Big HDTV Screens May Be Used Soon for Special Events

Even as the television industry focuses on the dramatic race to develop a means of broadcasting the high-tech TV known as high-definition television, a variety of companies are working to bring a different version of this new technology to the public much sooner, perhaps as early as this summer.

If these projects come to fruition, it may soon be possible to go to certain cinemas or specially equipped hotel lounges and enjoy sports, concerts, Broadway shows and other special events displayed with the exceptional clarity and brightness that characterizes HDTV. A system for broadcasting HDTV to homes, by contrast, won’t be ready until mid-decade.

These special-event HDTV presentations would use the Japanese-developed HDTV technology, which has been rejected as unsuitable for broadcasting in the United States but is gradually gaining some acceptance as a video production medium. It is currently possible to buy high-definition television sets, video cameras and videotape recorders from Sony and other Japanese companies, though the equipment is extremely expensive.

John Messerschmitt, vice president for marketing at Scientific Atlanta, which produces transmission systems for satellite and cable television, said he has been in discussions with the United Artists cinema chain about setting up an HDTV special-event network. Messerchmitt predicted that between 20 and 100 United Artists movie theaters might be equipped for HDTV by the end of this year, but a United Artists spokesman said no firm decisions have been made.

Spectradyne, a Dallas-based company that provides in-room movies to hotels around the country, is also weighing a move into HDTV, according to industry sources. And New York video producer David Niles, who has been making commercials, rock videos and corporate videos in HDTV for several years, plans to begin beaming live HDTV rock concerts from the newly renovated Ed Sullivan Theater in New York this summer.

Scientific Atlanta has developed a technology for sending the images created by the Japanese HDTV production system--which features a wide-screen format and 1,125 horizontal picture lines rather than the 525 in traditional TV systems--over satellite links. NHK, the Japanese broadcasting company that coordinated development of HDTV, also has a system for sending the signals by satellite.

Thus an HDTV production crew can film an event and send the signal to a satellite in the same way that a regular TV crew does today. A location such as a movie theater, sports bar or hotel lounge equipped with a receiving dish and decoder could then capture that signal and display the event on HDTV sets or projection systems, which cost from $40,000 to $100,000.

Niles will use the Scientific Atlanta system to broadcast his concerts, and he hopes to have at least 10 temporary receiving sites in place around the country for his summer concerts. He declined to say what acts he had signed on, but he indicated that they were big-name attractions who might be expected to draw 10,000 or 15,000 people at a live show.

In Canada, meanwhile, Cineplex Odeon is equipping five theaters with HDTV viewing systems as part of a pilot project being spearheaded by Telesat Canada, the government satellite company. “We’re pretty confident it will be successful,” said Susannah Knott, director of broadcasting services for Telesat Canada.

Other companies are exploring the use of HDTV in private communications networks for specialized uses such as medical training or new-car rollouts. An executive with Videostar, an Atlanta-based subsidiary of the computer and communications services firm Electronic Data Systems, said his firm is working on two such projects.

Barry Rebo, who recently opened a Los Angeles branch of his HDTV production company, said he is exploring several such specialized HDTV ventures and is looking at broadcasting musical events in HDTV.

Dale Cripps, publisher of the HDTV Newsletter, said that HDTV represented “an excellent enhancement business for the theaters” and that it would gradually develop in theaters and the business world before moving into the home. Sony, through its purchase of Columbia Pictures, owns the Loews theater chain, and Matsushita has an interest in the Cineplex Odeon theaters.

Still, not everyone is convinced that theaters will move aggressively to become HDTV venues this year or next. “It’s been slower than any of us would like to see,” said Robert Wussler, president and chief executive of the satellite company Comsat Video Enterprises. “There are a number of people trying to get things off the ground, but I don’t see anyone making the investments that are needed in the short term.”

Indeed, the Japanese HDTV system has been on the market since 1986 but has achieved only limited acceptance. Many companies are reluctant to commit to HDTV projects that use this technology because it will be difficult to integrate with whatever system is eventually chosen for terrestrial broadcasting.

Niles and some other users of the Japanese system believe that all the publicity over the Federal Communications Commission’s program for choosing technical standards for over-the-air HDTV broadcasting--a process that will not be completed until 1993--has discouraged people from investing in projects based on the existing Japanese technology.