In the thirties, outside of the few aberrant students who mounted  soapboxes and proclaimed "comes the revolution", one entered college to find a world of choices for learning and careers. The first college year, every course is labeled "Introduction to ---" and, as a sophmore, you are importuned to choose a major subject in which you will duly emerge with a degree proclaiming your expertise. Superior students are invited into the department head's inner sanctum, to be urged to major in their specialties, with rosy projections of a good life forever.

It also seems that besides the potential after school income, an aura hung over each discipline inversely proportional to its academic ranking. Physics topped the list of shunned subjects, followed by the sciences, down to the arts, and the studies of the human pysche. Psychology was universally popular, debatable, stuffed with ringing declarations of mankind's potential and future directions, springing from  the untested vaporings of self proclaimed experts. A course in applied psychology, which I endured, touched on the subjects of testing and poll taking, and made it obvious that no poll or test could be made free from error or challenge.

Physics is based on the study of the fundamental principles of the forces governing nature in the most precise manner conceivable by man.  Three independent laboratories, staffed by recognized scientists, preferably located in different countries, must agree substantially on the proposition before it appears in the textbook as dogma. Having acheived the status of a law of nature does not insure its continued survival. Einstein's laws of relativity, conceived theoretically, proven many times in varied and excellent test procedures, is periodically challenged by yet another physicist with yet another varient of nature apparently governed by those laws.

The nature of the Human Visual System, so absolutely vital to the design 0f a matching electronic delivery system of sight and sound to the human senses, is being investigated and codified under the banner of the title Pyschophysics.  If ever there was a shotgun marriage of two incompatible fields, Physics and Psychology have to be the greatest mismatch. Indeed, although Psychophysics is mentioned constantly in the literature as having been thoroughly investigated before the engineer has come up with yet one more ingenious scheme for reducing the bandwith, it is my considered opinion that a physicist would condemn the methodology. In fact, I couldn't even find 'that word' in my pile of  dictionaries!

Certainly, even in the most prestigious laboratories, the Physics formula for acceptability is ignored, and what is even more suspect, the scientists or their associates are the "impartial" viewers whose Human Visual Systems determine the picture quality standards for all of mankind.  In reading  many of the psycho studies, I speculated that they may have been conducted under a hypnotic spell, unconsciously cast by the "Psychophysicist". The one area I am particularly distressed about is the aspect ratio. None of the published studies seem credible to me. At the normal viewing distances in the home, the difference in subtended angle to the eye between 4-3 or 16-9 ratio is negligible, but the effect on the consumer pocketbook is enormous, plus the added burden on the design engineer is equally unconscionable. We should take a lesson from the stage where a truly wide scene is presented. As soon as the action is shifted to the two protagonists, the rest of the performers must freeze in their tracks. Similarly, in a typical television presentation, a 4-3 scene is all that is needed for 90% of the drama (my guess), and I believe the home viewer would vote with his money if he had the choice of screen size.

Next, the letterbox. At a recent trade show, I had the opportunity to participate in a charade conducted by the most respected Psychophysics team in North America. I found myself in a dark room confronted by a 27 inch TV which presented the same scene alternately in either letterbox or normal tv aspect ratio. One had to mark on a scale of 0-100 your opinion of the quality of the presentation. I have never before had such an unfocused problem to consider! Quality compared to what? Whether I liked the artistic  merits of the scene, or how it compared to my own tv picture, or perhaps I should compare letterbox against 4-3 when I had to depend on my memory as to which one gave me a greater thrill? My own conclusion was that the smaller size of the actors in the letterbox  was less interesting but so what, in speaking to the staff, the foregone conclusion favored letterbox.  Is this the kind of scientific quality the FCC will rely on for the final, perhaps fatal choice for an HDTV format?

Finally, my experience on the Broadcast TV Systems Committee (BTSC) 1980-5.  The committee produced a marvelously studied and documented treatise that the FCC adopted over my written petition to the commission not to approve such an obsolete and inferior system. How was I able to oppose the recommendations of such a prestigious body?  Two reasons: 1. I had witnessed a demonstration of the BBC digital stereo sound system in Brighton, UK , 2. At that very moment, six pay TV stations were on the air in the US with the Blonder Tongue BTVision system employing a scrambled sound technique so similar to the BTSC proposal that their receiver would decode our sound. I am distressed to report that our sound quality was worse than the TV sound, similar to the BTSC standards, and markedly inferior to BBC digital. I prophetized that the US public would expend billions on TV receivers destined to be obsolete before their time. How does this sad tale relate to HDTV and Pyschophysics? There is still no one out there listening to the voices of opposition.

Note added June 14, 2009

The digital transition finally happened on June 12th. A short clip mourning the end of analog transmission, featuring one of Ike's old TV sets.