Thanks blogger community for solving my mysterious error. I'll hang on to Who Knows About Digital Television
I'll come back with the source, but a very recent study shows Americans are fairly clueless about digital TV and what it means for their current TV set. I've asked my brilliant Telecom 4450 students to find current uses for digital TV and post them as comments here. So, students, click on comment then cut and paste your assignment as a comment under this posting.
The deadline for doing this is today, 8 February.
posted by Dr. K @ 10:13 AM
14 comments
14 Comments:
As of now, the most common use of digital television is HDTV, or high definition television. There are two formats of HDTV: 1280 x 720 pixels in progressive scan (more commonly known as 720p) and 1920 x 1080 pixels in interlace mode (known as 1080i). HDTV uses a 16:9 aspect ratio, whereas SDTV, or standard definition television, uses a 4:3 aspect ratio. DTV can broadcast both, but HDTV has a far better picture quality. Beginning in February of 2009, broadcasters will discontinue analog TV and begin broadcasting in DTV. Hopefully, this will mean that flat-screen television prices will drop, and broadcasters will begin offering more and more high definition channels.
George Alread
In about a year, all television stations in the United States will go digital. For digital conversion on analog TV’s, everyone must buy a digital converter box to convert the signal. To ease the cost of the compulsory converter boxes, the government is providing $40 coupons to everyone to help defray the cost of the boxes. The boxes will cost between $40-$70 so it will be possible for everyone to get a box almost for free. This will provide for eventual conversion to every single television channel being provided in high definition.
The transformation to Digital television (or DTV) will occur on February 17, 2009 throughout the broadcasting industry. The reason for this transformation is because the Federal Communication Committee will be able to allocate the extra bandwidth for other resources or uses. DTV will also give the consumers even more options in regards to the amount of channels and even in regards to the quality of the extra channels that broadcasters get to choose. With DTV, the broadcasters are able to fit 3 standard definition channels through a digital signal versus 1 channel of analog. Broadcasters are also going too be able to choose which channels they would prefer to be standard definition (or def.), enhanced def. or high-def. quality picture on their stations. DTV will also be changing the ratio that standard analog signal has been producing. Standard analog has been broadcasting in a ratio of 4x3 of full screen as most consider it. But when the transfer is complete all digital signals will be broadcast in a ratio of 16x9 or widescreen. This also will benefit the costumer because they will be able to see more of the actual broadcasted signal. DTV will be a renovation in television and will provide a medium that the US broadcasters and the FCC will be able to expand on.
http://www.dtv.gov/DTV_booklet.pdf
As we have discussed in class, the future of digital television is going to be its expansion to other forms of media technology. Cell phones are the key target for the future. Media corporations want to extend the arms as far as they can to get everyone watching digital TV. What better way to do that than to make it accessible to everyone that has a cell phone. In other words, everyone on the planet.
Unlike analog televisions, digital televisions have a significant delay when changing channels, making "channel surfing" difficult.
Making the switch from analog to digital will provide television viewers with the potential for a movie-quality picture, and better HD for those who own an HDTV, but initially most broadcasters simply transmit a low-quality non-widescreen 480i digital version of their old existing analog services.
Different devices need different amounts of preload time to begin showing the broadcast stream, resulting in an undesirable and annoying audio echo effect when two televisions in adjacent rooms of a house are tuned to the same channel.
The greatest DTV detail level currently available is 1080i, which is a 1920x1080 interlaced widescreen format.
Full-frame progressive-scan 1920x1080 (1080p) requires up to twice the data bandwidth currently available in the DTV channel specification. 1080p may become an option in the future, as image compression algorithms improve, allowing more detail to be sent via the same channel bandwidth allocations to be used now.
Here is an example of current digital television :
One aspect of the invention is a digital color separator for a television receiver. An analog luminance separation unit receives a tuned input signal and separates the luminance component from the chrominance components of the input signal. A first analog-to-digital converter samples the luminance component at a rate determined by the number of pixels per line to be displayed. A second analog-to-digital converter receiving the tuned input signal and samples it at a rate appropriate for digital color separation. A digital chrominance separation unit receives data samples from the second analog-to-digital converter and separates the luminance samples from the chrominance samples. A scaling unit scales the chrominance samples so that the number of chrominance samples per line is the same as the desired number of pixels per line to be displayed. At this point, both the luminance and the chrominance samples correspond to the desired horizontal resolution.
A technical advantage of the invention is that it provides color separated data from NTSC signals, and also satisfies the horizontal resolution requirements for non-NTSC display formats. Because it avoids the need to scale the luminance component, it minimizes undesirable artifacts. Although the chrominance component is scaled, its lower bandwidth results in a decreased likelihood of artifacts.
Luke Harbord
I read an article about whether or not high definition television was overrated. High defination television is by far the most superior television experience one will witness to date. It has a 16:9 widescreen aspect ratio, which is what movie theaters screens have. So my personal opinion on whether or not high definition television is overrated is that they are most definitely not overrated. The only problem is the price that this product is selling for. If one has the money to buy it than one should buy it, because it is definitely something worth having in the long run.
Where I am from in Ellijay the local telephone is switching over to a system where the digital cable, telephone and internet all come into the house on the same line of cable.
On February 17, 2009 digital television will be transfered in many televisions in the U.S by law. Some benefits of digital televison for the customer include better picture resolution, better aspect ratio, and digital sound.
In this class we all know that Broadcast Television will go digital February 17, 2009, but it’s easy to overlook the long term effects of going digital. It’s easy to get caught up in the discussion and debate over the government mandated switch and forget about the possibilities that digital creates. Technologies like Sun Microsystems JAVA TV API allow developers to create programs with feedback. We’ve talked about TV that allows the user to respond and participate in a program, but when we realize that programming for digital television is just as simple as hiring a JAVA software developer, interactive television becomes not only possible--it becomes easy.
Click here for more information on the digital transition
Consumer Reports and HearUsNow.org have a great information site on Digital TV.
And they set up a way to share your experience with the transition to digital television.
As Dr. K stated in his post, most are in the dark on the concept and value of digital television. Currently, we receive television through analog signals. The switch to digital television (DTV) will mean that we will receive television through digital signals, instead. These signals require a specially designed television set or a set-top box to convert the signals to current television sets.
What are the plus sides of switching to digital signals? Mainly, efficiency and quality. Digital signals take up much less bandwidth than analog signals, which will allow for more channels. Digital television, for the most part, is also much clearer and sounds better than television provided by analog signals.
Thanks for the great info! This site also has a bunch of kelfpul tips, in video form, on how to prepare for the digital TV transition.
I had a TV commercial concept in the late 80s where I wanted the announcer to give the viewers a choice of how the commercial would end by switching to another channel, on which there would have been a synched ad for the same client with an alternate ending. I was told the networks couldn't guarantee that commercials could run parallel, second by second, allowing the "channel switch" idea to work. Now I can do it on the net, but I'm too old to get anyody to buy my ideas anymore! Ha!
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