Jon Iverson

Back in 1996, when Congress set the timetable for digital television, one of the provisions left open for later discussion was fees the <A HREF="http://www.fcc.gov/">Federal Communications Commission</A> (FCC) would levy on broadcasters who charged for new pay-TV programming. The deadline for converting to DTV was set to be the year 2006, but how much should the government be compensated for special content such as HDTV movies, stock quotes, or other fee-based services that a broadcaster might charge for?

Video-on-demand (VOD) got another boost last week when <A HREF="http://www.mediahawk.com">Concurrent Computer Corporation</A> and <A HREF="http://www.sciatl.com">Scientific-Atlanta, Inc.</A> announced that they have sealed their agreement to jointly develop and supply "full-function true VOD systems." The agreement finalizes a letter of intent announced in May and follows an April 1998 VOD agreement between Scientific-Atlanta and SeaChange International (profiled in a <A HREF="http://www.guidetohometheater.com/shownews.cgi?138">previous story</A>).

At last week's <A HREF="http://www.nab.org">National Association of Broadcasters</A> convention in Las Vegas, <A HREF="http://www.dolby.com/tvaudio">Dolby Laboratories</A> unveiled the first Dolby E encoder and decoder products, which are intended to help television broadcasters make the transition from two-channel to multichannel audio. According to the company, the DP571 Dolby E Encoder and DP572 Dolby E Decoder allow broadcasters to distribute up to eight channels of audio, as well as additional data, with a pair of channels on a single AES/EBU cable, two audio tracks of a digital video tape, digital audio tape, or video server.

According to new consumer research, more than 95% of digital television (DTV) owners would purchase a DTV set again. That overwhelmingly definitive stamp of approval for DTV was presented last week to conference attendees struggling with HDTV's rollout at the <A HREF="http://www.ce.org">Consumer Electronics Association</A>'s (CEA) DTV Summit, "Is Laissez-Faire Fair?" in Washington, DC.