Analog And Digital Television: What Is The Difference?
A lot of people wonder what is the difference between the analog and digital TV? The answer is the way the signal is transmitted. The signal of analog television resembles very much to radio signal transmission, with one difference: the video signal of analog television is AM and the audio is FM. There are many negative aspects of analog signals, and one of those is that there can be annoying interferences in bad weather, and signal quality depends very much on the location of the TV.
If this is not enough, certain bandwidths are assigned to analog TV channels, and this means the resolution and image quality are restricted. In the United States, the analog TV signal is NTSC. This standard had been adopted after the end of World War II, and it is a good system, but it was not engineered with color TV broadcasting in mind. Color implementation into the NTSC format is a weakness of this standard, and this is why many professionals call the NTSC standard “Never Twice The Same Color”.
On the other hand digital TV signal is transmitted very similar to computer data: there are two kinds of signal, “on” or “off”. This way, the user either sees an image, or not. Gradual signal loss is an unknown term in the era of digital TV: it has no difference how close or how far away the transmitter is from the television, the viewer either sees the exact image, or sees nothing.
Digital TV format has been designed considering all main factors of television signal: B/W, color and audio can be transmitted as progressive or interlaced signal. Basically this means the signal content has greater integrity and flexibility.
The same bandwidth an analog TV signals requires can host higher quality digital image and there will be even extra space left, which can be used for extra video, audio or texts signals.
This way broadcasters using digital technology can supply more features, like surround sound, multiple language audio or text using the same bandwidth a standard analog TV signal requires. Digital TV has one more advantage: it is able to transmit High Definition (HDTV) signal.
Unlike analog TV, digital technology is also able to broadcast programming in a true wide screen (16×9) format. This means the shape of the picture is very much like a movie screen, so the viewers can see a movie just as the director intended to be seen. Those who watch sports can see more action in one camera shot: it is possible to view the entire length of a football field without having the sensation that it is far away from the camera. The 16×9 format means there will be no more black bars on the top and the bottom of the wide screen image.
The United States made the transition to digital broadcasting on June 12, 2009. This means that all analog TV signals went off on that day. After this date, analog TV sets could be used only with an analog-to-digital converter connected to them. The preparations for transition from the analog to digital took quite some time for the consumers, broadcasters and authorities. The transition was originally planned for 2006, but authorities decided to postpone it because they thought consumers were not ready yet to embrace the new technology.
Edward McKellen is an HDTV expert who writes plasma tv reviews for HDTVreviewlab.com. To read our latest HDTV review – The Samsung UN55B7000 55-Inch LED HDTV or check out the latest Pioneer HDTV reviews visit HDTVreviewlab.com
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