Editor’s Note: This article originally appeared on TV Tech.
Earlier in June, some two dozen television industry pioneers, technology leaders and friends gathered to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the formation of the Digital HDTV Grand Alliance.
Three decades ago, May 24, 1993, marked a significant milestone in the evolution of television technology, when seven companies—AT&T Corporation, General Instrument Corporation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Philips Consumer Electronics, the David Sarnoff Research Center, Thomson Consumer Electronics, and Zenith Electronics Corp.—agreed to merge their competing digital HDTV broadcasting technologies into a “best of the best” system, blazing the trail for how we experience high-definition television (HDTV) today.
The Grand Alliance consortium enabled the development and standardization of a new generation of television broadcasting and receivers that would deliver breathtaking picture quality and immersive audio, forever transforming the way we engage with visual content.
Surpassing each of the previous candidate systems tested at the Advanced Television Test Center (ATTC) located at the PBS headquarters in Alexandria, VA, the new, combined system was then codified into an international standard by the Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC). The Federal Communications Commission adopted the ATSC Digital Television Standard (A/53) based on the Grand Alliance system on Christmas Eve 1996.
Key consortium figures toasting the milestone—and celebrating the impact of their breakthrough innovations on a generation of viewers, manufacturers and broadcasters—were Robert Graves (AT&T), Robert Rast (GI), Prof. Jae Lim (MIT), Aldo Cugnini (Philips), Glenn Reitmeier and Terrence Smith (Sarnoff), David Arland (Thomson), and John Taylor (Zenith).
Also present from that era were former FCC Chairman and Advisory Committee Chairman Richard Wiley (considered the “Father of HDTV”), Mark Richer (then at PBS, now President-emeritus of ATSC), Peter Fannon (ATTC), and Craig Todd (Dolby). Technologists Jeff Krauss, Chong Lee, Eric Petajan, Takashi Sato, Paul Shen, and William Zou were also in attendance, along with publicist Pam Golden, and spouses.
In addition to the celebration dinner organized by Lim and emceed by Rast, Grand Alliance representatives participated in an afternoon NextGen TV briefing led by Reitmeier, supported by Cugnini and Taylor, and featuring special guest speaker ATSC President Madeleine Noland.
The ATSC 1.0 standard has been incorporated as an ITU-R Recommendation and has been adopted for digital broadcasting in the United States, South Korea, Canada, and Mexico. Building on the pioneering efforts of the Digital HDTV Grand Alliance, the newest, next-generation digital broadcasting standard called ATSC 3.0 has also been incorporated as an ITU-R Recommendation, and is now being deployed in the United States, South Korea, Jamaica and the Republic of Trinidad & Tobago.
About the Author
Aldo Cugnini is a consultant in the digital television broadcasting industry, is an ATSC observer member, and has various broadcasting and consumer electronics clients, including the Broadcasting Commission of Jamaica and The WNET Group. Aldo had a leadership role in the development of the ATSC digital television system, and is an active contributor to its activities.
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