The Coming Age Of HDTV - What Does It Mean To Me?

HDTV - High-definition television: It is something that has been discussed for some time, but not everyone has a strong sense of what it is and why he or they wish to have.

Since all TV stations are required to broadcast a digital signal after the 17th February 2009, many viewers are beginning to ask more questions about how the new digital age of television, will focus on their personal viewing experience. You want to know whether their television is compatible, whether they have to replace it, and what steps they must take to watching their favorite shows hold.


How to identify if your TV is an analogue TV

Analog television has with us since the dawn of television. Analog is the old way of processing a television signal.

Television technology has a big leap in 1960 with the transition from television tubes to circuit boards, but that the changeover will not bring no major progress in the quality of television picture.

If your current television does not have a logo on the front indicates DTV (digital TV), EDTV (Enhanced-definition TV), or HDTV, then your television is an analog TV.

Understanding the transition from an analog signal to the new digital signal

Digital image processing is a technology that began seriously in the 1970's, when Japanese technology companies began to the concepts of HDTV. The Japanese TV producers were exploring ways to improve the image quality of the TV picture, as a way to find more customers for their TV products.

While the Americans were busy playing with building the computer industry, the Japanese were hard at work trying to better television. The first HDTV systems developed by the Japanese remains at the old analogue system by a broadcast signal to their TVs, but they were still able to secure a better TV viewing experience.

When originally introduced to the U.S. government, the new HDTV system produces a variety of concerns, including the issuance of an analog HDTV system needs more bandwidth than what is currently on television.

In 1993, a consortium of American researchers and manufacturers (known as "The Grand Alliance) in order to find a way to HDTV quality on the American public, while maintaining the bandwidth requirements of broadcasters within the existing borders.

The researchers soon understood that they would need at least a portion of the television signal into a digital format to ensure that HDTV could be within the limits currently allotted to the television. By the time they had finished their work, the Grand Alliance had a system that is 100% Digital.

In 1995, after considerable resistance from the television industry, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission officially set the standard for all-digital HDTV broadcasting. This movement put into the events that are now only come into effect with the rollout of new digital television.

Although most TV stations were broadcasting a digital television signal is now for a few years, analog TV owners were nevertheless wiser. But everything changed on 17 February 2009.

Will my analog TV works more in 2009?

The simple answer is "yes", but that does not mean that you have to buy a new TV to the new digital broadcasts. While you may not need to replace your TV, you may need to make changes, such as your TV signal.

There are essentially three ways that the average consumer will continue to have a TV signal with their old television:

1st Subscribe to a cable television service (and the use of its digital television converter);

2nd Register with a satellite-television service (and the use of its digital television converter), or

3rd Buy a DTV converter (digital TV converters) to receive analog signals from your antenna and convert the signal back to analog, so that you can continue with your analog television. (If your TV signal over the air, the federal government has a coupon program to help consumers offset the cost of the DTV converter boxes: http://www.ntia.doc.gov/dtvcoupon/index. html)

The understanding of the three facets of the new digital technology

1st Lines of resolution

The newer digital technology is about all lines of resolution. With more lines of resolution, the viewer will have more information image to the viewer much more clarity and image detail.

When the Japanese HDTV roll-out on the Japanese mainland, the lines of resolution 1080 numbered. To do this in the right perspective, the traditional analog TV signals exhibits 330 lines resolution. This makes it abundantly clear that the original analog HDTV format was a real problem for the broadcasters in the United States. To produce a resolution of 1080 lines in a system that for 330 lines would have required literally three times the bandwidth of the current analogue system.

Here are the standard TV resolutions:

* Analog television - 330 Lines of resolution

* VCR's - 240 Lines of resolution

* DVD's - 480 Lines of resolution

* EDTV - 720 Lines of resolution

* HDTV - 1080 lines of resolution

There is a reservation on this chart though. The minimum requirement of the FCC is that broadcasters must be at least 720 lines resolution. As a result, some broadcasters such as ABC chose the 720-resolution, and yet they can still legally call their standard programming, HDTV.

Like other PBS stations has opted for the higher 1080-format. Good for them.

In 1998, when the first HDTV's available to the buying public, Headline News newscasters were joking that with the introduction of HDTV, we the audience would be able to see each blackheads and blemishes on their faces. Of course, they were probably right in assuming NOTEBOOK The details of the HDTV signal is absolutely amazing.

2nd Aspect Ratio

Another factor to the new HDTV format is the aspect ratio.

In a traditional analog television, the aspect ratio is a 4-by-3, which looks almost square. The 4-by-3 ratio means that they can be measured 4-large parts to 3 parts high.

With the new HDTV format, the aspect ratio has been changed to the same format seen in the cinema - a 16-by-9 aspect ratio, or 16-wide parts to 9 parts high.

3rd Sound Quality

The third factor with the new HDTV format is sound quality. In fact, most HDTV programming, with 5.1 Dolby Digital surround sound, so often heard on DVD's. As long as you have a surround-sound unit to your TV, surround sound is the television viewers will be in the sound, so much as it often feels as if you are in the middle of the action happens to your TV.

Finally ...

While it is true that you do not need to upgrade your TV from analog format to the new digital format, you can seriously consider it anyway.

Now that we are quickly approaching the end of analog TV era, the cost of HDTV televisions decreased significantly. In whereas five years ago, the average HDTV costs in the range of $ 3-4000, the cost of most HDTV is less than $ 1200 today. After 17 February 2009, the cost of HDTV should drop again, making it much more affordable for the general public.

Although it will be possible to convert the digital television signal to analog, you lose the additional image detail about the changeover. So, if you stick with your analog television, you will restrict itself on the quality of picture that you currently receive, even after the change in the television broadcast formats.

Although color technology was first introduced to the audience with the release of The Wizard of Oz in 1939, color television with the mainstream until the late-1960's. And although the technology was the mainstream color, black and white televisions were produced and sold well in the 1980's.

Fortunately, this transition is a bit faster than the transformation from black and white to color. Under the FCC rules for the transition to digital television, television producers were committed to a digital tuners in all televisions manufactured after 1 March 2006.

This conversion is similar to the transition from AM to FM to listen as the standard medium in the radio industry. Radio listeners could not hear FM stations, until the time she had her radio upgrade from AM to the AM / FM format. The same happens here. If you want to receive the beautiful, high-quality HDTV images, you need an upgrade to a television capable of displaying HDTV images.

If you have any doubt about the better HDTV standard, all you have to do is visit your local television store and see for yourself just how awesome a picture of HDTV actually produced. Just as Dolby Digital Surround Sound allows the listener feel as if they are in the middle of the action on TV, HDTV enables the viewer to feel as if they are in the same room as the players on the sidelines in football -- Game, or on the same beach as the models - it's really good, that one picture.