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THE UNIVERSITY of New Orleans is hoping to tap into the future of broadcast television to grow high-tech jobs in the city.
UNO is teaming with public television stations WES-TV, WLAE-TV, radio station WWNO-FM and the state to bad a $19 million digital broadcasting center on the university's lakefront campus.
The two-story, 75,000-square-foot New Orleans Teleplex will be the anchor tenant of phase two of the 34-acre UNO Research and Technology Park. The teleplex will house studios for the public television and radio stations as well as separate studio space for communications students. It will enable the television stations to broadcast digital and highdefinition signals. The federal government requires all public television stations to broadcast digitally by May 1, 2003.
The conversion means that stations will be able to send clearer pictures and larger amounts of information over the airwaves. Just as newer cell phones use digital technology to pick up caller ID and other information with phone calls, television stations will be able to use the technology on a Luger scale to embed information within programming. For example, the new technology will enable TV viewers to click on links on their television screens to get more information about topics featured in the programs they are watching.
"Eventually you're going to be able...