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| navigate: home: magazine: fall 2000: article | |
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Reforging the Links Project Public Broadcasting prepares to go digital By Deborah A. Benedetti | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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First came radio in 1918. Then black-and-white television revolutionized home entertainment in the late 1940s and ’50s. The last major innovation in TV technology was the addition of color in the mid-1960s. Today, public television stations are poised to make the technological leap from 50-year-old analog technology to digital television (DTV). Along with motion-picture-quality images and CD-quality sound, DTV will bring viewers a wealth of knowledge, images, sights and sounds on every topic imaginable. When can we expect to see this new technology? The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has mandated that public television stations make the conversion to digital TV by 2003. “This is an extremely short timeline for the entire public television system to make the transition to digital broadcast,” Theodore Krichels, assistant vice president for outreach and general manager of Penn State Public Broadcasting, said. “Under the FCC ruling, Penn State Public Broadcasting must provide digital service by 2003, or central Pennsylvania will be denied access to public television service altogether.” To meet this challenge, Penn State Public Broadcasting, under the leadership of Krichels, has joined with Wisconsin Public Television and Washington State University and their respective distance education organizations in a collaboration to convert to digital TV. At the same time, the partners will be exploring the educational potential of this new communications medium. Reforging the Links: The University Digital Business Partnership Project is aimed at reenergizing the link between public broadcasting and higher education. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting’s Future Fund is supporting the project. In addition to Penn State Public Broadcasting, the other Penn State partners in this venture are Cooperative Extension, represented by Dr. Theodore R. Alter, associate vice president for outreach and director of Cooperative Extension and associate dean, College of Agricultural Sciences; and the Penn State World Campus, represented by Dr. Gary E. Miller, associate vice president for Distance Education and executive director of the World Campus. Members of the Reforging the Links Project met at Penn State in the spring to discuss how digital TV can be used in education, entertainment and outreach. More than 140 Penn State leaders of academic and outreach units, as well as local education and community planners, business and community leaders and public broadcasters attended the daylong “Engaging Digital” program. The event also featured a demonstration of digital TV by Wisconsin Public Television and the University of Wisconsin– Extension. Krichels noted that “digital technology will offer clearer, crisper pictures of such high definition that you can actually see blades of grass blowing in the wind and the velvety black outline on a butterfly’s wing. But thinking of digital TV as simply a way to deliver crystal clear images doesn’t begin to scratch the surface of the new technology’s potential. In addition to dazzling pictures and CD-quality sound, DTV will offer a brand new range of services that will have an impact in our schools, homes and businesses. “Multicasting, the delivery of several programs at once — using the remote control to select Channel 3, 3A, 3B and so on — will allow viewers to customize a schedule, choosing from children’s programming, adult continuing education or news and public affairs programming, such as WPSX-TV’s Take Note or Weather World programs. There are no limits to the types of programs that could be made available, everything from music and drama to history and science, cooking and comedy.” Krichels added, “Through multicasting, teachers in classrooms locally and nationally will be able to access several instructional programs simultaneously for work groups studying world history, economics, sociology, space travel or other topics. The added capacity of data transmission will allow interactive use of these programs, turning them into tools for in-depth learning. By interfacing television with the Internet, viewers can access and download literally a world of facts, pictures, sounds and related links. Consumers and business people will find a multitude of applications using the Web and television, some with economic benefit, others for pure entertainment.” Members of Wisconsin Public Television and University of Wisconsin–Extension demonstrated the potential of digital TV during the “Engaging Digital” program. Dr. Kevin P. Reilly, provost and vice chancellor of the University of Wisconsin–Extension, explained, “Digital television is a merging of broadcast, the Internet, your television and your personal computer. It’s a convergence of these technologies. This is creating opportunities for higher education to use new delivery methods for both credit and noncredit programming. This convergence is also bringing much larger numbers of people to higher education through public TV. With DTV, we can customize and individualize this service. “Penn State and the University of Wisconsin are leading the dialog among public TV station licensees around the country,” Reilly said. “We think we’re out ahead of the curve on this, which is where land-grant universities and public television stations need to be for this conversation to work.” Reilly and other speakers during the “Engaging Digital” program stressed that making the transition from analog to digital TV will be expensive. Reilly estimates costs could total $40 million to $50 million for the five public TV stations in the Wisconsin Public Television network. Funds from federal and state governments and private sources will be needed. Byron Knight, director of television for Wisconsin Public Television, said $1.7 billion will be needed for all public TV stations to convert to digital. Digital TV’s most important advantage over the current analog format is its ability to send much more information through transmitters and cable lines: 19.4 megabits of data per second. Public TV stations will have the ability to offer four channels simultaneously over one channel: educational, informational and children’s channels, as well as a main channel for news, public affairs and documentaries, Knight said. “It will take a lot of content to keep all of these channels full,” he said. “And when we broadcast, we will still have enough bandwidth left over to do datacasting.” Digital TV will send data through the broadcast airwaves by using ones and zeros — the same language as computers. The extra bandwidth can be used to broadcast the Internet through the TV station. “In public broadcasting, we’ve always had more programming than we could deliver on one channel,” Knight said. “Digital technology will give us the ability to deliver more programming, and we will have the ability to deliver data in seconds to enhance our programs.” In an early demonstration of enhanced public TV programming, PBS (Public Broadcasting Service) digitally produced and broadcast a program about architect Frank Lloyd Wright in November 1998. The program also included an enhancement that enabled viewers to explore the Guggenheim Museum and Falling Water — buildings designed by Wright. “This is the promise digital TV holds,” Knight said. The University of Wisconsin began experimenting with a new technology, Web TV, to test the possibilities for the convergence of the TV and computer to enhance its public television programming. Web TV involves a television set and set-top box for watching TV and linking to the Web. Wisconsin Public Television used the Frank Lloyd Wright PBS program to link its viewers to a catalog of university courses related to Wright and architecture. Viewers of the program could check out the links to other information and return to the point in the program where they left, without losing any of the program, which was stored in their set-top box. Dr. Carl O’Connor, dean and director of Cooperative Extension for the University of Wisconsin–Extension, sees digital TV as another means of extending the expertise of Cooperative Extension to the public. “We pride ourselves that for the last 75 years we have been providing access to the University of Wisconsin,” O’Connor said. “That’s what we do.” He started talking with Knight about using public TV to make Cooperative Extension more accessible to residents. “We have an obligation to help people in our state address issues such as water and air quality, social service programs and health care. At the same time, we need to be an informed public. Byron [Knight] and I have a common mission. Byron has the technology to deliver information, and I have the content,” O’Connor said. One of their first collaborations involved the Wisconsin Gardener program. O’Connor’s Cooperative Extension staff created a bridge Web page with a menu to additional gardening resources available through the university. This information was included with the Wisconsin Public Television broadcast. A second joint project focused on domestic violence. “We bought a program called We Made it Through the Rain,” Knight said. “We partnered with the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence to include statistics about domestic violence, legal definitions, signs of domestic violence and safety plans with the program. This is the kind of ‘working together’ that becomes the metaphor for the digital TV medium.” Now the focus is on how to do this nationally. O’Connor said the University of Wisconsin–Extension is talking with other higher education presidents and PBS. The higher education community wants a role in providing the content to enhance digital public TV programming. Achieving this goal will entail resolving policy issues and also soliciting comments from the public. “There are so many public work issues that we can address through digital television — health care, environmental issues, new economies,” O’Connor added. Penn State Public Broadcasting also recognizes the value of digital TV and has set a goal of being a leader in digital TV, Krichels said. “We want to bring the full potential for education and entertainment to schools, homes and businesses throughout the WPSX-TV viewing area,” he said. Converting to DTV involves more than upgrading existing TV equipment, Krichels added. All new equipment will be needed, including transmitters, antennas and recording and switching equipment. Digital program production also will require new cameras and recording and editing equipment. When the conversion is complete, the people living in the 500,000 households in the WPSX-TV viewing area will have access to immense resources. Here’s how DTV could benefit viewers:
The changeover from analog to digital service will be gradual, but dramatic, he added. Many people, institutions and businesses will be involved in shaping the development of digital TV. A panel of community leaders talked about some of the challenges facing public television stations as they make the transition to DTV. Panelists were Timothy Curley, Penn State athletic director; Dr. Jorge Schement, professor of communications, Penn State College of Communications; Mimi U. Coppersmith Fredman, president, The Barash Group; Dr. Marilyn Corbin, state program leader for children, youth and families, Penn State Outreach and Cooperative Extension; and Lou Heldman, president and publisher, Centre Daily Times. “This is really an exciting area for athletics,” Curley said. “We’re in the entertainment and education business, and we see many applications that will be of great benefit for our constituents. We could do video competitions and present education clinics and sessions using this technology. We see this as a great service to our alumni. We just can’t wait for the technology to move forward.” Fredman also is “intrigued by the whole concept of digital television, but concerned about how to fund the potential of DTV. The challenge will be partnering and making the impossible happen. The technology is exciting.” She suggested that the IPO [initial public offering of stock] concept could be transferable to public broadcasting. Schement reminded participants of the United States’ history of innovation. “Americans have been building information environments in their homes for the entire 20th century. The roots of the digital era go back to 1900. This is a wave we can’t stop; we have to ride it.” There are social issues and policy implications in converting to digital TV, Schement said, such as what happens to the public commons when individuals have all of the information they need at their fingertips. “Public television would be a public commons,” he said. “Increasingly, we’ll see public television being used to build a new kind of commons — an electronic public commons,” Reilly said. “We’re being overwhelmed by information, and we’re having a difficult time processing it. The role of the university in this is to help the public sort the wheat from the chaff.” Heldman noted, “The motto of big media is ‘We know what’s good for you.’ Interactivity represents a shift in this approach. People will tell us what’s good for them.” Corbin suggested that “Penn State Cooperative Extension can help make the interactivity of digital TV meaningful by providing the wraparound education for public TV. Early in the process, Cooperative Extension offices can be the demonstration sites, showing people what’s possible. Then digital TV can be used to link Penn State’s research with the people of Pennsylvania. We can use this technology to enhance our accessibility locally. This is an exciting new way for us to reach out to those who want education.” | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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© 2002 Outreach Communications, Outreach & Cooperative Extension, The Pennsylvania State University phone: (814) 865-8108, fax: (814) 863-2765, e-mail: outreachnews@outreach.psu.edu |
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