Digital TV MRG – No One Television System Will Dominate
No one single television transmission system will dominate in the future, according to Tony Gee, Manager of Digital Terrestrial Broadcasting of NTL (the private company responsible for transmission of television). He was speaking at the latest MRG Evening Meeting.
He outlined the technology used for digital transmission, then gave his opinion on what will dictate which transmission media will succeed in the future.
Digital Technology
Television at the moment is made up of separate frames, with each frame made up of a number of lines. Digital technology however, can recognise batches of the same colour, both on one frame and between frames. This means programmes where the action does not change much, ie someone reading the news, are particularly well suited to digital transmission. Digital can reduce the space taken up by analogue by a factor of up to 100.
Tony Gee believes that digital technology will affect all the media hardwarein the home, not just the transmission methods. The transition to digital technology should be eased by the fact that industry bodies have all agreed on a standard for digital transmission within Europe, MPEG2.
One problem which digital may cause is that the amount of processing power you need depends purely on what you are transmitting; ie when showing a news reader, the picture does not change much, much less than in an action film for example. This could mean problems for regulating the picture quality, because it can not be done as it is now, just on capacity.
Strengths – Which Media Will Succeed In the Future?
Consumer spending has increased rapidly on home entertainment media and the fastest growing area is subscription TV. For existing players, digital systems may allow access to new revenue streams. Digital however, is a technology which will work not just on terrestrial television, but also on videos, CD-Roms, and cable and satellite.
He then outlined the various strengths of each system. Cable at the moment is strong on the number of channels it carries, and its “on-demand” facilities, because of its virtually unlimited capacity. Satellite too is also strong for “on-demand”. Terrestrial digital will not have this capacity, but he believes that terrestrial television’s main strengths are its brands.
Another important factor will be cost to the consumer. Terrestrial analogue is the cheapest; terrestrial digital will mean buying a set-top box. However, digital terrestrial is the only system that can provide data to the second sets in the home, or to portable sets. The not-too distant future may mean mobile pictures, ie in cars or buses.
Tony Gee summarised by saying no system is perfect; there are pros and cons for all, and when it comes to future predictions, there is no right and wrong solution. In the future there will be a “mixed economy” of television services he predicts. There are three main factors why there will be no one single provider in the future:
- The roll-out of cable. Cable take up rate is expected to exceed that of satellite by the year 2000. Cable revenue however, is expected to be significantly bigger.
- New legislation to license conditional access systems (scrambler systems). The government is proposing new legislation to regulate these, and access to them. This will be bad news for Sky who at the moment are under no limits.
- Rights. Much has been said of BSkyB’s domination of the film rights market, but he reminded the MRG that this only refers to Pay television, and not to Pay-Per- View.
Digital television will initially be introduced by using “taboo frequencies”; these are frequencies too close to existing analogue services to be used, but they are suitable for digital. He expects that it will not be until 2010 that enough people are using digital to allow the abandoning of analogue services. Initially, reception of digital will be by set-top boxes, but once manufacturers get confident, they will make integrated receivers. The government is intending to add just six frequencies; this is because of a lack of availability of frequencies which cover enough of the country. These six frequencies will be operated by multiplex providers, who will have to be licence holders from the ITC.
All current terrestrial services will be allocated a frequency, with the two BBC frequencies being allocated the highest reaching frequencies. Those frequencies at the lower end of the spectrum, with lower coverage of Britain, will be free. Tony Gee believes these will be taken by Pay Per View television.
In the Queen’s speech in November a new Broadcasting Bill is expected to be announced, which should be introduced in December. This will probably become law by June or July next year. Digital Terrestrial Television must start by 1997 otherwise it will be too far behind satellite; it must start at the same time because, says Tony Gee, the public will not buy two set-top boxes. He stressed that his company is pressing the government for this timetable; the ITC must advertise the licences in time so that they can start broadcasting by the end of 1997.
There is a Digital TV Group, to which NTL, BBC, Pace, ITV, C4, BT, Motorola and Sony all belong. Tony Gee pointed out that you do not get a grouping of big names like this if digital television is not seen as a serious proposition.
Questions asked were if the elections would affect the proposed timetable; Tony Gee said that Labour have promised they will not delay any legislation regarding to digital television, but any delay will be serious, because digital satellite services have already started in Africa, and are due in the next few months in Europe. We are already behind.
The cost of a set-top box was also asked; Tony Gee said the target price is similar to satellite, ie around £400 so these will need to be subsidised for consumers down to around £200.