UNION INTERNATIONALE DES TELECOMMUNICATIONS INTERNATIONAL TELECOMMUNICATION UNION UNIÓN INTERNACIONAL DE TELECOMUNICACIONES Montreux, 28 October 1994 The Integrated Digital Future of Television Broadcasting Dr. Pekka Tarjanne Secretary-General, International Telecommunication Union Symposium on Digital Television Broadcasting, International Academy of Broadcasting Mr. Director, Ladies and Gentlemen, It is with great pleasure that I come to this beautiful city of Montreux to assist in the inauguration of this first historic seminar of the new International Academy of Broadcasting. The importance of this event is evident when I see seated before me an impressive number of participants and lecturers, literally from the whole world. Rarely have so many of those who are shaping the future world of digital television been gathered in one place - a distinction that is usually reserved for the major broadcasting conferences and exhibitions. But I suppose that this is not exclusively due to the attraction of Montreux and Lake Geneva. Certainly, the proximity to the Task Group and Working Party meetings of the ITU Radiocommunication Bureau has made it easier for some of you to be here. However, the major reason that you are here is that you all realise that we are now at the crossroads of the new age of television, and you wish to exchange ideas and debate with your counterparts and colleagues from other organisations and other countries. It is now becoming clear that the new age of television - or as some have been calling it for the last ten years or so: the "television of the 21st Century" - is really going to be a revolution, and not just the quiet evolution that most of us were expecting and - dare I say? - hoping for. In fact, the different neatly-organised technologically-based evolutionary plans that were put together in various parts of the world a decade ago have now mostly been relegated to the dust-bin. Not because they were not good technological plans, but mainly because they were overtaken by events - by a combination of technological breakthroughs and marketplace economics that are becoming irresistible. Broadcasting is in the midst of the greatest changes since the 1950s, when colour television and FM sound broadcasting were being introduced. The broadcasting environment of tomorrow will be characterised by a broad range of delivery means and quality. The convergence of telecommunication and computer technologies and the advent of high-capacity digital networks offer the prospect of new dimensions of competition, with telephone operating companies envisioning a full range of services, including interactive sound, data and video. Cable system operators and broadcasters are also considering how they may deliver the same range of services. The technological and organisational limitations to realise these concepts are few. The main constraints will lie in the regulatory arena and the winners in the market place will ultimately be determined by financial viability. Digital television offers unprecedented possibilities to deliver television programmes and associated stereophonic sound and data channels to the home with quality that is very close to that of the original studio programme. As recently as the beginning of this decade, it was widely accepted that the emission of such programmes would require very wide bandwidths, especially in the case of high definition television, and for that reason broadcasting engineers were basing their future plans on delivery media where large bandwidths were more readily available, such as satellite and cable systems. By 1990 advances in efficient compression techniques permitted very large reductions in the data rate of television signals, even to the extent that near HDTV-quality signals could be accommodated within emission channels used for conventional terrestrial television. At about the same time, the FCC announced the competition for selection of the next-generation terrestrial television emission system. All but one of the systems finally submitted in that competition were digital and the "Grand Alliance" of the four digital finalists in the competition now assures that the next-generation North American terrestrial television emission system will be digital. The advantages of highly-compressed digital television are already being applied to the delivery of some fixed-satellite service television, where four or more conventional NTSC or PAL channels are now accommodated where one was obtained previously. A major new high-power direct broadcasting satellite service started in the United States in 1994 using compressed digital television to deliver as many as 150 simultaneous conventional NTSC programmes from a Hughes DirecTV satellite operating in the broadcasting-satellite service (BSS) band. The advantages in terms of efficient use of the spectrum (and of the geostationary-satellite orbit, in the case of satellite systems) are considerable. The reported success of the DirecTV system leads to the conclusion that the digital television revolution is really with us. Starting from zero this year, the system expects as many as 1 million installations by the end of the year, a number that is apparently more limited by the ability of manufacturers to produce receivers and by the logistics of installation than by demand. If the system's growth continues in this manner, it will reach a level of success exceeding that achieved by the compact disc when it was first introduced. Why has this system become so popular so fast and why has it achieved what other direct-broadcasting systems have failed to achieve in North America? These are pertinent questions that you will want to examine during this Symposium. In so- doing, you will want to take into account that the system is delivering "conventional" NTSC programmes directly to the home, that existing television sets can be used, that a great majority of viewers report that a principal reason they like the system is that the technical quality of the programmes is greatly superior to off-the-air and cable programmes that they have been receiving up until now, that a proprietary digital modulation system is used and a proprietary set-top decoder/converter is required to receive the system's pay- TV programmes. Clear visibility of the geostationary orbit is essential to install the very small flat-plate antenna, amplifier and downconverter that are required. There are critics but most concede that the resulting NTSC pictures are very good. Apparently, the eventual availability of 150 different programmes from the same source for a modest subscription charge is being viewed by subscribers as a good deal, even though they have to invest as much as US$700 to buy and install the necessary antenna, cables and converter. Getting back to the global community of digital television, one big advantage of the systems proposed is that they will enable economical and competitive continuation of terrestrial television broadcasting, with unprecedented quality and with the advantages of flexibility and local content that other delivery media may lack. Three different projects are in progress in different parts of the world to define the future of digital television. In North America, the Grand Alliance is in the final stages of system definition and testing. In Europe, the Digital Video Broadcasting project is taking advantage of major inputs from the Scandinavian HD-Divine project and important projects in other European countries to arrive at an inter-operable system for cable, satellite and terrestrial delivery of advanced digital television. In Japan, the Integrated Services Digital Broadcasting project is aiming at maximum commonality in the specifications of systems for cable, satellite and terrestrial delivery of future digital television and sound broadcasting services. In all regions, common agreement has already been reached on the application of the ISO/IEC MPEG-2 specifications for the source coding and multiplexing parts of the new systems, both of which are independent of the delivery media. This, in itself, is a major accomplishment. The more difficult part is arriving at agreed specifications for the media-dependent parts of the system. It is in this area that work in the ITU is presently concentrated. For cable systems, the ITU work is focused in ITU-T Study Group 9. In close liaison, satellite broadcasting and terrestrial broadcasting of television are dealt with in ITU-R Study Group 11. All of these activities are coordinated by a Joint Steering Committee composed of the Chairmen and Vice-Chairmen of these Study Groups, their Task Groups and Working Parties, and includes representatives of the broadcasting unions and other concerned organizations, such as IEC/ISO. Of course, the accelerating convergence of technologies and businesses dealing with telecommunications, broadcasting and computers plays a major role in the emerging decisions, even to the extent that a special Task Group was set up in Study Group 11 to deal with the harmonization of future television systems among broadcast and non-broadcast media. One result of the work done by this group is an initiative by Study Group 11 to develop Recommendations on interactive television, which can include return links provided by many different media. Policies have to be adopted concerning the fundamental principles for the introduction of advanced television broadcasting. These may be very different from one country or region to another, although it may be difficult for countries with contiguous geographical areas to adopt fundamentally different approaches without suffering severe consequences. First is the fundamental decision to introduce terrestrial broadcasting using advanced television systems. If this decision is positive, then decisions have to be made concerning the content of the new system programmes: simulcast or not and whether existing licensees will have priority. Perhaps I have spent too much time talking about the technical and regulatory aspects, even though those are the elements of future digital television systems that are of principal interest to you. And while it is true that it is the impressive advances in technology that are driving this revolution, we have only to look at the broad application of these advances to realise that they are but a means to introduce much greater and more far- reaching changes in the ways in which information, entertainment and education are prepared and delivered to the home, to the school and for the benefit of the business and manufacturing communities. The changes in these areas may very well be fundamental and spectacular - far more so than the technological innovation that we are shepherding. So I caution you not to lose sight of how the technology will be used, for that is ultimately the determining factor that will close the feedback loop that shapes the technology. This brings me back to the theme of this Symposium: "Digital television broadcasting - how many different ball games are there?". We all have an obligation to work towards as much commonality and interoperability as possible. This means that some of us will eventually have to give up our own pet idea for the achievement of this objective. But let's not kid ourselves - there's a lot of hard ball being played out there in the marketplace, and while the best hardball players sometimes also have the best ideas, we all know that that is not always the case. So we have to be collectively vigilant, not only to work towards universally applicable systems, but also to assure that those systems really do offer the best quality available for the lowest price, which is finally the objective that benefits best both the consumer and the manufacturer. We also have to expect that de facto standards may result from the successful introduction of new systems - as happens very frequently in the consumer electronics and personal computer industries. Mr. Director, Ladies and Gentlemen, I can see from the programme that you will have informative, stimulating and sometimes provocative presentations during the three days that follow. I wish you every success and trust that you will be able to arrive at clear answers to the question: "Are common standards desirable and possible, or counterproductive and too difficult to achieve?" during the round table that will wrap up the Symposium on Sunday afternoon. *** - 3 -