Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, June 2, 1993 TAG: 9308230293
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Yes, but what a TV it will be. High-definition television will produce razor-sharp pictures, we're told. And the sound? The same quality you hear from your compact disc player. Beautiful. OK, but just how fine a focus do we need on those reruns of "Gilligan's Island," you might ask. How much is it really worth to capture just the right tonal quality when, say, Gilligan yells for the Skipper?
Don't worry about it.
The recent agreement by three major American electronics groups to work together to develop a single HDTV system clears the way for federal regulators to settle on a U.S. version of the new technology. It is a huge step toward HDTV's introduction in this country.
And that is critically important in the competition to establish the United States as the leader in digitalized television - a marriage, of sorts, between your TV screen and your computer.
This is the technology that could be an access ramp to the data superhighway of the future, what Vice President Al Gore calls the "most important marketplace of the 21st century."
The Japanese have taken the lead in the field while U.S. competitors, which once numbered 23, have been busy developing different systems and trying to bump each other off. The remaining three hope their "grand alliance" will produce the standard design for an American system next year.
This is an exciting prospect, not so much for what it will do for the reception quality of TV programming, but for the opening it will give America onto that data superhighway.
Our television/computer screens probably will be the video terminals where, one day, we order our groceries, pay our bills, read the news, talk to friends, register opinions and even vote. Oh yes, and watch TV.
Despite our many options, we probably will still be doing some of that - which raises an anxious question: Is it too much to hope that the opening of all of these new worlds of information might spur demand for, and thus a supply of, better programming?
Or will Bruce Springsteen be singing in the next decade: "557 Channels (and Still Nothin' On)"?
We may have to wait for further technological leaps, when interactive TVs will allow us to watch programs and decide ourselves what will happen.
We might, for example, have Gilligan and his buddies get rescued at the end of the first episode. Then we could wake up to find all those reruns were just a dream.
by CNB