Electro/Telecom Industry Trends
September 2004
Q&A With the Consumer Electronics Association
 |
| Issue Table of Contents |
|
|
In August, the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) announced that manufacturer-to-dealer sales of digital television (DTV) products had reached 2.8 million units for the first half of 2004, an increase of 80 percent compared to sales during the first half of the previous year. With revenues of DTV products already soaring past $2.7 billion, it seems that that DTV revolution is in full force. We asked CEA Senior Director of Technology and Standards Brian Markwalter about his thoughts on the federally mandated transition from analog to digital TV and its impact on industry standards and specifications.
Q. What is the status of the transition to DTV?
The transition from analog to digital broadcast television has been underway in the United States for years now and we’re getting there. Recently, the hot topic in DTV circles is how do we accelerate it and how can we motivate all of the parties involved to do their part in reaching the analog shut-off point. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has been focused on TV manufacturers, in particular, in recent years. For instance, last year they released a rule that became effective this July, which requires 50 percent of TVs over 36 inches to have digital reception capabilities (a built-in ATSC tuner). While controversial when the regulation came out, this marks the first time we have integrated sets going into the marketplace in big numbers. The FCC rule has a phased approach to digital ATSC reception, which means that in 2007, every new TV will have digital reception capabilities.
Q. How does cable compatibility tie into the transition?
The CEA and cable industries reached agreement on one-way compatibility in December 2002. Today, the end-result — Digital Cable Ready (DCR) HDTVs — is on the market. The DCR term is trademark-protected and designates a set that incorporates both over-the-air and cable digital tuning capability in TVs. Seventy percent of American households get their programming from cable, so DCR is a major win for the DTV transition.
Q. How have standards changed to support DTV?
Like every new system, everyone learns something on the first pass. In the case of DCR TVs, both the cable operators and manufacturers have learned a thing or two over the years and have updated the standards to match. Standards are continually refined, particularly when it comes to cable and digital television.
Work also continues on updating digital closed captioning standards — CEA-708. The digital close captioning base standard was written, after which the industry added a couple bulletins that describe the best way to use the standard. Now we’re updating 708 to move all that educational material from bulletins to the standard itself. It’s a large project that likely will conclude next year.
The other part of the equation is the interface — the actual connections between a set top and TV. There’s a standard called DVI (digital visual interface) that came out of the computer industry. Originally, it was designed for connecting a PC to a monitor. TV manufacturers are interested in using it as the next generation of interface for digital TVs, because, with the exception of IEEE 1394, most of our interfaces are analog connections.
A group of consumer electronics companies got together and formed a consortium called HDMI, which stands for high definition multimedia interface. TV manufacturers also created CEA-861, which acts as an overlay to describe how to use DVI for TV applications. As is common in the standards world, HDMI built upon CEA-861 in order to make it really easy to use for consumers. We’re now seeing a rapid adoption of HDMI in the industry where our standards have been layered into a solution.
The change has been very quick from the traditional composite and component video and analog, old-fashioned red-yellow-white RCA connectors. So what you’ll see now are different kinds of plugs on digital TVs that allow pristine digital signals to pass.
Q. What about satellite content providers?
They would rightfully say they were the first ones to deploy digital TV. Their interaction with standards is particular to these interfaces, where users connect their set-top boxes to their TVs. The major satellite service providers are active in CEA video standards.
Q. So satellite companies aren’t affected by the cable compatibility issue?
That is correct. They have their own type of antenna. There’s some benefit to them in the transition to the digital interfaces. As part of the cable compatibility deal, the TV manufacturers have to put either the DVI or HDMI interface on their TVs and this indirectly benefits satellite by having that interface be available for them too.