 - Digital television (DTV) is the transmission of television signals using digital rather than conventional analog methods. Conventional standards - National Television Standards Committee, Phase Alternation Line, and Sequential Couleur avec Memoire - specify analog transmission.
However, both the audio and video components of a television signal can be transmitted in digital form.
Advantages of DTV over analog TV include:
- Superior image resolution (detail) for a given bandwidth
- Smaller bandwidth for a given image resolution
- Compatibility with computers and the Internet
- Interactivity
- Superior audio quality
- Consistency of reception over varying distances
Digital television is not the same thing as HDTV
(high-definition television). HDTV describes a new television format (including a new aspect ratio and pixel density), but not how the format will be transmitted. HDTV can be transmitted in either analog or digital signals. However, since DTV technology is ideally suited for HDTV, it is likely that the names of the two technologies will continue to be used interchangeably.
DTV will become the industry standard within a few years. In the United States, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has mandated that analog transmissions will stop in 2006, as long as 85% of households in the country have purchased digital sets or set-top converters.
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05 Jul 2004
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