U.S. seals Canada’s choice for digital TV transmission standard, flaws and all

Canada is sticking to its original game plan for rolling out digital television, despite a U.S. decision this month to use a standard that many critics insist is flawed. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) dismissed the need for further testing of the 8-VSB transmission system on Jan. 19, reaffirming an earlier decision that denied a request to authorize the European standard for the U.S. market. "If that decision holds and the American system starts to roll out with 8-VSB, I rather think it’s 8-VSB for Canada," says Michael McEwen, president of the not-for-profit Canadian Digital Television (CDTV). Even proponents of 8-VSB admit the technology isn’t perfect, and insist it will be modified before hitting the market. Like its analog cousin, ATSC, it suffers from poor indoor reception quality and won’t work in a vehicle or other mobile environment. Whether the standard meets the needs of Canadian broadcasters won’t be known until it’s deployed in the U.S. over the next three years. The FCC has given commercial broadcasters until the end of 2003 to introduce digital broadcasts; public broadcasters have until the following year. McEwen says Canada’s more cautious approach to rolling out over-the-air digital TV should give U.S. broadcasters and manufacturers enough time to work out the bugs before it’s deployed here. "From day one, we always said we’re going to go slow," says McEwen, who was also recently appointed secretary general of the North American Broadcasters Association . "We can take advantage of the improvements as they develop and build them into our own system at the right time." However, he doubts that any modifications that are made to 8-VSB will please everyone. "I think most broadcasters are going to try to make it work, including groups like Sinclair which were big proponents of Europe’s COFDM standard. But I think there are lingering doubts among some of those broadcasters, that in fact two years down the road they will find that the improvements aren’t there." The FCC decision came as a blow to one U.S. broadcaster in particularly – Sinclair Broadcast Group – which had been leading the lobby to persuade the FCC to dump 8-VSB in favour of the European COFDM standard (CCR, May 11/00). Sinclair’s testing found COFDM to outperform 8-VSB, particularly for indoor antenna reception. Unlike with ATSC, in which poor reception produces poor picture quality, bad reception for DTV means no picture at all. A government research lab in Ottawa will conduct its own tests of the European system early this year. The Communications Research Centre released a technical report in November on 8-VSB which found that only half of the indoor sites equipped with a DTV set-top antenna received a reliable signal. One of the authors of the study, Dr. Yijan Wu, points out however that 100 per cent availability is impossible. Canadians hope for mobility Wu says the main criticism of the U.S. system is its lack of flexibility. For example, Canadian broadcasters want the option of using DTV for mobile services. "It’s not that Canadian broadcasters don’t like the (U.S.) system. It’s a good system and it works," he says. "It’s that it lacks flexibility. The plan for this system was laid out ten years ago. There’s was no talk of mobile reception then - there wasn’t even the Internet then." While he says mobile broadcasting is possible, the sacrifice is lower data rates. "You reduce the data rate by half, or just achieve a quarter in a mobile environment, than if you were to use fixed reception with a directional antenna." CDTV is also planning COFDM tests this year. McEwen says test sites in Ottawa and Toronto will give station operators an opportunity to demo DTV first hand. Once U.S. border stations start transmitting in digital, he says Canadian broadcasters will be better prepared to take the first steps towards commercial DTV. McEwen says shared multiplexing and wide-screen definition programming will likely arrive over the next 18 months.

U.S. seals Canada’s choice for digital TV transmission standard, flaws and all

News | 02/01/2001 5:00 am EST

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