medialab@salsa.net
I'm inclined to blame bad TV audio on the manufacturers of the early TV receivers. They treated audio as an after thought and equipped the typical TV set with a dinky little speaker that wouldn't have been used in a radio at the time. From that bad beginning, TV followed through by producing sound for that small speaker. It was a self-fulfilling prophesy that TV had bad audio.
Over the years, there were few innovations principally because the initial television standard wasn't created with high quality, multichannel audio in mind. TV was a monaural system and even when the standard was updated to include color transmission (and named NTSC after its creating committee) audio was still second rate.
NBC at some point in the 50s did an experimental stereo TV broadcast using the one TV audio channel and broadcasting the other channel on AM radio. Not a marriage made in heaven, but it was evidence that they were thinking about stereo and its logical improvement in TV audio.
In the early 70s -- a couple of years before the beginning of "Austin City Limits" -- I directed a remote production at Armadillo World Headquarters that was recorded in stereo and simulcast on an Austin FM station, KRMH. The TV audio and the FM Stereo audio were "synched" manually by a crazy engineer who listened to the broadcasts off the air -- TV on one side and radio on the other. He steered the stereo playback into a close match to the TV sound. There were lots of problems, but in the end, we were pleased to have contributed an early program in the history of stereo TV.
Later on, the NTSC Standard was revised one more time to include Multichannel Television Sound -- still known as MTS on many TV remote controls. In addition to Stereo sound, MTS also provided for a Second Audio Program (SAP) which could be used to provide an alternate language version of a program, or as it is commonly used today, Descriptive Video Service (DVS) which adds narration to help persons with low vision follow the action on-screen.
Today Digital Television (DTV) services can include multiple audio channels -- just like DVDs -- to serve various audience needs. DTV can even deliver Dolby Surround sound (5.1) at better than CD quality. Given the right equipment and listening environment, today's television need not deliver disappointing audio. TV sound has grown up -- finally -- and with that improvement comes a huge increase in the effectiveness of home media. Now the sound can be as big as the picture -- or even bigger.
Charles Vaughn
SVP Telecommunication
KLRN Public Television
San Antonio, Texas
KLRN Channel 9
KLRN-DT Channel 9.1, 9.2, 9.3, and 9.4
www.klrn.org
medialab@salsa.net