KCTS signs pact with Microsoft's Web TV
Originally published in Current, May 4, 1998
Seattle's KCTS and its new for-profit DTV-services subsidiary Intris will promote and sell Microsoft's Web TV receivers as a "bridge" to digital TV, the station announced last month at the National Association of Broadcasters convention.
And when the station signs on its DTV transmitter early in 1999, it will use the computer-friendly progressive-scan format--first at 480 scanning lines and later at 720--that Microsoft is urging broadcasters to use.
This is especially notable because KCTS has been a pioneer in high-def production, using picture formats with more than 1,000 lines.
"It's been an interesting journey for me," says President Burnie Clark. "We saw that manufacturers of broadcast receivers were going to be slow off the mark," he explains. If anyone was going to buy DTV receivers during the initial period, it would be computer users, who will be able to receive DTV with tuner cards inserted into PCs. But he still argues for capturing images on videotape in the top 1080-line format.
The station wants to profit from its long experience with HDTV and DTV. Intris will also offer packages of planning services that will help other TV stations shift to DTV without requiring each to "reinvent the wheel," Clark said.
KCTS will announce its specific plans for Web TV within a month or two, according to Clark, but as part of the project, it will produce enhanced material similar to web pages to supplement its programming for Web TV viewers. Microsoft backed KCTS experiments with Web TV formating for the pilot of the station's Sci Squad series.
"To me, it's a bridge--an opportunity to take the analog program and the Internet and bridge them," said Clark.
Web TV is an up-and-coming consumer service that lets consumers surf the web and send e-mail on their TV sets, using a set-top computer that costs just $100 to $200. The Microsoft subsidiary also sells Internet service for the boxes. The service begins to look like the future broadcast DTV when the same TV screen simultaneously shows a TV station and clickable icons that let the consumer get more information via Internet. Participating broadcasters send link information over the vertical blanking interval of the TV signal, but most of the interaction comes through a telephone-line connection to the Internet.
A version of Web TV will also be available on some new computers. The software comes as part of Windows 98, which debuts in June; it also requires a TV tuner card in the PC. Microsoft says it's "incenting" PC makers to include tuner cards; the New York Times reported that the company is giving discounts on Windows 98 that cover much of the cost of a card.
Clark said a non-disclosure deal prevents him from discussing what Web TV is giving to KCTS as part of the longterm pact.
KCTS initially saw Web TV as a good, inexpensive way to demonstrate interactive TV to the public, and was doubly impressed when Microsoft bought the company, says Barry Martin, director of brand development for Intris.
Intris also announced a new web site with DTV info for broadcasters and viewers. Its address: www.intris.com.
Related story: A glimpse at the DTV experience, six months before sets go on sale.
Web page created May 2, 1998
Current
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in the United States
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Copyright 1998
To Current's home page
Outside link: Web site of KCTS's Intris
subsidiary, including information on how DTV works, what it will do for consumers and what
the receivers will cost.