THE DEVELOPMENT OF HIGH DEFINITION TELEVISION: AN ECOLOGY OF GAMES MASSACHUSETS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY By NOV 12 2010 Suzanne Chambliss Neil B.A. Government LIBRARIES Smith College, 1967 ARCHNES SUBMITTED TO THE DEPARTMENT OF POLITICAL SCIENCE IN PARTIAL FUFLILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY AT THE MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY September 2010 0 2010 Suzanne Chambliss Neil, All Rights Reserved The author hereby grants to MIT the permission to reproduce and to distribute publically paper and electronic copies of this thesis document in whole or in part in any medium known now or hereafter created. Signature of Author: Department of Political Science June 29, 2010 Certified by: Charles Stewart III Kenan Sahin Distinguished Professor of Political Science Thesis Supervisor Accepted by: Professor Roger Petersen Professor of Political Science Chair, Graduate Program Committee The Development of High Definition Television: An Ecology of Games By Suzanne Chambliss Neil Submitted to the Department of Political Science on June 29, 2010 in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Political Science Abstract This study is an analysis of the forces that shaped the overall character of a new US television system, high definition or HDTV, between the early 1980s and 2010, with a primary focus on the period leading up the Federal Communications Commission decision on the new standard in 1996. The study tries to answer the question: how did we get the system we got? The analysis uses the model of an ecology of games that Norton Long developed and William H. Dutton refined. It shows that two camps, or "games," competed to define the new system. One game, consisting of the traditional television broadcast industry, saw HDTV as a standalone system, at first using the traditional analog technologies and then, midway through the process, switching to digital technologies. The second game, consisting of a lose group of academics and computer company representatives, saw HDTV as part of the emerging digital network. The result of the analysis shows that although the FCC was the legitimate forum for determining the standard, the technological system that finally emerged was the result of unplanned, uncoordinated political, social, and market forces. Thesis Supervisor: Charles Stewart III Title: Kenan Sahin Distinguished Professor of Political Science 3 - THE DEVELOPMENT OF HIGH DEFINITION TELEVISION 4 - THE DEVELOPMENT OF HIGH DEFINITION TELEVISION Table of Contents Chapte: Number Subtitle 3 Abstract 6 Acknowledgements 7 Preface 9 Chapter 1 Introduction 52 Chapter 2 Prologue: The Beginnings of High Definition Television 98 Chapter 3 The US Attempt to Create a Domestic HDTV Standard - 1987 to 1990 164 Chapter 4 1990-1996 and After: HDTV in a Digital World 223 Chapter 5 Conclusion 229 Appendix 1 Glossary 230 Appendix 2 Notes on Video Systems 232 Appendix 3 FCC Documents in MM 87-268 234 Appendix 4 Petitioners to Open the HDTV Inquiry 235 Bibliography 5 - THE DEVELOPMENT OF HIGH DEFINITION TELEVISION Acknowledgements It is a clich6 but still true that I owe more than I can ever put into words to the many people who have helped me with this dissertation. First, I want to thank my committee. Charles Stewart III, the chair, guided me with good humor and great patience, arguably far above and beyond duty's call. Chappell Lawson provided challenges that took me into new theoretical areas that sharpened my mind, and, I hope, this work. William Uricchio provided precise and thoughtful comments on several generations of this project, all with respect, and in addition, introduced me to entirely new ways of looking at the study of communications. I would also like to thank Henry Jenkins for his serious academic guidance combined with infectious enthusiasm; USC's gain is MIT's loss. I started this project in the midst of a group of scholars who believed that rigorous analysis could inform and learn from involvement in the development of public policy: W. Russell Neuman, my early advisor, provided a solid grounding in communications policy, history and analysis. I would like to thank Nicholas Negroponte for providing a home for our research group in the Media Lab and giving us free rein, even when our findings displeased his sponsors. David Staelin and William F. Schreiber were the best kind of mentors. My colleagues Richard Jay Solomon and Lee McKnight were unending sources of new ideas and high energy. In addition to these formidable intellects, fellow graduate students and friends provided seemingly unending support. In alphabetical order, I want to thank Polly Armstrong, Sherry Blalock and Jonathan Smith, Judith Carpenter, Carol Conaway, Ann Crigler, Tice de Young, Ann and Sam Dean, Lily Hill, Clark Johnson, Michael Liebhold, Alexandra Merrill, Barbie Potter, Janet Shea, Philip Sheridan and Adelaide Winstead. In addition, Susan Twarog smoothed out seemingly impossible administrative dilemmas, quickly, efficiently, and always with good humor. I want to thank Constance Chandler-Ward, whose persistent support and encouragement was, more often than I like to acknowledge, the only barrier between me and failure. Last, I want to thank my parents for their patience and encouragement and love. I only wish they could have lived to see the project through to its conclusion. 6 - THE DEVELOPMENT OF HIGH DEFINITION TELEVISION Preface High definition television did not develop the way it was supposed to. It started out as a new version of old television, analog and interlaced, as the engineers described it, and with little room for future refinement. It ended up, digital and progressively scanned as the engineers would say, as only one part of an interoperable system that shows video on a variety of devices - TVs, computers, iPads, and cell phones. What does television mean in this context? The definition of the system is as blurry as the pictures are crystalline. Why did we end up with the system we got? What were the goals of the developers? Who were the players? What strategies did they use? How did those strategies affect the outcome? Answering these questions is the intent of this study. The source material for this work draws heavily on emails directly sent or copied to me. Although I have tried my hardest to be even-handed and scrupulously fair, I must note that I was a part of the MIT research group that figures prominently in this study. 7 - THE DEVELOPMENT OF HIGH DEFINITION TELEVISION 8 - THE DEVELOPMENT OF HIGH DEFINITION TELEVISION Chapter 1 Introduction The men, tired after a long day of hard negotiations, sat in the darkened room, rapt as they watched rain glisten on cobblestones and the red dress flutter flawlessly on the screen. The setting was Geneva, a conference at the International Telecommunication Union; the time, summer 1985; the message: you are looking at the future of television, such perfection is within grasp. Fast forward eleven years to December 2, 1996, in a conference room at the Federal Communications Commission in Washington, on one of the slowest news days of the year, and watch the Commission with little fanfare and less enthusiasm formally adopt a standard for High Definition Television. The decision put an end to years of technological development and political wrangling, but without resolving major disagreements about the shape of the new system. Fast forward again, to June 2009. In broadcast stations across the country, engineers pulled a switch that ended traditional analog broadcasting and completed the switch-over to a fully digital system. The world in which this switch-over occurred, however, could hardly have been more different from the one those early HDTV researchers had imagined. Now television was part of a virtually seamless web for video displays. Today every single one of the low end HDTV Target offers is progressive scan. The display has a LED LCD screen, "razor thin" says the ad, to describe the 7.85" thick display. Moreover, not only does the set display television shows, but there is also an input device for a PC: "(a)nd when you're not watching TV, the 1 light emitting diode, liquid crystal display THE DEVELOPMENT OF HIGH DEFINITION TELEVISION - 9 VM230XVT can be used as a digital picture frame to enjoy a slideshow of your family and friends," says the ad. For only twenty dollars more, you can buy a set that is "(r)eady to connect to your home Internet; Wi-Fi capable," that will allow you to "(e)njoy online content, movies, pictures and music on your TV" and "(a)ccess social-networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace." 2 For the political scientist, the story of the development of high definition television is a puzzle. In the 1970s and early 1980s, as companies began to develop the next generation of television, it was entirely reasonable to expect that the formal standardization of the new system would take place in the established broadcast organizations. The final decision- making point in the United States would have been the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). Since the FCC had long been a prime example of an agency ruled by the interests of its regulated industry, "captured" as numerous scholars had said,3 the theory of regulatory capture should have predicted the outcome, but it did not. The FCC was not the only locus of decision-making, and the theory of regulatory capture only explains part of what happened. NWhat circumstances brought change to the established standardization process, and where did the theoretical framework buckle? 2 www.target.com/Vizio-Class-1080p-60Hz-HDTV 3 See especially J. Q. Wilson, Bureaucracy, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1989; Thomas Hazlett, "The Wireless Craze, the Unlimited Bandwidth Myth, the Spectrum Auction Faux Pas, and the Punch line to Ronald Coase's "Big Joke": An Essay on Airwave Allocation Policy," Harvard Journal of Law & Technology Spring 2001; Jill Hills, "Regulation, Politics and Telecommunications, in J.-P.