Want to see a good fight? 1997 promises to deliver a fight most American television viewers have never before seen the likes of: the fight that's brewing between the computer and broadcast industries.

The talk is of scanning formats and aspect ratios, but the real drama is the search for common ground between the most technologically dynamic force in American culture, and one of the most stable. It's going to be the best show of the year.

Convergence between PCs and television seems to be a natural. For example, computers can pick up broadcast signals and television can display the Internet. But already, bitter wrangling among the three parties hints at trouble. News of a recent cross-industry accord which is now before the FCC hides the fact that computer executives worked to torpedo a set of standards for transmission formats and screen sizes that broadcasters and TV manufacturers had already agreed on. Due to pressure from Microsoft, Apple, and others, standards will be kept to a minimum, competing technologies will be encouraged, and the marketplace will determine the winner.

You have to wonder if the TV industry whose entire history is still "broadcastable," whose every transmission is compatible with every brand and model of receiver, and whose hardware breaks before it becomes obsolete should be getting lessons in standards setting from the computer industry. TV viewers, after being carefully sheltered from technology problems for 40 years, may not be pleased with the chaos that will accompany the sharper pictures and clearer sound.

Will Americans be willing to replace their television sets every couple of years as various formats rise and fall? How will people who are still making payments on their digital television feel when "the marketplace" decides that they have invested in a loser technology and that they have to start over? Will every television purchase become the equivalent of today's Mac-vs.-PC agony? What happens when viewers can't count on their sets being able to receive new programs they read about? Suppose Microsoft makes one of its famous "alliances" with, say, the NFL, and fans who have chosen a non-Gates TV format get frozen out? Will TV Guide publish multiple editions for owners of different systems?

When channel X goes black, who will diagnose whether it's a blown picture tube or a broadcast format incompatibility? How will people enjoy periodically reconfiguring their televisions, changing adapter boards, and adding memory as the technology changes? Will there be a Zenith technical support line?

Welcome To The Real World

The PC industry is accustomed to dealing with a small segment of the public, people who are affluent, sophisticated, and technically adventuresome. If it expects the rest of America to put up with the uncertainties, incompatibilities, and aggravations that we computer people live with, the industry is in for a shock. Casual PC users are already fed up with how hard it is to get things working; imagine the uproar when millions of couch potatoes start running into installation headaches and software clashes.

The duke-it-out-in-the-marketplace model has driven remarkable innovation in the computer business, and perhaps innovation is something the TV industry could use more of.

But, on the other hand, the consumer electronics industry knows something important very about the American public in its leisure-time mode. The computer industry's arrogance on the issue of technical standards doesn't augur well for a nation of delighted digital television owners. If you think television promotes violence and profanity now, just keep watching!

Source: Information Week