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How HDTV Works

High Definition Television (HDTV) is a very popular topic these days and for good reason. The technology improves our television experience by producing a superior resolution through digital broadcasting. Analog is out, and digital is in; so it is time to look into purchasing a television set capable of HDTV if you haven't already. To understand why HDTV is considered to be a superior format, you should know how this technology works.

If your mother ever scolded you for putting your face too close to the television, then you have probably already noticed that your television's picture is comprised of many small, colored squares. These squares, known as pixels, are broadcast in such a way that when they appear together from a distance, they make unique images. The pixels on older, analog televisions are easier to spot because they are further apart.

Essentially, what makes HDTV so "high definition" is its digital transmission, which allows for more pixels to fit on a screen. The more tightly packed in these pixels are, the clearer and more realistic your television's screen is. This effect is not unlike stippling in the art world, which is the technique of making a larger picture out of many tiny dots.

Digital transmission from your cable or satellite provider is programmed with 1s and 0s, unlike analog transmission. What does this mean, exactly? It means that, as opposed to analog signals, your digital television signals will arrive just as they were sent. With analog transmissions, there is only a certain amount of information that can travel to a television and that data is limited even more when it is divided between the images and the sounds.

Not only are analog transmissions limited in how much data is sent, the signals are easily affected by outside forces, such as bad weather and physical obstructions. This explains the rabbit ear antennas you used to see people fidgeting with on their televisions. Also, analog transmissions can degrade as they travel long distances to your television. None of those problems exist with digitized data, so it is clear why this new technology is so desirable.

The FCC has recently declared that analog transmissions will be completely extinct in the future, as we are now officially living in a digital age. Before you know it, even those rabbit ears won't help out that old analog television you used to watch. With HDTV, you are not only choosing a better option for television viewing, it is soon to be the only option.

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