Will Shift to Digital HDTV, Japan Firm Says

Japan Broadcasting Corp., developer of the world’s first working high-definition TV system, said Wednesday that in the next decade, it will shift to a more advanced system being developed in the United States and Europe.

Japan is the only nation with regular broadcasts of wide-screen HDTV programs, chiefly from the public Japan Broadcasting, or NHK. When the broadcasts began in 1991, many saw Japan’s HDTV head start as another sign of its strength in electronics.

The digital HDTV now being developed in the United States and Europe is more advanced than Japan’s system, which transmits TV signals in traditional analog form. Because digital signals use computer language, the TVs that receiving them can easily be linked with computers.

Japan Broadcasting and its corporate allies objected strenuously in February when a senior government official called its HDTV standard outdated and announced that Japan would move toward an all-digital standard. The official was forced to recant, but NHK now seems resigned to a gradual move in that direction.

“Of course we’re aware of the benefits of digital technology and are keeping it in mind for the future,” said Shuichi Morikawa, director of engineering at NHK.

“It’s been said that NHK is clinging to an old technology with its analog system,” he said, “but we’re devoting lots of research effort so we won’t lose out to the rest of the world.”

In a laboratory tour for reporters Wednesday, NHK demonstrated a variety of digital broadcasting research projects.

Morikawa said NHK will create an adapter to allow analog HDTV sets to receive digital broadcasts.

The least-expensive HDTV sets now sell for about 600,000 yen, or $5,770; about 20,000 have been sold.

Given the cost of the new technology, Morikawa said, the timing of NHK’s shift will depend on when receivers can become available for a reasonable price.

“That’s likely to be after the year 2005 or 2010,” he said.

NHK’s HDTV system is partly digital but transmissions are in analog form because digital broadcasts could not be protected from interference.

United States and European manufacturers and broadcasters are discussing specifications for HDTV systems and are expected to arrive at digital standards similar to Japan’s.