Comments on "Will terrestrial broadcasting survive the HDTV standard

The commenters claim that the above-named work by Bendov (see ibid., vol.38, p.69-74, 1992) misrepresents the pre-certification process, fails to take into account the full scope of the system testing, is unduly pessimistic regarding the ability of systems to provide reliable ghost cancellation and equalization, inappropriately applies Grade A and Grade B NTSC contour concepts to digital HDTV, and fails to take into account the error correction, and error concealment techniques now available to system designers. Furthermore, the work mistakenly attributes to the Advanced Television Test Center (ATTC) shortcomings in test procedures while the test procedures were developed and approved by the Advisory Committee, not the ATTC, which is the facility conducting the tests specified by the Advisory Committee. It is argued that the selection process will provide a determination of whether or not an all-digital transmission system will be effective for terrestrial broadcasting. If, contrary to expectation, the all-digital system is not suitable, it will not be adopted.<>