Discard Your Analog TV For A Brand New Digital Experience

So, how is your family TV?  Yeah… The 27- inch set bought eight years back is no longer holding up it’s end of the bargain. So what else could you think of in this digital era other than a high definition TV? For the HDTV neophyte, we’ve gone over some of the basic distinctions you should be aware of before you buy a new digital television.Before discarding the monotonous analog TV get yourself accustomed to the sea of changes that has taken place in television viewing today. It has under gone some amazing transformations.

The New Digital TV Era:

How does HDTV function? Unlike analog TV signals, a digital TV receives and displays ‘digital’ TV signals. The result is significantly improved picture quality. Therefore an HDTV is a digital television with an internal ‘high definition’ TV receiver. All you have to do is plug in to your digital TV to a High Definition TV broadcast source (with a proprietary HD receiver which functions with the required encoding process.) and start enjoying.

Remember the new-age Digital-HDTV technology is dynamic; it is upgrading in a continuous progression. For a consumer today’s HDTV probably can become outmoded within a few years or even months. So, while buying take note that replacing an outdated external component like the HDTV receiver is preferable to the complete integrated HDTV system.

A digital TV can receive and display NTSC (National Television Systems Committee) Analog TV signals and ATSC (Advanced Television Systems Committee) Digital TV signals. A Digital TV which is competent to display an HDTV quality picture is said to be HDTV-Capable. A Digital TV which is HDTV-Capable requires an External, High Definition TV Receiver (referred to as HDTV tuner, set-top box or decoder). HDTV ‘ready’ does not mean HDTV capable.

Primary requirements –

The Screen Size: Since HDTV has virtually a perfect picture, an increase in the screen size improves the picture quality. This is unlike the analog TV where its lower picture quality and other inherent artifacts get overblown in a bigger screen size. The screen resolutions: an NTSC analog TV has 480i resolution; the HDTV’s 480i improves the picture quality because of its digital quality. The ATSC Standard for High Definition Television requires a resolution of either 1080 interlaced lines, or 720 progressive scan lines; or higher. Lower (Digital TV) resolutions – 480i and 480p are both acceptable as HDTV Resolutions.

Video and Audio Connections: There are multiple connector options in an HDTV monitor since it has a number of in/out ports. The type of connector and cables vary not only in the way they work but also the type of component with which they are used. A few examples include - HDTV Video: HDMI (High Definition Media Interface); DVI (Digital Video Interface); HDTV-Component (Y/Pb/Pr).

HDTV Receiver: It can be a set-top box, a HD TV tuner or a decoder. An External HDTV Receiver is required to receive High Definition Television Signals, whatever the source. It includes Cable, Satellite, OTA Broadcasts, and (High Definition) Digital-VHS recordings; also HD-DVD’s. An HDTV Receiver is also desired to properly show DVD’s with Progressive Scan, as well as Progressive Scan and HDTV-Capable Video Games.

So there you have it. A few things to look out for if your just getting your toes wet in finally upgrading your TV.

Filed Under: TV Education

Tags: analog TV • hdtv