The Orlando Sentinel from Orlando, Florida • 134

H6 Sentinel SUNDAY, DECEMBER 3, 2000 i slow stations' conversion High cost, uncertainty i DIGITAL FROM HI i v. Ul .1 i i 7 dlund said station owners are frustrated: As the networks and government argue standards, they are receiving very little digital programming. So far, CBS is the only network to offer a regular flow of shows in the HDTV format, yet all stations are under pressure from the FCC to invest in digital. Jim Goodmon, president of Capitol Broadcasting Co. in Raleigh, N.C., said stations have an obligation to lead the way in the digital-conversion movement.

His company's ABC affiliate was the first station in the nation to begin digital broadcasting, in 1996. "I've heard some broadcasters say that they are mad about this conversion and they don't want to spend the money," Goodmon said. "But I see the future as digital, and I see a need to take the initiative. We're at the same point in broadcasting as the aviation industry was when jets came along. Analog television, just like propeller airplanes, will be replaced.

To compete in the digital future, you have to make the investment." Christopher Boyd, who covers broadcasting, can be reached at 407-420-5723 or cboydorlandosentinel.com month. Once that is issued, Graves said, the controversy surrounding the format should dissipate. He said that the FCC and broadcasters are each completing studies that should further clarify the issue. Until the controversy is and broadcasters decide whether they'll stick to HDTV, consumers may remain slow to adopt digital sets. The CEA expects that most sets will continue to be digital ready which require set-top adapters as long as the uncertainty continues.

Broadcasters argue that if a better broadcasting standard is available, a decision should be made now, before digital goes into wide distribution. They blame the FCC for not acting more quickly. "For some reason, the FCC can't make a decision on standards," said Dennis Wharton, spokesman for the National Association of Broadcasters. "It's frustrating for broadcasters to spend enormous amounts of money on this transition and have the government agency stewarding the transition drop the ball." The National Association of Local Television Stations' He the conversion is complete in 2006 or later, owners of those sets will eed a converter to change digital signals to analog. Other organizations are less sanguine than the CEA.

The National Cable Television Association blames broadcasters for creating confusion and slowing the When the government gave broadcasters free spectrumfor digital television in the early 1990s; it was assumed the extra bandwidth would be for HDTV. However, in 1 1996, Congress allowed broadcasters more discretion over how the spectrum would be used, raising the possibility that many channels would carry lower-grade standard digital instead of HDTV. year, broadcasters asked the Federal Communications Commission to consider modifying the digital broadcasting standard, known as 8-VSB. The FCC denied the request, but questions still abound about the standard. The American Television Systems Committee, which sets technical guidelines for digital broadcasting, is completing a study of the digital transmission standards.

Committee Chairman Robert Graves said a report should be completed this that we add in digital, the more pressure is being put on the stations to covert their equipment to digital, said Brian Time Warner's spokes-i Warner, with customers in a nine-county market, still carries all Central Florida stations exclusively in analog. As the stations com plete their conversion to Craven said, Time Warner would begin carrying the sig-. nals. Time Warner is negotiating with WOFL to determine when it will' begin using the station's digital feed, 'Digital conversion isn't a seamless process. WESH Gen- eral Manager Bill Bauman said his station would begin broadcasting digital feeds from the NBC network early next year, but locally produced programming -i including news broad-.

castsV will continue to be done in analog. "We'll be ready for a digital pass-through in January, but we don't have any plans to begin digital production here," Bauman said. "We're facing an extraordinarily expensive conversion, but at the moment there's practically no demand for digital programming. I mean, nobody is calling or e-mailing us asking for digital TV." broadcasting on leased tower spact. The high cost of equipment and consumer apprehension about buying sets when little digital programming is available have slowed the conversion.

So has bickering within the broadcast industry over technical standards and requirements. The logistics of the conversion also have bogged down the process. The nation's top 30 broadcasting markets which include Orlando -r- were all supposed to be broadcasting in digital by now, but tower-siting difficulties and other problems led manystations to apply to the Federal Communications Commission for extensions. "Everyone knows it's coming, and everybody would have liked it here faster. But there haye been issues," said Jim He-dlund, president of the National Association of Local Television Stations.

"It's expensive technology and people aren't buying the sets in big numbers yjet." The nation's broadcasters led the charge for digital TV in the 1990s, coaxing the federal government to give them great swaths of broadcast spectrum in exchange for a commitment to convert their operations to digital by2006. Today, few expect the deadline will stick. "Most broadcasters still don't know what their business model should be," Hedlund said. "On top of that, there is very little product available in the high-definition format, and practically no one owns the fancy digital sets." HDTV: A clear choice? Although high-definition television, or HDTV, has been heavily hyped, it is just a variant of digital television. Digitally produced pictures are as differ- ent from analog as music from a compact disc is distinct from sounds produced by a vinyl record.

They work differently, but yield similar results. Just as compact discs eliminated the pops and hisses common with old-fashioned records, digital TV will wipe out the shadows, snow and static that plague analogy High definition is the pinnacle of digital television. Its distinctive wide-screen format and razor-sharp images are amazingly realistic, but it may not be the defining face of digital television. Broadcasters already are toying with an alternative to HDTV. Instead of airing the bulk of their programs in high definition, they could send out lower-grade images that con-" tain less digital data.

That would allow them to use spectrum allocated for HDTV for other purposes. For example, a broadcaster could use a single ADVANTA JOHN RAOUXORLANDO SENTINEL Getting of the ground. The' tower in east Orange and others like it will send digital signals but few have sets to receive it. frequency to broadcast several shows, or to offer a digital data Controversy continues over the future of the medium. Many broadcasters argue that they should be able to use their new digital spectrum as they please, while consumer advocates say broadcasters ought to be required to offer programming because that was the original agreement when the government made the additional spectrum available.

Amid the uncertainty, stations continue to invest. As the WESH-WKMG digital tower rises near Christmas in east Orange County, Public Broadcasting's WMFE Channel 24 is preparing to use $1.23 million in grants to replace its antenna and add a digital transmitter. Cable television also is in transition. Time Warner Communications, the behemoth of Central Florida cable, began offering digital programming in summer 1999, and is steadily adding to its array of stations. Like broadcast, digital cable has a far greater channel capacity than analog.

It offers sharper pictures and better sound even when the signal is converted to analog for viewing, as is done now when a customer subscribes to digital service but is given a converter box to modify the signal for analog TVs. The cable industry, with its huge national audience, may prove critical to the conversion. Today, only about 20 percent of Battle over spectrum Few consumers own digital sets yet. Almost all digital TVs on the market now are big many are projection sets and they are costly. The Consumer Electronics Association, which tracks the industry, reported this month that digital television sales were seven times greater in the first nine months of 2000 than during the same period in 1999.

Nearly 369,000 sets were delivered to dealers during the period, though 83 percent were merely digital-ready requiring an adapter for digital reception. "It's succeeding beyond our wildest expectations," CEA President Gary Shapiro said. "The prices are coming down as more sets are sold. The world is going digital, and television is part of the revolution." However, only one in 29 sets sold this year was capable of displaying digital images. There are billions of analog sets in use that will continue functioning foryears to come.

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