Digital Television What is Digital Television? TV is currently undergoing a transition from analogue broadcasting to digital broadcasting.

This is probably the biggest change in TV since the introduction of colour televisions. Digital broadcasting is essentially the broadcasting of TV or radio programme content as a stream of digital data. The ability to transmit TV content in the form of data in this way means that more information can be transmitted over a digital network than the old analogue networks. As a result a digital broadcasting network can be used to provide more versatile services such as more TV channels, radio channels, digital quality pictures and sound, high definition pictures, enhanced teletext, electronic programme guides and even interactive services. How is Digital Television received? Digital television operates by first of all converting the pictures, sound, text and other information making up the TV content into digital data elements. This data is then compressed/squeezed for broadcasting to TV viewers. TV signals are broadcast over the air or via a cable connection to the viewer's premises. At the viewer's premises, the broadcast data is received via an aerial, satellite dish or cable and is decoded by a digital decoder. The digital decoder converts the data into pictures, sound, text and other information which can be broadcast over the TV. In its simplest form a decoder can take the form of a set top box which is connected to the TV. Subscribers to Cable, MMDS or Satellite will be familiar with these devices. Some decoders also function as a digital video recorder. In developed Digital Terrestrial Television markets the decoder may be an internal device in the TV (iDTV). Analog Vs Digital What makes digital television so special? A digital image isn't inherently better than an analog image, and in some cases it can be worse. An HDTV picture doesn't have to be digital either; Japanese HDTV is broadcast over an analog signal. There has to be another reason why the United States is choosing to go through the pain of switching from analog to digital. In fact, there are several good reasons to go digital, including: how much data it can transmit, how consistent the data stays over distance, and what type of data the signal can carry. For the same amount of bandwidth, you can stuff a lot more information into a digital signal than an analog signal. A digital signal doesn't produce the same problems with the picture we see on a distant analog television, either. And television in the digital age won't be limited to video and audio; our televisions will become truly interactive. Combined with HDTV and digital sound, this means a better picture, better sound, and digital data. But how are we going to fit all this into the same amount of frequency?

A basic natural law that our technology can't overcome is the weakening of television signals as they travel away from the transmitter and around or through objects. Both analog and digital signals get weaker with distance. However, while the picture on an analog TV slowly gets worse for more distant receivers, a picture on a digital set will stay perfect until the signal becomes too weak for the receiver to pick it up. By perfect I mean the picture on the TV is exactly the same picture the broadcaster started with at the transmitter. In a digital signal, a one is always a one and a zero is always a zero.

http://www.digitaltelevision.ie/Digital+Television/ http://www.dtv.gov/consumercorner_4.html

http://www.pbs.org/opb/crashcourse/digital_v_analog/sound.html http://www.rell.com/Pages/Product-Group-Category.aspx?applicationId=140

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_television_in_the_Philippines