Challenge in the 21st Century

Eiichi MIYASAKA,
Deputy Director-General, Science & Technical Research Laboratories

The 21st century has begun. Although in many ways it is merely a continuation of the 20th century, it is with a solemn feeling that we face an epoch-making turning point in history, the start of a new era.
While broadcasting competes by means of its content, its longevity is determined by its ability to adopt new technologies. It is an obligation of NHK, as a public broadcaster, to make the best use of the latest broadcasting technology, and create a new broadcasting culture. Our laboratories support NHK's management by making proposals concerning the future of broadcasting and developing the technologies needed to achieve those goals.

Happily, in the past ten years, many of the goals and dreams of our predecessors several decades ago have come true, with the realization of satellite broadcasting, Hi-Vision (HDTV) broadcasting, digital BS broadcasting, and PDPs. Presently, we are again promoting research and development with visions that extend 10 or 20 years into the future. The best part of R&D lies in making the new possible, when many believed it to be impossible.

Broadcasting is a medium that is capable of delivering the facts of issues in real-time. Especially in the case of an emergency, necessary information must be available immediately, continuously, surely, and easily for anybody to access, anywhere, and at a low cost. Valuable information delivery can be achieved even by means of a small display, such as that of a cellular phone that receives textual or sound data.
The effective communication of the facts will also depend on conveying an impression of immediacy as if the viewer were actually present at the scene of the news. For this, we need to realize "super-reality broadcasting" capable of reproducing super high definition "life-size" video and sound, beyond HDTV. When the superhigh definition display, which can flexibly adjust a display image according to the viewing environment, and the ultra-micro 3D sound reproduction system are realized, it will be possible to deliver this "life-size" broadcasting to even a small room. Our STRL will strive to meet the challenge of such research projects with strong resolution.

In the January 6 evening issue of the Asahi Shimbun, Mr. Masahiro HOSONO noted that regardless of the flood of information now provided by various media, there is a hunger due to an information shortage. He pointed out that it is still not easy to obtain the information that you really want. He continued: "the obligation of information dispatchers is to organize the issues and deliver them in a way that is easy to comprehend." He also wrote, "a system should be constructed to gauge easy-to-understand, and enable recipients to evaluate it afterward."
I believe that human-friendly broadcasting should not only mean that the high-function TV be easy for anybody to operate and provide services in a manner that is physically easy to watch and listen to, but also that it should eliminate the information hunger that Mr. HOSONO refers to and provide contents which truly satisfy viewers. It is impossible to satisfy all viewers, however much providers do their best to offer what they think is easy-to-understand. Interactive broadcasting could, however, provide a promising means to solve such problems. In this case, a function will be required which can accurately, individually, and instantly analyze the information that the viewer wants and determine how extensive the viewer wants the information to be, and then respond to the request with an intelligent answer. We will proceed with research studies for the development of these functions.

Plunging as we are into the IT era, with various transmission channels and methods now being developed at an accelerated pace, we shall to continue to examine the future image of broadcasting, in order to enhance our viewers' satisfaction.