Life in the Electronic Playpen

By Stephen Koepp

The humble TV becomes an all-purpose entertainment machine

The Ron Sherman family in Manhattan no longer huddles reverently in front of an ordinary boob tube that sits in the corner like a Buddha. Instead, the Shermans laze back in their den and let a wave of sight and sound wash over them from a new $16,000 audio-video system that does just about everything but get up and fetch the beer and popcorn. When Advertising Executive Sherman watches a football game on the new set, the clamor of the crowd blares at him from four speakers installed around the room, and larger-than-life players scramble across an 8-ft. viewing screen.

Until recently, the most refined TVs spent their lives disguised as pieces of French provincial or early American furniture. But in much the same way the console hi-fi set was split into separate components 20 years ago and turned into the stereo sound system, the TV now comes in high-tech building blocks with vastly improved capabilities. This marks the biggest change to hit TV since color sets began replacing black-and-white ones in the early '60s. Says Lenny Mattioli, a video dealer in Madison, Wis.: "It used to be that a TV was a TV. Not any more. Now it is tied into the whole concept of the family's home entertainment center."

Consumers are putting the sets to more varied uses and demanding more from their TVs than just a reasonably clear picture of Dan Rather reading the evening news. First they began playing video games, whose fancy graphics show up best with a sharp display. Now people are showing movies on their TV with laser-disc machines and videocassette recorders, and they want picture and sound quality at home that approaches what they can get in a movie theater.

Some 90% of U.S. households already have a color TV, but many people are retiring the old set to the guest room and getting one of the new-generation machines. Last year consumers bought an estimated 14 million color TVs, and the pace of sales jumped another 26% in the first quarter of this year. Videomania is bringing a windfall to discount retailers like Lenny Mattioli, who sell equipment for as much as 25% less than department stores or specialty shops. Mattioli's American T.V. stores have increased sales from $900,000 in 1970 to an estimated $160 million this year. Says the self-described Crazy T.V. Lenny, whose main store covers an area the size of three football fields: "Innovations in video have been phenomenal, and this makes sales boom."

Last week in Las Vegas the biggest American TV company, RCA, introduced its video products for 1985. RCA brought out a line of 54 color TVs, 18 of them equipped to provide stereo sound and 38 fitted with jumbo screens of 25 in. or more. Early next month at the Consumer Electronics Show in Chicago, 350 firms will display their video wares.

The key to the new TV is the component system. Rather than being packaged in bulky consoles, the TV comes in smaller, separate units. The typical system is made up of a monitor, the high-performance picture tube in a sleek case with dozens of jacks on the back for easy connecting with other units; a tuner that can receive up to 169 channels; a source selector for switching back and forth among such inputs as broadcast TV, a videotape recorder or an electronic game; an amplifier for boosting hi-fi sound; and two speakers. While the individual components offer better quality than a traditional TV, they often cost much more. One of Panasonic's top-of-the-line systems with a 25-in. screen goes for $1,250, in contrast to $600 for a console model of the same size.

The sizzling popularity of rock music on cable television has helped foster stereo sound, which is one of the biggest advances in TV. The audio quality of most TV sets has hardly improved since the 1950s. A typical speaker is no bigger than a baseball. But full stereo sound is already being carried on such cable networks as MTV and the Disney Channel.

In March the Federal Communications Commission decided to allow the 1,435 TV stations in the U.S. to transmit programs in stereo. The first stereo broadcasts by the networks are expected to start later this year. Manufacturers have responded by building stereo-ready TV sets, complete with woofers to produce the bass notes and tweeters for the high-pitched sounds.

To get the same wall-shaking sensations felt by theater-or concertgoers, viddeophiles outfit their living rooms with multiple speakers and play prerecorded video cassettes through decoding devices that create a kind of sound-in-the-round. Sales of a $550 sound processor made by Arizona's Fosgate Research have taken off in the past three years. Says Fosgate Vice President Dan Harper: "It puts you right in the middle of whatever you are watching. The helicopters in Apocalypse Now sound as though they are landing on your head." Such sensations may put an end to the national pastime of falling asleep in front of the TV set.

The onslaught of the Apocalypse Now choppers is even more awesome on a big-screen projection TV. Once found mostly in bars and nightclubs, these sets now attract many homeowners because of unproved picture quality and lower prices. Sales of projection TVs jumped 22% during 1983, to 143,506. One of the biggest pictures comes from the $3,800 Kloss Novabeam One-A, which has a 10-ft. diagonal roll-up screen and a projector that mounts on the ceiling. Since these large devices can take up a lot of room and sometimes have distorted pictures when viewed at an angle, many consumers prefer smaller, console versions. These models, priced at about $3,000, have translucent plastic viewing screens with the images projected from inside the set. When one Zenith model is turned on, the screen rises quietly and automatically from its cabinet, like something aboard the starship Enterprise in Star Trek.

One of the hazards of the multiplicity of new TVs is that manufacturers are dazzling customers with more gimmicks and gimcracks than an average viewer needs or can afford. One of the General Electric TVs introduced earlier this month bristles with 35 buttons. Says David Lachenbruch, editorial director of TV Digest: "Consumers are confused, intimidated and overwhelmed by all the blinking lights and digital readouts."

Yet many are smitten with them. Middle-class Americans are going on a video binge, particularly when it comes to VCRS. Since they came on the market in 1976, VCRS have fallen in price from $1,300 to little more than $250. Sales jumped 101% last year over 1982, to 4.1 million units, and may double again during 1984. Coupled with a popular accessory, the video camera, VCRs have also become the preferred tools of home moviemakers.

Even as televised stereo sounds begin to blast and screens grow larger, the television industry has plans for still more features. By next year, such companies as GE, Sony and Zenith will be selling so-called digital TVs. These revolutionary devices contain microcomputers that translate conventional, wavelike TV signals into visual and audio information that the viewer can fine-tune on the screen. On some models, the user will be able to zoom in on Liberace's diamond rings, for example, or freeze Pete Rose in mid-swat. Digital technology can also increase picture clarity up to 100% and would make the images on home TV as clear as those in a good 35-mm slide.

--By Stephen Koepp.

Reported by Thomas McCarroll/New York, with other bureaus

With reporting by THOMAS McCARROLL