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THE BROADCASTER'S INSIDE SCOOP ON CES IN LAS VEGAS
Come with us and enjoy a recap of the Consumer Electronics Show just concluded in Las Vegas as seen through the eyes of a highly experienced broadcast engineer. This is not just any engineer, but Hal Kneller who is a Senior Manager at Harris Corporation, one of the largest and most respected manufacturers of broadcast equipment in the world. Of course the views expressed are his alone and do not necessarily reflect those of Harris.
Here, then, is the Broadcaster's Inside Scoop On CES:
I was at CES on a mission for my employer (Harris Corporation) and not
someone who was attending because of being in the consumer electronics
industry, so I see this in a slightly different manner, and also to how
it relates to traditional radio and television broadcasting. Thus I
will pepper my comments accordingly, as most readers will have similar
interest. We had meetings with iBiquity (the HD Radio creators), NDS
(more on them in a bit) and several receiver manufacturers, some
customers and also were interested in mobile video and other trends in how consumers would receive and process their content in the future. As
a broadcast equipment manufacturer, we need to spot trends early to see
how our customers (radio and television stations and production houses)
may be changing the way they do business because of changes in consumer
electronics and the habits of their consumers - the end user. But heck,
we're curious people, so we look around a little, too.
The new iPhone from Apple is going to be hot and was a big buzz at the
show. I think combining many functions of video, MP3 player, etc. into
a traditional cellular phone is going to reduce the number of"appliances" that people carry thus will be popular. These people have
instant market credibility after coming back from the ropes a few years
ago with the iPod. Consumers trust iPods, so Apple will certainly have
a leg up with iPhone. This has a "coolness" factor because of iPod's
success. After all, in the culture today, you are not hip if you don't
have an iPod, therefore you probably will have to buy an iPhone if you
are in that 15-35 demo.
It's not a big buzz yet but I see Wi-Max as a huge thing. It should
begin rollout out later this year on a limited basis in the US. When
you can have that kind of bandwidth over a 10 mile area (of course more
area with multiple cells) and see the kinds of appliances that will work
with it, a lot can be done. Frankly, radio and TV as we know it could
see a huge change. We're talking about all kinds of video or audio on
demand services and very decent resolution due to the bandwidth
involved. Plus these are usually portable devices so the screen is not
real large, meaning that the kind of resolution that we would expect for
our HDTV at home - we're not in the same ballpark for bandwidth
requirements. This is already operating in -- South Korea (they are way
ahead of us in technology, by the way). I saw a wide array of portable
video boom boxes and cellular telephones with multi-band capability
which will operate on this service (none of which is yet available in
this country). The automotive industry may well embrace this, too, for
audio entertainment, or for video in the back seat to keep the kids
occupied while driving around town. Remember how cell phone coverage
started - only in the bigger cities and towns, and then grew along highways? Think that might also happen with Wi-Max for the mobile
audience? It's a good bet. If you want to see leadership in the future
technology for portable communications devices, Samsung and LG will show
it to you. I used to think Samsung was Japanese, but it's South Korean,
along with LG.
HD Radio had a very high profile this year with receiver manufacturers
for the first time at CES. Many products are now shipping, and more are
coming. These products are now actually in stores (compared to scarce
supply if you knew where to find them on the Internet). Radio Shack was
selling its Accurian before Christmas for $99.99 after iBiquity rebate,
for instance, and they were selling them from the stores, along with the
Boston Acoustics Receptor model. A year ago you needed to be an Internet
sleuth to find an HD Radio. At CES, Visteon had the best aftermarket
auto product, in my opinion, with what they are calling the Jump. It's
an HD Radio receiver that is in a car cradle that can be mounted to
floor or dash. You install the car cradle and hook your car radio
antenna to the cradle + 12 vdc and pop the Jump into this cradle and you
have HD Radio. The Jump handles all your AM/FM and HD Radio and outputs
on an FM frequency to your existing car radio (all over shielded cable).
So even if you have an existing car radio that does not have analog FM
RBDS, you will have it now, with the Jump. And Jump has a multi-line
text display which is nice, and shows the HD-2, HD-3 etc. channels as
well. It was the most elegant of all the converters I saw. However,
the only downside is that using the FM modulator approach might not
allow the best possible audio quality transfer on HD Radio. Other
solutions used the CD changer inputs to your head unit and the
converters ONLY output the HD stations. So you'd have to be going back
and forth from your existing analog radio to the converter unit to see
if there were any HD stations to listen to. PLUS, you lost the use of
your CD changer. Dice Electronics told me that was no big deal, people
don't listen to CDs in their car any more, and Dice offers an iPod
interface which then replaces the CD changer. I don't have an iPod, am
I missing something here? I never thought I needed one. But I like my
CD changer. In 2008 and moving forward, we will see more OEM receivers
in cars. There was a BMW and a Jaguar in the iBiquity booth, both
showing OEM radios.
One more thing about HD Radio which most people don't know about. It's
called conditional access. Just like Cable TV and Satellite can sell
you pay-per-view or specific tiers of channels, HD Radio can lock out a
channel from reception unless you are subscribed. We saw a live demo of
this in the iBiquity booth, provided by NDS. The first test of this will
be with the Radio Reading Service in Tampa Florida over WUSF-FM, the NPR
station. Radio Reading services enjoy copyright exclusion for any
publications they read over their signal so long as it is not receivable
by the general public. The receivers will have an electronic serial
number and the channel may be permissioned (or not). Commercial rollout
of this might find the Howard Stern channel, a pledge-free channel on an
NPR station for people who have already donated, a concert which could
be a one-time purchase, or any other subscription channel a station may
wish to have. iBiquity has the hooks in its software to support this,
and NDS is under contract to develop the system. NDS is well known in
this area, having done cable TV boxes and satellite units for
subscription. So they are re-spinning technology for HD Radio. By the
way, that pretty dumb cable or satellite box you have connected to your
TV may be having games in it in the future, or allow you to connect to
the web and see other content which is for sale or subscription,
courtesy of NDS. Their display was very impressive. Downloaded movies
from the WWW had resolution equal to or better than a DVD and you didn't
have to drive over to Blockbuster or put the NetFlix envelope in the
mailbox.
Digital TV is well along its way in rollout. Consumer prices for really
very good high def sets are crashing. And Plasma versus LCD pricing -
not nearly as much separation as years past. Some Plasmas are within
$200-300 of LCD models now. Depending upon whom you ask, DLP is dead or
DLP is the next coming. TI has been providing LED/DLP technology since
last year and I saw several examples. TI says DLP is a great
technology. Several TV manufacturers say it's DOA. Samsung offers all
three (LCD, Plasma and DLP). They said it's a lower cost choice for
those who are not needing a flat TV back. However, newer DLP projection
techniques are making DLP receivers much thinner than before. Still,
not something you can hang on the wall like a picture frame as we can
with LCD or Plasma. From the sets I saw, the biggest downside of DLP is
viewing angle. LCD is better, not great but Plasma can be viewed at a
pretty bad angle and still look good. LCD sets have improved greatly
over the last year without blurring images with motion. Black contrast
has also improved, but still not as good as Plasma. However, brightness
now appears to be equal, as LCD has consistently improved the
technology. A nice 50 inch Plasma can be had for $2500 now. Same size
in LCD would be about $2200, all plus or minus depending upon brand or
feature set. But at that $2500 target, you are going to see a very nice
picture, and later this year - in 1080p! One more note on Plasma. While
LCD is a close rival, Plasma does look better, brighter and has more
vivid colors and a better black. Burning, they claim, is a problem of
the past, and so is life. Some manufacturers are putting longer
warranties on their Plasma sets just to help prove that point. Still,
LCD is providing larger and larger screens at lower prices, looks nearly
as good, and is giving Plasma technology a good run for the money. LCDs
up to about 50-52 inches (diagonal) are becoming pretty common now. Of
course, they get larger each year. Just to show off, there are some
Plasma screens over 103 inches.
While remote controlling functions in your home is not at all new, I saw
a demo of Johnson Controls Control 4 system which seems to be taking
things to newer levels. This thing has it's fingers on literally
everything electrical and electro-mechanical in your home. He showed
one example where it called his cell phone because he left home and
didn't close the garage door. The Control 4 system closed his garage
door after 30 minutes (you can set the interval) and called him to tell
him so. It has a "home" and "away" mode. You set everything. What
temperature do you want for each mode? What lights do you want to go on
and off? What appliances do you want to switch on and off? These can
be set to happen at a certain time, or by the press of a button when you
drive into your garage. There is both an IP interface as well as a voice
system on phone similar to what many of us would know by a Burk or
Gentner type transmitter remote control system.
Windows Vista was in a huge tent outside in the parking lot.
Unfortunately, I didn't get to see that but some people told me it was
very impressive and the GUI is much nicer than on XP. Since I'm still
using Windows 2000 on my home computers, I guess you can tell that Vista
is not something that I'll be installing right away, thank you, until
the programs that I use force me into it. I think I'd still be using
DOS if I could get away with it. Let's see, DEL *.* is the best DOS
command, right (after you are in the root directory)? One thing about
Vista, apparently there is an on-line tool on the Microsoft website
which you can run and it will tell you your Vista compatibility. There
are several versions of Vista and if you wish to continue with your
current computer and install Vista, then you may use this tool to
determine the version which is the best match for your computer. Vista
promises much better computer graphics, multi-media and sound than
earlier operating systems. You can correctly assume that proper
treatment of Windows Vista will require more horsepower from your PC.
LG was showing their new Chocolate phones. What they have to do with
Chocolate has me totally perplexed. I just don't get it. They are not
brown (or white) which are the only two colors I recognize for being
chocolate. If the phone doesn't work, you can't eat it. So why
Chocolate? I wanted to ask someone in the LG booth but the throngs of
people there prevented me from speaking with a live person. Chocolate
phones are not as flexible as (excuse my using a commercial name)
Blackberry. Yes, Chocolates have a nice small high resolution LCD color
display. But they won't do email. If the phone won't do email today, I
wouldn't see how it could be a big hit. If I want Chocolate, I think
I'll go to the candy store, and pass on LG for this one. You know, I'm
not dissing LG. They had some wonderful other products in their booth,
some great LCD and Plasma TVs, and a Blue Ray serial ATA writer/reader
for your PC (which would also write DVDs and CDs). Nobody else has that
product yet. Nice scoop, guys. For those who don't know, Blue Ray is
to video resolution, the difference between VCR and DVD. It's a quantum
leap in picture quality. I don't know how many gigs are stored on a
Blue Ray disc which is the same size as a CD or DVD physically, but wow,
the picture is impressive, looking at it on a 1080p Plasma screen of
very large size (looked about like a 70 inch). They also had a set-top
Blue Ray player for $700. Obviously this price will come down. It did
not have record functions. The lady told me "come back next year, I
think you'll see a Blue Ray Recorder". For data backup, Blue Ray may
offer large capacity without relying on a hard drive, for archival
storage.
Anyone in broadcast will remember the name RCA. Most of us over 40 or
50 grew up on RCA, and remember when 8 out of 10 television station
chief engineers owned RCA color televisions, per their commercials. OK
RCA must have tossed in a TV set for the chief engineer when the station
bought an RCA transmitter, right?? So there's a big booth with RCA in
the same old red logo we remember from before their ship sank. Humm, I
thought GE bought RCA and that was pretty much the end of it. So, I
asked. Seems as if Thomson (the French company that also makes
broadcast equipment) has bought the rights to this name from GE and they
have licensed the name to consumer electronics manufacturing. Don't look
for any RCA radio or TV transmitters, a new line of broadcast
microphones like the 07DX, or an audio console. And there is no
relationship between these products and the consumer products of years
ago. Sort of like the bankruptcy court sold the name Pan AM to another
airline who flies jets around with the old Pan AM logo, evoking
memories, but, alas, no connection to the once proud airline. But it
was kind of cool to see those huge three letters up high, reminiscing
the glory days of NAB when RCA had one of the biggest booths on the
floor (this was definitely NOT one of the biggest booths at CES). The
booth had everything from small coax F connector patch cords to TV sets,
VCRs, DVD players, personal portables, surround sound audio systems, etc
etc all RCA branded. It was like a trip back in time!
Some of you who have not been able to travel to NAB might wonder how you
have 150,000 people at a show like CES in a fairly concentrated area,
and all are using cell phones, Trios, Blackberries, etc., and all seem
to be working fine. Amazing system capacity, right? Out in the parking
lot they bring in these portable cell sites on wheels and vastly
increase capacity for large conventions like this. The cells are so
close to the convention center (and on both sides) that there really are
no dead spots inside the halls and meeting areas. It's pretty amazing.
I consistently had good audio and data on my Cingular Blackberry and no
dropouts at the convention center (I can't say that over in some of the
large hotels and casinos).
The landscape of communications is changing very rapidly, and I predict
based on what we see at CES, that there will be major shifts in how
people use radio, TV, telephone and the Internet over the next five
years. The term "convergence" was used a number of years ago and has
been over used. But today, it appears that we are really heading for
convergence because there will be so many ways for a program producer to
deliver content to a consumer, and what's coming up is certainly a
violation of the tradition we have seen in the past. Particularly
television and later, radio transmitters are going to become less
relevant and IP connectivity more common each day forward as large Wi-Fi
and Wi-Max rollouts occur. That some markets are 80% cable penetration
was the start of erosion of over-the-air TV reception. That was only
the beginning. And we will have much more interactivity with programs,
advertisers and person-to-person with fewer devices needed, as a device
will accomplish many more tasks than the traditional ones we use today.
We're already seeing this starting with cell phones (Smart Phones) with
cameras that can instantly email a picture, and then MP3 audio and MP4
video is being added, email functions and text messaging, etc. Remember
the Palm Pilot? Those functions are all in the cell phone now,
including your contacts list and calendar, synchronized with your PC.
We just see more and more functionality and capability going into the
products of the future. We're seeing a lot of Blue Tooth devices which
can connect to your car audio system without need of cables or RF
radiation under Part 15 (a good thing). Consumers can and will have audio and video on demand, and not rely on a set schedule, or even a DVR
or TIVO to watch or listen to their content when and where they want to.
This is a major paradigm shift, indeed.
Hal Kneller, CPBE, CBNT, AMD
HARRIS CORP
Sr. Manager
Marketing Communications and Public Radio Initiatives
Radio Business Unit - Broadcast Communications Division
300 Klispie Drive
Punta Gorda, FL 33950
office: 941 639-1889
fax: 321 674-2512
cell: 941 286-3398
e-mail: hkneller (at) harris.com
Ham Call KD4RLX
Please visit our Broadcast Service Websites at:
http://www.broadcast.harris.com/services/
http://premier.harris.com/broadcast/
http://broadcast.harris.com/radio/
Posted by Steve
Blodgett
Earthsignals.com