The Future of Media and Our Research Activities

By Toyoaki HASEGAWA,

General Managing Director and Executive Director-General of Engineering, NHK

Digital satellite broadcasting is one of the outstanding results of our long research activities. We started the research after the Tokyo Olympic in 1964 when studies on the color television had matured and we were trying to find the next target for our research. I think that the current situation is similar to that in 1964, because digital technologies have matured and we have to find a new target that will support NHK's services for a long time in the future.

The driving force for new research is divided in two categories: needs-oriented research based on the desires of the society, and seeds-oriented research based on the foresight of research scientists. No matter which type of research we pursue, the following conditions must be satisfied for its success:
- The research must be based on social needs or scientists' foresight,
- Surrounding technologies must have high potential,
- Break-through technologies must exist to make the new service a reality.

The development of a television system was needs-oriented research, because there was a clear demand for television in society. The surrounding technology was high-frequency technology such as radar and the vacuum tube, and the break-through technology was the pick-up tube. These factors jointly accelerated the research, and finally led to the great success of television broadcasting.

On the other hand, satellite broadcasting and HDTV is seeds-oriented research. There was no interest among the people in satellite broadcasting or HDTV, but scientists pushing the research were strongly motivated. The surrounding technology for satellite broadcasting was the space technology, and the break-through technologies were receiving circuits for the 12 GHz band and high-power TWT. However, no clear surrounding technologies existed for the HDTV, and, therefore, we started from the basic research. Also, there was no single clear break-through technology for the HDTV. Instead, camera, recording, and semiconductor technologies worked jointly as the break-through technology.

Based on the considerations above, I would like to discuss the future of media and the direction of our research. There are three kinds of media: broadcast, network, and package media. Broadcast media have the advantage of real-time transmission of high-quality video at low cost. Network media have interactive capability, and package media storage capability. I believe each medium will evolve by introducing the features that it does not have but other media have. In the case of broadcast media, this will gain interactive and storage capability, and will evolve from being a passive media toward becoming an active media.

Integrated Services Digital Broadcasting will turn a television set from a "passive box" into an "active box", and will make the broadcast media a Dynamic Media. In this context, the key themes for research in the digital age are copyright, archive, middleware, indexing, and better human interface. The research toward the Dynamic Media based on these themes has both needs-oriented and seeds-oriented aspects.

The surrounding environment for the research toward the Dynamic Media is the convergence of broadcasting, communication, and computers, and the rapid maturation of software technology. The break-through toward the Dynamic Media will take place when needs of society and seeds from the scientists are combined with the technologies that come from this environment.

During the period of high economic growth, technology had a close relationship with the economy, because it was the driving force for economic growth. In the digital age, we have to put emphasis on the relationship between technology and culture, because the contents of broadcasting services are an important part of our culture. From this viewpoint, I believe that contents-oriented research will play a major role in our future research activities.