Defining Vision: How Broadcasters Lured the Government into Inciting a Revolution in Television, Updated and Expanded / Edition 1

by Joel Brinkley

Overview

In this account of the political wrangling and technological breakthroughs that led to the creation of HDTV, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter “does for television...what Tracy Kidder did for computers” (Kirkus Reviews). Index.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780156005975
Publisher:	Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Publication date:	08/15/1998
Series:	Harvest Book Series
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	464
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 1.03(d)

Table of Contents

Introduction		ix
1		3	(46)
1 HDTV...Maybe that's it!		3	(29)
2 Washington to the rescue		32	(17)
2		49	(116)
3 They just gave us away!		49	(20)
4 Burning the furniture		69	(11)
5 See if you can do better		80	(13)
6 It must be digital, it must be digital!		93	(12)
7 Let's go for the gold		105	(15)
8 Can it be? Can it really be?		120	(21)
9 Just who are these guys?		141	(24)
3		165	(82)
10 Golden Eyes and the Hoover test		165	(8)
11 Building it is your problem		173	(12)
12 It broke my heart		185	(16)
13 We'll build the sets		201	(19)
14 We're not playing anymore		220	(27)
4		247	(178)
15 Weekend at the Grand		247	(17)
16 The brass rat		264	(12)
17 The most insidious enemy		276	(12)
18 The dreaded "H" word		288	(26)
19 The Manhattan Project		314	(22)
20 One hundred eighty degrees		336	(12)
21 This crowns it all		348	(26)
22 Limping to the finish line		374	(20)
23 HDTV is real		394	(31)
Appendix: How to buy a digital television set		425	(8)
Sources and acknowledgments		433	(2)
About the author		435	(2)
Index		437

Editorial Reviews

Joel Brinkley follows the arduous labor and birth of the new machine, artfully weaving technology and politics.

Boston Globe

[Defining Vision] helped define the terms of the battle, changed the New York Times coverage of the issues and forced other publications...to reassess their outlooks.

Mediaweek

The emphasis here is on politics and intrigue. There's enough of both to rival John Le Carré. Compelling reading.

Marshall Fisher

A crystal-clear account of messily complex technological innovation characterized by Machiavellian machinations, mendacity, cheating, and petty quarreling -- and occasional inventive genius.

New York Times Book Review

What Tracy Kidder did for computers, Brinkley now does for television, in this masterful chronicle of the flips, foibles, and frenzy that characterized the nearly decade-long race to develop high definition television (HDTV).

Pulitzer Prizewinning New York Times reporter and novelist Brinkley (The Circus Master's Mission, 1989) effortlessly deploys his research and unparalleled access to the major players to weave a wry and riveting tale that is as broad as it is deep. With research costs totaling nearly a half billion dollars, HDTV began life as an expensive Japanese attempt to improve upon the poor picture quality and boxy aspect ratio of conventional TV. It attracted little interest in America until the mid-1980s, when broadcast-industry lobbyists realized that they could use it to hold onto all their government-allotted channels, thus staving off all the other parties (such as police radios) that wanted to set up shop on the broadcasters' unused stations. The Japanese HDTV system was quickly brought in, but this set off nativist alarms. So commissions and subcommissions were appointed, and a competition to build a new national HDTV was announced. This set off a frantic race, as everyone from the Japanese to AT&T to MIT and the once great American TV manufacturer Zenith jumped in. Engineers worked frenetically, producing incredible leaps in technology, and soon a number of prototypes were tested. Unlike the Japanese product, most of these systems were digital (which made them computer- compatible), but none of them were outright winners. Pressured by Richard Wiley, the wily chairman of the HDTV Advisory Committee, the remaining contenders banded together in a far from happy alliance. But ever-prompted by Wiley, surmounting obstacle after obstacle, they eventually produced a winning high-definition television.

This is one of those rare books that elevates the usual bureaucratic drudgery of corporate America to an almost Shakespearean level of characterization, passion, and drama.

Kirkus Reviews