DISPUTE HOLDING UP DIGITAL TV : BROADCASTERS, COMPUTER INDUSTRY ARGUE FOR DIFFERENT FCC STANDARDS.

Byline: Rory J. O'Connor Knight-Ridder Tribune News Wire

As America races toward the 21st century, a feud between the computer and broadcast industries is keeping one piece of technology - the family TV - stuck in the 1940s.

Broadcasters say they want the government to set detailed standards that will ensure the reliable operation of a new generation of super-clear digital TVs. But computer makers say the new standards should be more flexible so they can realize a long-held dream of transforming the TV into a more-powerful communications tool.

Consumers who want better TV aren't likely to get it until this debate is settled.

At stake in the struggle are untold billions in profits and the future shape of important parts of American commerce and culture.

The Federal Communications Commission had been poised this year to endorse digital TV rules developed by broadcasters and set manufacturers to replace 1940s standards. But the computer industry intervened, delaying a decision with arguments for more computer-friendly guidelines.

Now, the FCC is debating which way to go with no sign of early resolution.

Because today's TVs won't be able to receive digital signals, the technical shift is likely to prompt consumers to replace between 250 million and 500 million existing TVs with new digital video devices.

And the television and personal computer are expected to merge soon into a new machine lodged at the center of family life - providing entertainment; managing the home's heating, cooling, lights and security; tracking family finances; and handling communication with the world.

The big question is whether this technological marvel will be a computer that has video circuitry, or a digital TV that is itself a powerful computer.

A group of TV-set manufacturers and broadcasters known as the ``grand alliance'' has been seeking the super-powerful TV based on its standards. Computer companies, led by Microsoft Corp., favor more-open standards that would allow for computers with digital TV circuitry.

Both groups say the wrong decision will cost jobs, harm the balance of trade, and erode the United States' technical leadership in the world.

``Everyone (involved) is talking about their own bottom line,'' said Gary Shapiro, president of the Consumer Electronics Manufacturers Association.

Some FCC commissioners, including Chairman Reed Hundt, favor a compromise with a flexible standard that would give the computer makers much of what they want - specifying some general rules for how digital video should be transmitted, but leaving room for many of the details to be decided by individual producers and manufacturers.

To computer makers, that's the key to remaining fast and flexible in the face of future technical shifts. That view reflects a culture that has thrived on rapid change. It offers consumers the benefits of such change.

But to the more conservative broadcast industry, which has been using the same technology for half a century, a tight web of rules is important to ensuring reliability. They call the computer industry proposal a recipe for disaster and explain it in terms any PC user can understand.

``Should American TV watchers be faced with the prospect of a computer-industry standard,'' said Dennis Wharton of the National Association of Broadcasters, ``so when they're watching Seinfeld every Thursday night, the TV will crash every other episode?''

Broadcasters and their allies - including TV manufacturers, broadcast equipment makers, movie producers and some labor unions - insist that consumers stand to lose big if the FCC approves the computer industry plan. The alliance wants its proposed plan - painstakingly negotiated over eight years to meet their various concerns - approved quickly.

They say even a long delay in adopting the broadcast proposal puts nothing less than the future of TV as Americans know it in jeopardy.

``What's at stake is free, over-the-air television,'' said Shapiro, engaging in some of the hyperbole that has characterized both sides of this argument. ``Or is it better to pay Microsoft a monthly fee to use your TV set?''

The broadcasters already are jittery at competition from cable TV and direct-broadcast satellites. Like computer companies, they are certain that conversion to digital opens whole new markets for information services as well as programming for which consumers will pay. Broadcasters want to have digital technology shaped in ways that will help them compete for those dollars.

Without FCC endorsement of their plan, they claim, TV makers won't build digital sets, broadcasters won't pay $1 million per station for new transmission equipment, and the 50-year-old TV industry will disintegrate.

``If you don't have a standard, you don't go digital, and if you don't go digital, you die on the vine,'' Wharton said.

The computer makers call the broadcast industry a dinosaur that continues to get fat through free use of the public airwaves and wants the FCC to protect it from legitimate competition.

``These are the public airwaves, and broadcasters get the use of the airwaves at no cost to anyone,'' said Michael Maibach, vice president of Intel Corp. ``We should make sure the PC user doesn't have to purchase a device for $300 or $400 (because of broadcast technology standards) to receive what everyone else can on TV for free.''

As the dispute drags on, government officials say consumers will suffer unless the two sides tone down their rhetoric soon and develop a compromise.

``We need a standard that works for everybody,'' said Larry Irving, assistant secretary of commerce and head of the National Telecommunications Information Administration. ``I don't care if the TV guys are the winners or the computer guys. I care about the effect on the economy and the effect on consumers . . .''

Without some kind of decision, experts said, digital television will not make it into American living rooms for a long time to come.

``Until there's a bet, no one will make a single (digital TV) set or a single show,'' said Gary Arlen, an analyst in Bethesda, Md.