The Power To Program Your Viewing
The Age
Thursday December 16, 1999
IT'S late, you've just come home and anything you wanted to watch on television has long since finished. In the pre-digital television age, your options are limited to a diet of tired American re-runs, endless talk shows, telemall shopping or the off button.
But when the switch for digital broadcasting is thrown on 1January 2001, all that could change.
In the digital era, the humble remote control will give viewers the power to overcome the tyranny of program schedules.
With the press of a button, a program menu can be called up on the screen, giving you a choice of shows broadcast that day, or even that week. No longer will viewers have to pore over television guides, struggle to program the video recorder or rush home to catch that show.
This, at least, is the vision of planners at the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, which is devising ways to exploit the possibilities offered by digital television technology.
In selling digital TV to the Australian public, the Federal Government and commercial broadcasters have focused on the ability of digital technology to deliver high-quality pictures and sound, referred to as high-definition television, or HDTV.
But ABC planners are more excited about digital's potential in other areas - through the broadcasting of several different programs simultaneously, called multi-channelling, and through its Internet-style interactive capability, known as datacasting.
When digital broadcasting begins in 2001, the ABC will use channel 12 for its digital transmissions.
When viewers turn to the channel they will see the ABC's normal programs, but the shows will actually be broadcast in HDTV, enabling those with the equipment to receive clearer pictures and better sound.
On the screen there will also be two small icons that, when clicked, will take the viewer into new televisual realms.
One icon, ABC+, will connect the viewer to the ABC's multiple-channel broadcasts. ABC+ will be used as a conduit for local programs offering state-based news, sport and weather updates, as well as community information and local events. It will give viewers a much greater choice.
Channels that could be selected will include ABC for Kids, with daytime pre-school programs; ABC Knowledge, offering education programming; ABC Info, which will run consumer shows on issues such as health, business and the arts; and ABC Select, which will rebroadcast selected programs from the ABC's simulcast (analog/HDTV) channel.
The other icon, ABCi, will open the datacast channel. Using their remote controls, viewers will be able to make selections from an on-screen menu, choosing what they want to see and when.
Technological restrictions mean that initially only text will be available through ABCi - things such as program transcripts, recipes, instructions, statistics and reports. As the technology improves - particularly the storage capacity of receivers - whole programs or possibly an entire day's broadcasting could be stored, ready for instant downloading.
This, at least, is the vision of those charged with preparing Australia's broadcasters for digital television. But sceptics question whether the benefits will be worth the substantial cost of the technology.
Overseas experience shows a mixed attitude to high-definition digital broadcasting. In the United States, the Government has left the decision up to individual networks, letting them choose whether to embark on HDTV broadcasting or pursue any combination of digital television's other capabilities.
But in Britain, concerns about the high cost of HDTV receivers has led the Government to eschew high-definition digital broadcasting, instead opting for standard definition (SDTV), which still gives viewers access to multi-channelling and datacasting.
For the past 18 months in Australia, the Federal Government has been considering its approach to digital broadcasting. It has faced criticism from media and consumer
groups that argue it is wrong to put HDTV at the centre of the new technology's introduction and has given the commercial networks too big an advantage.
The Government sought to compensate the networks for the investment they would have to make in digital technology, estimated to be almost $1billion.
At the same time, it had to protect pay-TV operators who had paid a premium for their licences and believed they would be threatened if the commercial broadcasters were allowed to multi-channel (the ABC and SBS successfully argued they had a special case and should be allowed to broadcast multiple channels because of their position in the television industry).
It is a complex web of competing interests and technical capabilities and a little technical knowledge is needed to make sense of the issues at the heart of the political debate.
Digital signals, like the existing analogue transmissions, are broadcast through the airwaves. There is limited space available for transmissions and each existing free-to-air broadcaster - ABC, SBS and the three commercial networks, Seven, Nine and Ten - has been allocated a new channel (or spectrum) for digital broadcasts, in addition to their current channel. Under federal legislation, each station is required to broadcast in both analogue and digital until 2008, to give people the time to buy the equipment required to receive digital broadcasts.
For the first six years, the commercial stations will have to broadcast an as-yet-undefined proportion of programs in HDTV, while the ABC and SBS also will be allowed to use multi-channelling capabilities. All will be allowed to take advantage of datacasting capabilities.
Because so much information is carried in HDTV signals, its transmission requires the use of the entire spectrum on the channel.
Multi-channel and datacasting broadcasts transmit less information, so more broadcasts can be sent using the same section of the spectrum. Up to six simultaneous multi-channel broadcasts can be fitted into the same space as a single HDTV transmission.
Just as the television stations must convert their production equipment and transmitters to digital technology, so do viewers have to update their receivers.
And this is where the high cost of digital conversion hits home. Under current estimates it will cost viewers about $5000 to buy a digital television set - those capable of delivering the better pictures and clearer sound of high-definition broadcasts. Low demand for digital TVs in the United States and Europe means the prices are unlikely to fall in the near future.
A cheaper alternative is to buy a set-top box, similar in size and appearance to a video player, which converts digital signals for your existing TV.
With an expected price of between $300 and $800, this is a far more economical way to receive digital broadcasts.
This means HDTV broadcasts will appear the same as existing analog programs, but it is all that would be needed to take advantage of multi-channelling. To connect to the interactive possibilities of datacasting, all that would be required would be the set-top box and a modem.
The Federal Government has essentially given the commercial networks free use of the public spectrum for digital broadcasts and has placed a moratorium on any new television broadcasting licences. In exchange, it has required them to start HDTV broadcasts on 1January 2001 and banned them from multi-channelling for six years.
It is a strategy that has caused a great deal of controversy in the communications and media industries. Those who do not broadcast now, but would like to, including Rupert Murdoch's News Limited and Fairfax (the publisher of The Age), argue the Government has given existing stations too much protection by banning any new television licences until 2007.
They also accuse those who have devised the Government's strategy, particularly the Communications Minister, Senator Richard Alston, of holding back the development of digital television by making HDTV compulsory.
They are demanding that the Government give new players a better chance through a liberal definition of datacasting.
The commercial networks don't want to see their programming undermined by new operators trying to get into broadcasting through the back door, by essentially transmitting programs through datacasts.
Federal Cabinet has been discussing digital television in detail since late November but, whatever the outcome, Senator Alston says no one will be completely happy.
For viewers, the only acceptable decision is one that gives them the best possible access to the full range of benefits and capabilities offered by digital television.
© 1999 The Age