He’s Trying to Stay in Vanguard of HDTV : Technology: The satellite television company’s owner wants to open a high-definition programming studio. But some say he’s ahead of his time.

A Burbank-based entrepreneur is an early entrant into the race to produce and broadcast high-definition television programs and movies--but analysts say Stuart Levin may be too early.

In the first six months of this year, Levin and New York-based Rebo Studios plan to open a studio to produce high-definition programming--movies and TV shows produced with a new technology that makes videotape and television transmissions much clearer than they are now. The Burbank facility would provide equipment to producers who want to work in high definition, plus transmit feature films in high-definition form over satellite to consumers.

“This will be a very big market,” said Levin, who says the operation will be the first of its kind.

To set up the new venture, Levin plans to combine the facilities of his company, TVN Satellite Theaters, a provider of pay-per-view films to satellite dishes, with production equipment owned by Rebo, which already produces works in high definition.

The plan, according to Levin and Barry Rebo, owner of Rebo Studios, is to provide a facility that producers can lease to make high-definition programs or special effects. At the same time, they plan to use one of Levin’s pay-per-view channels--he has 11--to offer high-definition movies to owners of satellite dishes.

“The idea is to be the first,” Levin said. “Somebody has to take the ball and run with it.”

But high definition is still in the infancy stage.

“I don’t think high-definition TV is going to have a significant consumer impact this decade,” said Bob Scherman, editor of Satellite Business News, which follows consumer uses of high definition as well as Levin’s satellite business.

Because high-definition TV is essentially as different from standard TV as compact discs were from vinyl record albums, switching to it will mean consumers would have to buy new, expensive TV sets. And broadcasters and producers would also have to buy new equipment. Not only will high definition involve a new kind of transmission and reception, but screens on high-definition sets are shaped like movie screens, much wider than on regular TVs.

For those reasons, the Federal Communications Commission has refused to allow high definition to go forward in this country--it’s already available in Japan--until a version of it is developed that the agency believes can serve as a standard for all HDTV sets in the United States.

A preliminary recommendation on a standard is expected this spring, but that’s just the first step. The next--and more difficult--one will be persuading consumers to fork over the $2,000 that the first HDTV sets are expected to cost.

And that, said Scherman, could make it difficult for Levin’s venture to get off the ground.

“Even if the FCC comes up with a transmission system, will there be receivers in the home capable of viewing it? In my mind, not any time soon,” Scherman said.

But Levin insists that he is uniquely poised to reach those videophiles who will fork out the money for the first HDTV sets, because they will be the same people who have bought satellite dishes and who subscribe to his fairly expensive pay-per-view service.

“And because we’ll be the first,” Levin said, “I’m not concerned about competition from companies with bigger resources.”

Levin said he has 200,000 satellite dish customers nationally. He plans to entice them into trying high definition by broadcasting the same pay-per-view movies he already offers on standard television, but in the high-definition format. That way, he argued, he will be able to reach those videophiles who might buy the early HDTV sets, and encourage other subscribers to buy their own sets.

To get started, Levin said, he will devote one of his satellite channels to high-definition films, programs and special events. Because HDTV in Japan got started when sets were installed in public places, such as bars, Levin will also offer live sporting events and concerts to those venues if they adopt the technology.

Rebo and Levin would not say how much money they have invested in the project, although Rebo said he is contributing $3 million worth of cameras, editing equipment and other production gear. At the moment they have little competition, because the business is in its infancy.

Analysts said they are likely to face financial strain from Levin’s pay-per-view business, because the company may be pinched as a result of the withdrawal last year of two major investors, Paramount Pictures and Universal Studios. Levin’s company is private and he declined to comment on whether it is profitable.

If there is a drain on resources, some of it might be offset if Rebo’s side of the new venture--the production end--is successful.

Much of the new studio’s early business, Rebo said, will have nothing to do with broadcasting in high definition to consumers at home. Rather, it will involve selling Hollywood producers on the idea of renting the facility to make special effects for feature films. With high definition, he said, special effects can be captured on videotape--which is much cheaper to use than film--and then transferred to film to be edited into the final version of a movie.

He said even if a film or program is shot using high-definition tape throughout, it needn’t be used solely for broadcast purposes. Like “Fools Fire,” a high-definition movie that Rebo shot last year for public broadcasting’s “American Playhouse” series, it could be transferred to film and then be shown in movie theaters or broadcast over regular TV.

Rebo shrugged off the contention that the venture might be starting up too early. He faced similar criticism, he said, six years ago when he started producing films and shows on high-definition tape--to then be transferred to film or be sold in Japan.

“Otherwise, you’re sitting on a fence waiting for the big guys to write the big checks,” Rebo said. “And then it’s too late.”