MCA’s Universal Studios Moving Into HDTV : Technology: The company’s Japanese owner, Matsushita, is supplying its studio with equipment to convert films to high-definition format.

As part of the interactive-communications revolution, Universal Studios is preparing for high-definition TV’s arrival in the U.S. by setting up the process to convert its films into HDTV formats.

HDTV is television with pictures as sharp as a professional photographer might shoot using the highest-resolution 35-millimeter film, and with compact-disc quality sound.

Universal and MCA Inc.’s parent--Matsushita Electric Industrial Co.--and Sony Corp., have both invested heavily in HDTV in Japan. That market is still a small one, in part because HDTV programming is limited.

So, Matsushita and Sony have ordered their studios to start feeding it American movies. To do so, they have supplied the studios with the high-definition telecine equipment necessary to convert film to the Japanese analog-HDTV format.

The U.S. has yet to adopt an HDTV standard. But getting into HDTV now may put Matsushita and Sony farther ahead on the learning curve than U.S. entertainment companies when an industry group recommends an HDTV standard to the FCC, possibly by year’s end.

The immediate goal is to stimulate sales in Japan of HDTVs made by their Japanese corporate parents.

But Universal Studios and Sony Pictures also hope to gain a competitive edge in the emerging worldwide interactive marketplace, where film and television are combining with computers and telecommunications.

“We’re also exploring other avenues that tie in with the integration of video, computers and telecommunications,” said Rick Harding, operations manager of Universal Studio’s new high-definition center. “HDTV is just one aspect of the multimedia boom.”

Telecine, a word that comes from “television” and “cinema,” is the process used to convert film to videotape. The high-definition telecine process is complex: a 35-millimeter film is transferred to a master videotape, the tape is then used to copy the movie onto laser discs and sold to Japanese consumers.

Universal Studios’ Joerg Agin believes the studio can also use the technology to make some of MCA’s other businesses more profitable. A 25-year veteran of Eastman Kodak Co., Agin decided to take early retirement from Kodak, and Universal hired Agin last January to fill the studio’s newly created post of senior vice president for new technology and business development.

“I came to Universal specifically to help the company understand all the new technologies (in) this industry and how we need to structure ourselves to accommodate them,” he said.

For example, Agin expects Universal’s high-definition telecine capability to make it even more lucrative for the studio to syndicate its hit TV series overseas. Currently, he said, Universal has to supply its TV series in as many as 11 different analog broadcast formats for overseas sales.

High-definition telecine may make it possible to make a digital-master of a show that is far less expensive to copy, Agin said.

A digital-HDTV broadcast standard is certain to be adopted in the United States because it is less distorted than the Japanese analog standard.

Matsushita is also somewhat belatedly following the lead of its consumer-electronics rival Sony Corp. Sony’s Culver City-based Sony Pictures Entertainment movie studio began working with high-definition two years ago. Sony Pictures has already reformatted two of its movies for Japanese HDTV: “Honey I Blew Up the Kids” and “The Power of One.”

Meanwhile, Universal Studios this summer has reformatted some of its movies like “Back to the Future III,” for Japanese high-definition television.

Both Matsushita, whose prime consumer-electronics brand is Panasonic, and Sony are also counting on their studios’ movies to help sell HDTV to American consumers. Funding their studios’ high-definition research now is aimed at making sure they will be able to supply programming to that potentially vast new market.

In the U. S. an alliance of rival high-tech companies such as AT&T;, Philips and General Instrument are now cooperating toward setting up a uniform HDTV standard. The alliance is believed close to recommending a standard for Federal Communications Commission approval, possibly before the end of this year.

That would open the door for HDTV sets to be sold in the U. S. perhaps within three to five years. Technophiles may be able to buy high-definition sets that will also let them easily exchange information between their HDTV and computers.

Upgrading to HDTV right away won’t be cheap. The new TV sets are likely to start out costing several thousand dollars more than conventional wide-screen models. Once HDTV gains a foothold in this country, the FCC has said the current broadcast system would be phased out over at least 15 years.

Universal and Sony’s decision to reformat films for Japanese HDTV themselves--rather than hire outside specialists--is evidence of another change in Hollywood.

The pace of technological innovation is forcing movie studios to go beyond their traditional role of creating entertainment products. To stay competitive, they must get involved in such high-tech post-production work.

Studios usually give the job of transferring movies (and many TV shows shot on film) to videotape to outside companies that specialize in performing that task, as well as other post-production services, such as editing the tapes and mixing in sound.

But high-definition telecine requires sophisticated and expensive new equipment. It is relatively cheap for Universal and Sony Pictures to experiment with it because their Japanese parents make most of the HDTV machines now in use.

So far, only a handful of outside post-production companies have been willing to risk a sizable investment in such equipment that could also quickly become obsolete.

“There might be 125 (high-definition telecine) machines around town,” said Larry Kingen, president and founder of All Post Inc., a Burbank post-production firm, that has not invested in HDTV telecine machines. Those units, he said, are mostly “used for TV commercials. But if we go to high-definition, I don’t think it will be for a few years.”

Sony Pictures used high-definition digital-imaging to create special effects in some of its movies, such as “Honey I Blew Up the Kids.” It has also done other high-definition work for outside customers.

In August, Sony Pictures’ Executive Vice President Paul Schaeffer said the studio would extend the technology to music videos and interactive games.

The broader mandate “reflects the dramatically increased demand for state-of-the-art digital imaging,” Schaeffer said in making the announcement. “This is the next logical step in the evolving collaboration between software (films and television programs) and hardware.”