Bowl than any other sporting event. More than just a football game, it's one of the premier entertainment specials of the year - which is why people who normally would never tune into a Sunday-afternoon NFL game throw parties to celebrate the occasion. Traditionally, the broadcasting company with rights to the game will use it as an opportunity to show off its technical prowess. Following that path, the Fox network carried Super Bowl XXXVI this past February both in analog and in the Fox Widescreen digital format.

So why were videophiles outraged at the digital picture quality? Would Fox actually choose an inferior format for its Super Sunday broadcast? And if it did, what were the execs at Fox thinking?

Dollars and Sense

The FCC guidelines for digital television (DTV) broadcasting leave plenty of room for interpretation - in fact, more than enough to create controversy. The DTV standard allows for varying levels of picture quality so broadcasters can decide which format they want to use, and when. For example, rather than broadcast a single high-definition channel, stations can multicast several lower-resolution ones.

This approach can be profitable for two reasons. Besides the capital required to overhaul production and postproduction for high-definition, the network doesn't have to spend the money to build the detailed sets and create the elaborate makeup necessary to placate the high-definition camera's more discerning eye. And it could make considerably more money from the commercials in two, three, or four simultaneous standard-definition broadcasts than from those in a single high-def airing. Another approach would be to broadcast in high-def during prime time but use a lower resolution for daytime programming.

The highest-resolution format available for high-definition won't even fit within the broadcast bandwidth given to the network stations. Called 1080p ("p" for progressive-scan), it was developed mainly as a production format. The format selected by CBS, NBC, and PBS - 1080i ("i" for interlaced) - also provides a very high-resolution video signal, as does ABC's choice, 720p.

Fox uses the 480p format, which, while digital, is not high-def. Although it uses progressive scanning, it has less than half as many lines of vertical resolution as a 1080i picture and considerably less horizontal resolution. Fox's signal does adhere to the Advanced Television Standard Committee (ATSC) specifications for digital television, but as a standard-definition signal. Since the 480p format is part of the DTV standard, no one has any technical grounds to criticize Fox for choosing it.

The Big Game

Still, critics wonder why Fox opted for this lower-quality format. Some have conjectured that it was simply a bottom-line decision to spend the least money possible to meet the FCC guidelines for converting from analog to digital broadcasting. Others assume that the network has big plans for multicasting. Others have gone so far as to accuse Fox of trying to undermine the efforts to make digital television a high-def medium. As they say in Fox's The X-Files, the truth is out there - or is it?

Andy Setos, president of engineering for the Fox Group, told me the network chose 480p because it wanted a "sustainable model." Referring to the Super Bowl broadcast, he said, "With 480p, Fox could present a digital, widescreen picture to viewers with the production value they've come to expect from such a high-profile event."