Understanding Digital Broadcasting

There is a great deal of confusion surrounding HDTV and digital signals. In short, many people think the two are the same. In reality, while all HDTV is digital, not all digital broadcasting is high definition. This is similar to the fact that all oranges are fruit, but not all fruit are oranges. As such, just because something promises to be broadcast with a digital signal, it does not guarantee it is HDTV.According to the FCC, “Digital Television is an advanced broadcasting technology that will transform your television viewing experience.” Well, obviously, the same can be said of HDTV. Therefore, this definition doesn’t really clear up the whole mess a whole lot. So, I will attempt to make it a bit simpler for those of you that might be feeling confused by digital broadcasting.

There are actually three different levels of digital broadcasting that you might come in contact with. The first is Standard Definition TV. Standard Definition TV is pretty much like analog in terms of the quality of picture produced. One perk to this digital signal, however, is the fact that it does not display “ghosts” or “snow,” both of which can be fairly common with analogue television.

Enhanced Definition TV is the second type of digital broadcast. The quality of this picture is a step up from Standard Definition TV, but is still not quite as clear and crisp as HDTV.

Without a doubt, HDTV is the best form of digital television you can have. Unfortunately, at this point, HDTV is not used by all stations. In addition, not all televisions are capable of receiving an HDTV signal. If you want to view signals that are transmitted in HDTV, you need to purchase a television that is marked as a high definition television.

In addition to improving picture quality, digital broadcasting offers benefits to the stations as well. Namely, digital broadcasting makes it possible for them to engage in multicasting. This is because digital signals - regardless of the type - can be compressed to be smaller than analog signals. Since digital takes up less space, stations can broadcast several different streams of programming at the same time without having to take up as much space. This means they can provide more viewing options to the public while also potentially increasing their advertising revenue.