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An Introduction To High Definition TV

High Definition Television (or HDTV) is a digital television broadcasting system with higher resolution than traditional television systems (standard-definition TV, or SDTV). HD (High Definition) TV is digitally broadcast; the earliest implementations used analog broadcasting, but today digital television (DTV) signals are used, requiring less bandwidth due to digital video compression.

The rise in popularity of large screens and projectors has made the limitations of conventional Standard Definition TV (SDTV) increasingly evident. An HD (High Definition) TV compatible television set will not improve the quality of SDTV channels. To display a superior picture, high definition televisions require a High Definition (HD) signal. Typical sources of HD (High Definition) signals are as follows:

- Over the air with an antenna. Most cities in the US with major network affiliates broadcast over the air in HD (High Definition). To receive this signal an HD (High Definition Television) tuner is required. Most newer high definition televisions have an HD (High Definition) tuner built in. For High Definition Televisions without a built in HD (High Definition) tuner, a separate set-top HD (High Definition) tuner box can be rented from a cable or satellite company or purchased.

- Cable television companies often offer HD (High Definition) TV broadcasts as part of their digital broadcast service. This is usually done with a set-top box or CableCARD issued by the cable company. Alternatively one can usually get the network HDTV (High Definition Television) channels for free with basic cable by using a QAM tuner built into their HD (High Definition) TV or set-top High Definition box. Some cable carriers also offer High Definition TV on-demand playback of movies and commonly viewed shows.

- Satellite-based TV companies, such as DirecTV and Dish Network (both in North America) offer HD (High Definition) TV to customers as an upgrade. New satellite receiver boxes are usually required to receive HD (High Definition) content.

- Video game systems, such as the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, and digital set-top boxes that rely on an Internet connection such as the Apple TV, and those that don't such as the Netgear Digital Entertainer, can output an HD (High Definition) signal. The Xbox Live Marketplace, iTunes Music Store, and PlayStation Network services offer HD (High Definition) movies, TV shows, movie trailers, and clips for download, but generally at lower bitrates than a Blu-ray Disc.

- Most newer computer graphics cards have either HDMI or DVI interfaces, which can be used to output images or video to an HD (High Definition) TV.

- Almost all computer graphics cards have standard SVGA jacks which can be used to output images or video to an HDTV's "PC Input" jack.

- The optical disc standard Blu-ray Disc (25GB-50GB) can provide enough digital storage to store up to 10 hours of HD (High Definition) video content, depending on encoder settings.

Components of a typical satellite HD (High Definition) TV system:

1. HD (High Definition) TV Monitor 2. HD (High Definition) satellite receiver box 3. Standard satellite dish 4. HDMI cable, DVI-D and audio cables, or audio and component video cablesBesides an HD-ready television set, other equipment is needed to view HD (High Definition) television. Cable-ready TV sets can display HD (High Definition)content without using an external box. They have a QAM tuner built-in and/or a card slot for inserting a CableCARD.

High Definition image sources include terrestrial broadcast, direct broadcast satellite, digital cable, the high definition disc BD, internet downloads, the PlayStation 3, and the Xbox 360. The Nintendo Wii does not display HD (High Definition) content.

HD (High Definition) TV can be recorded to D-VHS (Digital-VHS or Data-VHS), W-VHS (analog only), to an HDTV-capable digital video recorder (for example DirecTV's high-definition Digital video recorder, Sky HD's set-top box, Dish Network's VIP 622 or VIP 722 high-definition Digital video recorder receivers, or TiVo's Series 3 or HD recorders), or an HDTV-ready HTPC. Some cable boxes are capable of receiving or recording two or more broadcasts at a time in HD (High Definition) TV format, and HD (High Definition) TV programming, some free, some for a fee, can be played back with the cable company's on-demand feature. The massive amount of data storage required to archive uncompressed streams make it unlikely that an uncompressed storage option will appear in the consumer market soon. Realtime MPEG-2 compression of an uncompressed digital HDTV signal is also prohibitively expensive for the consumer market at this time, but should become inexpensive within several years (although this is more relevant for consumer HD (High Definition) camcorders than recording HDTV). Analog tape recorders with bandwidth capable of recording analog HD (High Definition) signals such as W-VHS recorders are no longer produced for the consumer market and are both expensive and scarce in the secondary market.

Source: Wikipedia.org