Technology Changing the Picture for TV

Broadcasting, grounded as it is in a few basic technologies invented more than 50 years ago, might be the gray old lady of telecommunications, but as the industry gathers here this week for the annual National Assn. of Broadcasters convention, it’s clear that a dramatic high-tech make-over is underway.

For the first time, computer online services such as America Online and telephone carriers ranging from U.S. long-distance giant AT&T; to Germany’s Deutsche Telekom will be on hand as major sponsors or exhibitors. They hope to promote satellite, telephone and computer networks as ways for broadcasters to extend their reach or transmit video more efficiently.

Meanwhile the computer industry, which has already transformed office work and manufacturing, will bid to get broadcasters--who spend about $1.2 billion annually on equipment and supplies--to throw out their turntables and VCRs and make the transition to all-digital production.

Evans & Southerland, a pioneer in computer simulation technology, is even offering a “virtual TV” package to allow television stations to create full-color three-dimensional computer-generated images to depict real-life events when no live video exists. Kim Malanczuk, a spokeswoman for the company, said the technology could be used if a station “wanted to re-create the 757 crash in Cali, Colombia, or the FBI siege in Waco, Texas.”

Industry alliances aimed at exploiting computer technology are blossoming. Standouts include the online collaboration of Microsoft and NBC, and the varied multimedia ventures of the Fox Network’s parent company, News Corp., and long-distance carrier MCI.

At the same time, the broadcasting industry is preparing for the transition away from the half-century-old analog TV transmission format and toward digital technology that will make it possible to broadcast the super-clear TV pictures known as high-definition television (HDTV), or to dramatically increase the number of over-the-air channels.

The Federal Communications Commission is expected next month to begin considering a final set of technical standards and service ground rules for digital television.

Congress, though still undecided about how to handle the transition to HDTV, gave the broadcasting industry a big boost in February by enacting a law aimed at deregulating the telephone, broadcast and cable industries and stimulating more competition.

“This is a seminal year,” said Andrew G. Setos, executive vice president of Fox’s news and technology group. “We finally have a new telecommunication bill [and] we have a lot of computing technology exploding on the scene. . . . While [these ventures] may not all prove to be viable businesses, the deals that do take place” at the convention “are going to have major impact--much more so than anything that’s happened in the last five years.”

High technology is most starkly transforming the production and transmission of broadcast programming.

Following the lead of the recording industry, which has dispensed with splicing audiotape to edit sound, radio and television broadcasters are using digital cameras, VCRs and audio recorders to record programs and utilizing high-powered computer workstations to manipulate and edit the works.

Cable News Network last month announced that it will soon use an all-digital technology to record, edit and air some of the network’s news programs. When CNN completes the transition, it will be the first broadcast network to replace all its tape cartridge machines and other analog equipment with digital workstations that use computer hard drives to store and manipulate sound and images.

“Two years ago we were just a curiosity at the [NAB convention], and, beyond early adopters, we didn’t attract much interest. Now we are almost into the mainstream,” said Robert Sullivan, vice president of market and business development at Avid Technology Inc., which is selling CNN the digital technology. Avid last year had revenue of $406.7 million marketing similar digital editing systems to broadcasters as well as to advertising agencies and Hollywood film production companies.

As the computer industry hammers away at broadcasting’s old production techniques, the telephone and satellite industries are vying to be the means of transmitting programming from remote sites.

Broadcast networks--both radio and TV--currently rely mostly on satellites and terrestrial microwave transmitters to relay programming between remote production facilities or station affiliates. In the last two decades, satellite and microwave dishes outside studios and mounted on mobile news vans have become a fixture in broadcasting.

But now, armed with digital compression techniques that allow more data to be squeezed through ordinary copper wires, computer and telephone networks are trying to elbow in on the satellite industry’s territory.

International Business Machines Corp., for instance, plans to introduce a new video transmission service that would move video over its computer network.

“Instead of bouncing a broadcast off of a satellite just to send it a few hundred miles to the network, we think it’s a lot easier and more cost-effective to book time on [our] pipe,” said Bill Moses, IBM vice president for sports and broadcasting. IBM’s network uses a high-speed digital transmission technology called “asynchronous transfer mode” to deliver images over a wired network.

But the impact of computers and global communications networks on broadcasting is not confined to new hardware and software. It has transformed the very look and feel of broadcasting.

Many network TV shows now encourage viewer feedback by promoting their Internet Web sites or e-mail addresses. Others, such as Fox’s professional football and hockey coverage, have turned to computers to enhance the viewing of sporting events with snazzy computer graphics and computer-aided tracking systems.

To address hockey fans’ complaints that a traditional puck is hard to follow on a TV screen, for instance, a unit of News Corp., Fox’s parent company, designed a puck that emits an electronic signal that TV cameras depict as a glowing object with a comet tail.

But there remain many holdouts in the broadcasting business, and the financial rewards of the new technologies remain less than clear-cut, experts say.

“There are a lot of broadcasters who are very scared about all of this technology because it requires a large investment,” said Dick Wiley, a leading Washington communications lawyer and former FCC chairman who now chairs the FCC’s advisory committee on advance television service.

Thomas S. Rogers, executive vice president of NBC, agrees that there has been a lot of apprehension about new technology--but insists the climate has changed.

“Five years ago most broadcasters were resistant to any kind of participation in the new media,” Rogers said. “When we launched CNBC [the cable financial news network], some of our affiliates talked about throwing everything short of tomatoes at me. But gradually the world has changed.”

* Jube Shiver Jr., who covers telecommunications from The Times’ Washington bureau, can be reached at Jube.Shiver@latimes.com