From: merritt@macro.bu.edu (Sean Merritt)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.japan
Subject: Re: HDTV in Japan
Date: 25 Jan 93 20:17:31 GMT
	<1993Jan24.085238.7282@gibdo.engr.washington.edu>
	<93Jan24.151256est.47623@neat.cs.toronto.edu>
	<1993Jan25.065340.14310@gibdo.engr.washington.edu>
	<93Jan25.141548est.47651@neat.cs.toronto.edu>
Organization: Boston University Physics Department
In-reply-to: tlai@cs.toronto.edu's message of 25 Jan 93 19:16:16 GMT

In article <93Jan25.141548est.47651@neat.cs.toronto.edu> tlai@cs.toronto.edu (Tony W H Lai) writes:



   In article <1993Jan25.065340.14310@gibdo.engr.washington.edu> tvp@gibdo.engr.washington.edu (Tad Perry) writes:
   >In article <93Jan24.151256est.47623@neat.cs.toronto.edu> tlai@cs.toronto.edu (Tony W H Lai) writes:
   [stuff deleted]
   >>... One thing I found particularly annoying was
   >>the pre-recession talk on what I call the HDTV domino theory: if a country
   >>"lost" HDTV, its entire economy would be destroyed.  Such talk seemed to
   >>always be accompanied by wildly optimistic projections for HDTV and pleas
   >>for government money.
   >
   >Maybe this part is a more interesting discussion. I follow the argument
   >about why HDTV is an important future technology, but I myself don't
   >buy it completely.
   >
   >The claim is that whoever controls this technology will make
   >mega-bucks off of every tv set and computer monitor sold throughout
   >the world. It seems reasonable on the face of it, but it seems a pretty
   >large leap to only go from near-photo quality resolutions to photo
   >quality resolutions.
   >
   >Specifically, Nomura claimed that home entertainment systems (driven
   >by the demand for movie theater quality picture) and DTP applications
   >(requiring the ability to display little tiny letters that still look
   >like little tiny letters) would somehow drive HDTV technology into
   >homes and offices around the world. Do you have specific reasons why
   >these demands don't make HDTV a critical future technology? (Even one
   >supposedly relating to defense?)

#   HDTV isn't a single technology, but involves a variety of technologies, and
#   there are many different issues that relate to HDTV, such as display
#   technology, signal processing, media, production standards, broadcast
#   standards, software, applications, and so forth.

Nor is there a single HDTV technology. The US has chosen to leap-frog
the Europeans and the Japanese by adopting/developing the worlds first
HDDTV(the extra D is digital). The quality of a digital system
will be better than an analog system, period.

#   Some people argue that HDTV will drive many technologies and will provide
#   economies of scale, but I suspect that a lot of their projections are too
#   optimistic and that there are other ways of providing economies of scale
#   for new technologies.  I think it might be better right now to focus on the
#   various underlying technologies than to look at the whole.

It will definatly drive technologies. Any one who wnats to import(really
even manufacture HDDTV's) for the US market will have to pay, for now
HDDTV is a proprietery technology. 

Oh, development time was about 2 years.


-sjm

--
Sean J. Merritt		         |"Road-kill has it's seasons just like     
Dept of Physics Boston University|anything, there's possums in the autumn  
merritt@macro.bu.edu             |and farm cats in the spring." T. Waits
Newsgroups: soc.culture.japan