High Definition Television: The Creation, Development and Implementation of HDTV Technology

As someone who works on the implementation of ATSC systems in my day job, I found this a fascinating read, with lots of detail on the prehistory of our current HDTV system, as well as the business and technical reasons why we have so many formats. It's very well sourced, and there are a few fun stories, like the behind-the-scenes drama for the first SuperBowl HD broadcast.

Although I am an electrical engineer who designs DTV stations, my expertise is at the transmitter end, dealing with RF issues such as antenna patterns and allocation conditions. The closest I needed to get to the studio end was the digital video input to the STL microwave transmitter. That was fine with me, because I figured that a digital standard with well over a hundred acronyms wasn't something I was overly anxious to learn about; let somebody else try to drink from the ATSC fire hydrant. I was interested in service thresholds, signal protection ratios, power vs effective height limits, and similar FCC rules needed for DTV station applications and, in some cases, rulemaking petitions to change a station's digital channel. Things got really interesting in Canadian and Mexican border areas, but the thrust was that I could leave the studio end to video engineers who specialized in the care and feeding of digital video devices.Still, I couldn't help but remember the early DTV standards wars and then the Grand Alliance compromise. The decision by the FCC for the U.S. to go with 8-VSB instead of COFDM seemed like a questionable one at the time, and the pathetic performance of early 8-VSB DTV receiver chip sets only added to the misery. But by the time sixth-generation decoder chips (actually a single chip instead of a set of chips) became available in 2007, just in time for coupon-eligible converter boxes, DTV receiver performance was finally on a par with European COFDM, but with the spectral efficiency of 8-VSB. Thus, more than three years after the end of the DTV transition in June of 2009, the U.S. system turned out pretty well. A long gestation with a difficult birth, but ultimately worth it.So when I came across High Definition Television: The Creation, Development and Implementation of HDTV Technology by Philip Cianci, I was intrigued, and bought a copy. No regrets. It was soon clear that this book was written by someone who was involved in the early DTV standards battles, from the Japanese MUSE system through the final ATSC A/53 DTV standard (which is now supplemented by the ATSC A/153 Mobile DTV standard). DTV standards in Europe and other countries are also touched on, but this book is primarily about the path taken in the United States.The book has thirteen chapters, with Chapter 13 being appropriately titled "Exceeds All Expectations." The text is a little over three hundred pages, with another forty pages or so of Notes giving detailed citations. There are a moderate number of figures, all black & white, but it's an appropriate mix. I recognized several of the names cited in the various chapters, having worked with some of those individuals either in my capacity as a consulting engineer, or in the ten years of FCC rulemakings culminating in a final table of post-transition DTV allotments (which, ironically, the National Broadband Plan with its Incentive Auctions for TV stations is now threatening to upend).I like Mr. Cianci's writing style, and I think that he told the story with as little bias as anyone could have. If you're somewhat of a technical geek, especially with a TV broadcasting interest, then you will find this book a great read.