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Bye Bye Analog – Hello HDTV!
HDTV or High Definition Television offers many benefits over traditional analog television. High definition television has excellent digital superiority, crisp detail, progressive scanning, digital audio, a wider viewing area and better quality DVD playback.
With congress pushing for a complete switch to HDTV by midnight December 31, 2006, will we really say good-bye to analog-hello HDTV?
The issue of choosing HDTV over analog television came about in 1987 when the FCC issued a ruling indicating that all analog televisions would become obsolete in 2006. The Japanese had developed a successful high definition television and the United States wanted to edge them out. As a result a group of American electronics companies formed the “Grand Alliance” by inventing digital HDTV.
In 1990, the FCC announced that HDTV would be broadcast at the same time as existing NTSC broadcasting service. The idea was to give television broadcasters additional channel space to broadcast in both analog and digital. The old channels would then become obsolete. To make this work, all televisions would have to convert to digital. All televisions made since 1946 would suddenly become obsolete unless a converter was purchased and installed.
Part of the HDTV plan worked. Over 1400 broadcasters currently transmit in digital and analog. Consumers, who were supposed to be buying HDTV sets to get ready for the big switch, were not so eager to change.
Currently, most HDTV sets that are available for sale are big screen and they are generally expensive. Smaller-screened televisions with digital capabilities are slated to hit the market in 2007. It is estimated that only about 30 million televisions in the United States have digital tuners, out of the several hundred million sets already installed in homes.
There is a loophole in the HDTV switch plan, though. Congress decided if that 85 percent of homes did not own a digital television set, then the analog televisions would not be obsolete. But, what happens to analog televisions that are still being purchased by the thousands, even as the 2006 HDTV switch date nears?
Manufacturers are not warning consumers of the looming switch and stores are not telling buyers. The answer could be in the converter box that most televisions owners will have to purchase. The converter boxes will allow viewers to still receive the free broadcast from an antenna. The box will cost around $100. The picture will be very similar to an analog picture only in digital format. If a digital signal is weak, there could be no picture on the television at all.
In addition, many analog television owners will not need to purchase a converter box at all. It is estimated that about 85 percent of American homes get their television broadcast from cable or satellite networks. Those without cable or satellite will be most affected by the switch to digital.
Many are left wondering what the real advantage of HDTV over analog televisions can be. The definition of HDTV is about twice the vertical and horizontal picture resolution of analog televisions. This makes the picture twice as sharp as tradition television. Another advantage of HDTV is that it has a screen ratio of 16:9 as compared with analog television which has a ratio is 4:3. There is also less ghosting and dot crawling on an HDTV screen. HDTV can also be broadcast in wide-screen and has superior audio to analog stereo audio.
With analog television, the set works on a 6 MHz signal that carries the intensity and color information for each scan line of the picture. The television screen signal in the United States has 525 scan lines for the image. Each image is refreshed every 30th of a second. The horizontal resolution is around 500 dots for a color set. Even computer screens that most people own have better resolution and clarity than analog televisions.
In short, the real advantage of the HDTV sets is that they offer superior clarity and sound as opposed to the traditional analog sets. Not many television stations broadcast in HDTV, but many are taking the steps to make the switch. While the change from analog to HDTV could still take years, smaller and less expensive HDTV sets will be on the market soon making the switch easier for the general public.
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