Last week, in Part I of this edited interview with TVNEWSDAY, NAB chief technologist Lynn Claudy revealed the trade group's plans to promote technologies that could improve broadcasting or lead to new services and business.

Today, in Part II, Claudy talks about what NAB is doing to insure a smooth transition from analog to digital TV, digital opportunities for broadcasters, the latest on the Sprint-Nextel ENG program, sharing broadcast spectrum with unlicensed devices and the upcoming NAB convention. Are you ready for Ultra-HDTV?

As you know, all TV stations are expected to make the final switch from analog to digital at midnight on Feb. 17, 2009. What's your role in that process? 

We can't be complacent. I'll start with that. DTV is a success story these days, at least in our eyes, and it has been in the decade since the technology was standardized.

Most of the technical people are now trying to look at what's next. There is a lot of opportunity in the flexibility of the digital TV standard, opportunity for new businesses, for new services. It's largely untapped because you have all these chicken-and-egg problems, which are the hallmark of change in the broadcast service paradigm.

Are there still technical issues to work through?     

There are issues and then there are opportunities. I could talk about either, but I think the opportunities are more interesting. For example, the recent demonstrations and the technical work that's been going on for over a year now in mobile broadcasting.

The whole idea of using DTV to deliver broadcast content to things like cell phones or iPods or laptop computers or PDAs—anything that people carry with them that's electronic in nature. Someone carrying such a device may want news or entertainment or information, especially if it's locally based.

Local broadcasters have that kind of content, but they generally don't have a way of getting it to those kinds of devices.

The DTV mobile system that has gotten all the attention so far is Samsung's A-VSB. Are you hip to the alternative system that Harris is developing?  

We're aware that there is an alternative system. There hasn't been public disclosure on that. It will be a matter of either months or perhaps weeks before that has a coming out party.       

Do you know anything about it? I mean how it works or any of that?   

I don't have enough specifics and I think Harris and its partners want to reveal it in their own time, but I certainly know that they believe they are competitive and, in some ways, superior to A-VSB.

These things are not necessarily mutually exclusive. I mean you could have two different DTV mobile standards, correct?      

You could. When enhanced VSB was developed, there also was a structure put in place so that you could have more than one enhanced transmission mode and have a way to discriminate between them. It may not be the best roll-out scenario to have competing standards. Witness Blue Ray and HD-DVD. But it is certainly possible that they are not mutually exclusive.               

You and MSTV have been involved in developing the low-cost converters that will allow consumers with analog sets to receive digital signals after the DTV conversion. How is that going?

We're pretty much at the end of that project and the prototypes that we contracted for from LG/Zenith and with Thomson Electronics really exceeded our hopes in how well they performed and that performance is documented.

We have passed some milestones in terms of having a product that an average person can buy and install with an average TV and an average understanding of how to do so. That person is very, very likely to have a good experience.                            

But with what kind of antenna? Do I need a rooftop antenna or one of these smart antennas or can I use my old rabbit ears I have in the attic?        

That's pretty much determined by how far away you are from transmitters and whether you're in the basement or on the third floor. But under the right circumstances an indoor antenna will work very well with the converter box designs that are available now.

I became a great believer in the smart antenna technology because it just takes the human factor out of the equation, of aiming an antenna in a metropolitan area where the stations might be in different directions. The smart antenna automates that process by electronically orienting itself. It works exceptionally well at doing that and could be a mass market item.

So you have these two prototype converter boxes. When are they going to be ready for market?     

There's a limit to what a couple of trade associations can do. It's now up to manufacturers as to whether they see a market there. They'll have to abide by the rules that NTIA comes up with if they want to participate in the $40 coupon program.

There is money to be made there, but it's not a particularly attractive business. The set-top box business is not the kind of opportunity that manufacturers go wild about.                                                         

What if nobody builds them? What's going to happen to the 70 million analog sets that aren't hooked up to cable or satellite?

I don't think we're going to be faced with that scenario. The fewer entrants there are in the marketplace, the more attractive it is for the few that are left. There are 70 million television sets out there so I don't think we have to worry that there will be no one that looks at that as a potential business.

Have no manufacturers stepped forward at this point to say that they will be building these?  

I know a number of motivated manufacturers that are very likely to do so, but pinning them down is very difficult. The manufacturing industry doesn't respond well to mandates or they don't feel the need to give guarantees. That's OK because that's just the way that facet of the industry operates.                                      

A lot of broadcasters have some work to do on their towers, antennas and transmitters before the conversion. Does the NAB have a role in assisting broadcasters in that process?         

We do. There's a lot of talk about how that's all going to happen and how to cross the Ts and dot the Is and make sure that on the night of Feb. 17 a crisis doesn't occur and cause turmoil the following week.

We'll certainly be participating with the FCC as we get down to the final table and get everyone out of 52-69 band in accordance with the February 2009 hard deadline. I think we're going to be talking a lot about that. Hopefully, some creativity from the regulators will help make that a palatable transition.

Broadcasters have been raising alarms about the push by the computer industry to use portions of the broadcast spectrum—white spaces—for unlicensed wireless devices. Why?

It's the very life blood of the over-the-air broadcast industry. So it's worth making sure that, if there's going to be any sharing that goes on, it's done in a way that doesn't disenfranchise broadcasting and that the new entrants are welcomed instead of looked on as intruders.

You may be able to regulate the sharing, but it is going to happen, right?

There's a tremendous amount of political pressure to make the most out of the spectrum and since broadcasters have such a large amount of spectrum in advantageous bands, it's certainly likely that there will be. Of course, there is sharing now, but it's likely that there will be increased sharing for new kinds of services whether they're licensed or unlicensed.

What's your problem with it?

If unlicensed devices could operate in the TV broadcast bands on a strict non-interference basis, there wouldn't be an objection. You can postulate a scenario where it works. The problems come when you actually look at the practical circumstances and how difficult it is to police and to correct egregious interference situations. After the service is introduced, it's too late to go back and change the rules.

If Congress doesn't get involved here, are you confident that you can work this thing out at the FCC?

I think so. I think there's a great track record at the FCC of being conscientious and applying proper controls. They've had that role as spectrum cop for many, many decades and they're pretty good at it.

You haven't listened to AM radio lately. If this is not done properly, what's the downside for broadcasters?     

Well broadcasting is based on the concept of ubiquitous reach and universal service, so anything that takes a chunk out of a broadcasters' service area detracts from the business.

It means you're losing customers. That's not good for broadcasting. In a wireless system, one always wants to over-design not under-design. In other words, you want to have plenty of margin to be able to accommodate bad reception conditions, environmental and man-made.                                

I know that NAB has been involved in the program in which Sprint-Nextel is upgrading the ENG microwave gear of every TV station in exchange for some new cell phone spectrum. The FCC has set a September 2007 deadline on that program. Is Sprint-Nextel going to make it?

I don't know. I think they're making good faith efforts to do so. It's a difficult process. I will say that Sprint-Nextel has been an excellent partner. If it can happen, it's going to happen because the right people are talking and the right money is being spent and the right decisions are being made. The technical competence in that whole transition is also extremely high so we feel pretty good about it.

And you have no complaint about Sprint-Nextel. You think they are acting in good faith and fulfilling their end of this bargain?

Yes, I believe that. They are working with the broadcasters and the FCC. It's a good team effort. Maybe it wasn't born of a team mentality, but, in the execution of it, everyone is playing his part appropriately.

What about this convention you have coming up in April? What's going to be new and exciting there?

A lot of it is by engineers for engineers and only engineers will get excited about it. The keynote for the engineering conference will be one of the managing directors at NHK who will be talking about the next step in HDTV—what it calls Ultra HDTV.

You may have seen it demonstrated last year. They are going to come back this year with another demonstration. Ultra HDTV has 16 times the resolution of HDTV and 22 channels of sound. It's an amazing thing. It allows them to achieve this incredible recreation of reality.

Now, it's not ready for the home right now, but it could be used for reality recreation, museums, things like that. It's extremely interesting stuff.  

We'll also be having a session on mobile broadcasting and the Harris consortium will certainly be represented there as well as Samsung. It will address what it takes to get ATSC-like signals into small portable devices. 

Anything else?

One of the big station issues is the idea of work flow, of moving from a broadcast environment with linear kinds of programming storage into the nonlinear world of IT-based or file-based work flows. There are a lot of people who are spending a lot of time and energy on how to merge together the file-based computer world with the more traditional broadcast program storage facility. So anyone who's on that evolutionary path is going to get a good dose of where that's going.