Natural Motion — Roadmapping

Looking for inroads into the future

Every company would like to be able to see into the future. Those with the most foresight will be able to tell more precisely what customers require, in advance. Companies would then be able to devote their resources entirely toward products that consumers are prepared to pay for. The only problem is that the future is always just around the corner, and the picture of what the consumer wants, remains blurred.

Nevertheless, when discussing aspects of research and product development, we frequently talk about visions for the next five to ten years. Such a period is usually necessary to cover the entire span from product concept to actual product. Natural Motion seems to be an exception to this rule. Within a year of the motion estimator becoming a working model, a chip had been made. Immediately afterwards, the motion compensator was built into the newest 100 Hz TV, and shortly after that it was on the market. So is there a crystal ball somewhere within Philips with which the development process can be drastically shortened?

"It was not a question of clairvoyance, but of astute 'roadmapping'", laughs Fred Boekhorst, who as leader of the television systems group was tasked with the Natural Motion/Melzonic project. "What we suddenly realized with the Business Group TV, was that the research department can't be expected to work on projects for the industry if the industry itself doesn't have a long-term vision for the future. From that point onwards, we started 'roadmapping': conceiving ways of making inroads into the future."

"By roadmapping we mean the planning of new developments for the coming six years or so. This is possible by putting people from various specialist areas in contact with each other. Strategic product planning is involved, and they try to anticipate what consumers will want in the future. Technological experts are also involved, research being one of our suppliers of technology. We are also in touch with system architects."

"Television is a good example to give, because it is a complicated field involving picture display and screen technology. Innovations can occur in any of these areas, but one innovation is not enough for an improved product to be churned out. As a system architect, you have to judge the different innovations on their relative merits in order to arrive at an optimum system. Optimum, with respect to the relationship between price and performance. When all of the above disciplines have been brought together, you then have a team which is in a position to map out our future."

What did the roadmap for 100 Hz TV look like, for instance? "In 1988, we found that television screens still flickered. However, we wanted a screen to look as good as a color transparency. We then introduced the 100 Hz TV, which despite involving the relatively simple matter of doubling the picture, was an enormous innovation at that time."

"Our conclusion, however, was that although this was an important step in the right direction, the picture quality was still not optimum. Television pictures, unlike those on computers, are built up of interposed lines. We have to continue with this method if we are to prevent the construction of the receiver from becoming too complicated. In 1992, it became possible for us to improve picture quality using Digital Scan (see separate text: Television pictures). But that was not the end of the development, because in 1989 work started on motion compensation. The objective was to have a breakthrough in this area by the mid-90's. We saw the 'judder' effect when a picture was simply repeated. This effect is most evident when viewing motion pictures, 25 pictures per second being far too few to obtain a reasonable picture."

"In retrospect, we first solved the problem of large area flicker, before turning our attention to line flicker, and more recently to the judder in moving images. We won't stop there of course. We see all sorts of possibilities for improvement. The current roadmap for television stretches to beyond the year 2000." "An essential part of roadmapping is 'blue-box management'," says Boekhorst. The 'blue box' gets its name from the graph which plots uncertainty against time, and where three phases are distinguishable, each shown in a different color. There is a green ellipse, a blue rectangle (the 'blue box'), and a red ellipse.

"With blue-box management, you identify three phases," continues Boekhorst. "The first, the green ellipse, is the initial phase. An idea exists, but the big question is - will it lead to anything? In the final phase, the red ellipse, you know what you want to make, but you want to make it as efficiently as possible. Here it is a question of - how do we do it? Between these two is the 'blue box', which concerns reducing any uncertainties which exist, as soon as possible. This has to be done in order to prevent you from latching on to ideas which turn out to be impractical."

"Ideas are mostly generated by several people. But when you make a product, you have several hundred people working in parallel in different disciplines. For a product such as 100 Hz TV, you have to contend with a development phase which costs several tens of millions of dollars. If, when you are spending the money, you come to the conclusion that you are launching the wrong idea, then you are making an expensive mistake. The essence of blue-box management is therefore to recognize whether or not an idea is a good one, in a timely manner."

"This doesn't mean of course, that at Philips Research there is no room for pure research. There is ample room to explore, but this is done under the supervision of research leaders who let individuals go just far enough to discover new things, but not so far that they begin to meander. As a research project leader, you have to play around to a certain extent with the ideas that you have stumbled across. If someone has a good idea, there is still sufficient time for it to become a formal project."

"This is how it was with Natural Motion. The initial breakthrough took place at Philips Research. The Business Group TV was prepared for it and brought the right disciplines together. Thus it was possible to develop a product quickly and without too much uncertainty. The motto of Philips Research is: 'A research success is a real success if it leads to a business success.' The success of Natural Motion is the best example of this."