ATSC Next-Gen TV Conference to Mark Grand Alliance’s 25th Anniversary

Day Two of ATSC’s Next-Gen TV Conference will mark 25 years to the day of the formation of HDTV’s Grand Alliance that became the basis of the current A/53 ATSC 1.0 DTV broadcast system, said an ATSC agenda item. Details of the commemoration weren’t disclosed. The alliance, formed officially on May 24, 1993, settled on an approach that allowed both progressive and interlaced scanning, but encouraged a rapid transition to all-progressive, according to coverage by our predecessor newsletter Television Digest With Consumer Electronics and by Communications Daily. According to the Digest, the alliance included the partnership of General Instrument and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which advocated both progressive and interlaced systems; the Advanced TV Research Consortium of NBC, Philips, Sarnoff Labs, Thomson and Compression Labs (interlaced only); and the team of Zenith and AT&T (progressive only). The alliance had its critics, said the Digest. Nicholas Negroponte, director of the MIT Media Lab, blasted the alliance as a “terrible mistake” because it would isolate the U.S. from global standards-setting on DTV. Attempts to reach Negroponte for comment on whether he stands by his criticisms 25 years later were unsuccessful.