A tough one to answer in less than 20 pages, but I'll try. For all you nit-pickers, I'm going to leave a lot out and generalize a lot. I don't have time to write a book on the subject(s) and many already exist.
HDTV - High Definition Television - a whole bunch of formats devised by a committee (ATSC) composed of companies with conflicting interests
SDTV - Standard Definition Television - generally agreed to be 525 (487 visible) lines by 720 pixels in NTSC countries and 625 (577 visible) lines by 720 pixels in PAL countries
3) Digital Video Encoding Standards for TV (video plus timing, color & other info encoded in one data stream):
ITU-R-BT.601 - One of many digital video encoding formats for studio distribution, but the de facto standard (sometimes incorrectly called D1)
- many others...
4) Composite Analog Video Encoding Standards for TV (video plus timing, color & other info encoded in one signal):
NTSC - National Television Standards Committee standard for analog video encoding. Over 40% of the world uses this in one aberration or another. NTSC is also know as "Never Twice the Same Color" and achieved that moniker because it is inherently crappy (one only has to look once at a PAL broadcast to forever remember that). Used in North America and numerous other places in the world.
PAL - Phase Alternate Line standard. Over 40% of the world uses this in one aberration or another. Quality as way better than NTSC. It's used in most of western Europe and numerous other places in the world. Also called "Perfection At Last" and "Pay A Lot for quality".
SECAM - Sequential Couleur a Memoire - Devised in France and used there and much of the former USSR. Secam is also known as "System Essentially Contrary to American Methods".
5) Component (Base Band) Analog Video - several component signals needed (needs 3 or more signals for video and sync)
RGB - Color components - Red Green Blue (sync on green or separate)
YUV - Color difference components - Y: luminance, U: B-Y, V: R-Y (sync on Y or separate)
Several others....
Answers:
They want digital tuners in TV's. But they didn't say they wanted HDTV tuners in TV's. At first I thought there wasn't a difference, but now I'm not sure.
DTV is a medium for communication of broadcast television. It can carry SDTV - the format that you watch now 487 visible (out of 525 total) interlaced lines in NTSC countries, 577 visible (out of 625) interlaced lines in PAL countries, with the 4:3 screen aspect ratio that we all know, or HDTV in all its many flavors. HDTV like any modern technology specified by an large industry committee, has enough formats to make you gag, 18 of which are on the short list and 3-4 of which will probably finally be used. HDTV happened to arrive about the same time as DTV (technology being the enabler) and it is easy to see why people confuse them. By the way, HDTV can be broadcast analog, but it's a pig on bandwidth. Japan did some analog HDTV many years ago, but I think that they would rather not be reminded. For many reasons, it was not a success.
Couldn't you digitize a NTSC signal as easily as a HDTV signal and pipe it through a digital tuner?
I think you mean to DTV. Sort of, but it's very complicated and expensive and I'm not sure why you would want to do this. When the original base band video was encoded to NTSC (or Pal or SECAM) that already disposed of some quality - the encoding is not lossles. Converting it to digital afterwards is like converting and mp3 to a wav. The quality has been lost already. If you want to get the best out of NTSC on your video screen , you want a quality tuner/decoder that outputs RGB (or YUV) and then input it into a high quality RGB or YUV television monitor (not pc monitor!). Or just use your analog TV for analog signals.
DishNet and DirecTV already use digital signals to broadcast NTSC-quality stuff to US televisions, and cable companies aren't using any of the airwaves (they use cable). Also, cable companies are selling digital cable now to people with NTSC televisions (analog tuners).
I've forgotten the exact number, but something like 35% of the population of the US can not get cable (think rural). Also, cable companies get their 'cable network' feeds (CNN, Discovery, etc.) from satellite but get local stuff from broadcasters' terrestrial (over the air antenna) transmissions.
Cable and dish companies even force you to keep your TV on channel 3 anyway and use a converter, so why not just use a monitor, or the video/audio-in ports on your TV and bypass ALL tuners?.
You still need something to switch (select channel/feed) and decode the (analog or digital signals) to video. It can be a receiver, a VCR, a set-top box or (maybe someday) a network card with a built-in video encoder.
I don't see the big deal here.
Here it is: The consumer gets screwed by hidden taxation and the government makes billions. For more, please read my post here:.
is like buying a gold-plated shovel to shovel shit.
What's the point? For the horrendous crap that's on TV now, a decent analog set and a decent signal are all you need. Everything else is a waste of money.
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First: Terms and abbreviations:
1)Broadcast Transmission Mediums:(signals, carrier, etc.)
NCA? (No Cool Acronym) - Analog Television
DTV - Digital Television (vs Analog)
2) Formats: (#lines, #pixels, type of scan, etc)
HDTV - High Definition Television - a whole bunch of formats devised by a committee (ATSC) composed of companies with conflicting interests
SDTV - Standard Definition Television - generally agreed to be 525 (487 visible) lines by 720 pixels in NTSC countries and 625 (577 visible) lines by 720 pixels in PAL countries
3) Digital Video Encoding Standards for TV (video plus timing, color & other info encoded in one data stream):
ITU-R-BT.601 - One of many digital video encoding formats for studio distribution, but the de facto standard (sometimes incorrectly called D1)
- many others...
4) Composite Analog Video Encoding Standards for TV (video plus timing, color & other info encoded in one signal):
NTSC - National Television Standards Committee standard for analog video encoding. Over 40% of the world uses this in one aberration or another. NTSC is also know as "Never Twice the Same Color" and achieved that moniker because it is inherently crappy (one only has to look once at a PAL broadcast to forever remember that). Used in North America and numerous other places in the world.
PAL - Phase Alternate Line standard. Over 40% of the world uses this in one aberration or another. Quality as way better than NTSC. It's used in most of western Europe and numerous other places in the world. Also called "Perfection At Last" and "Pay A Lot for quality".
SECAM - Sequential Couleur a Memoire - Devised in France and used there and much of the former USSR. Secam is also known as "System Essentially Contrary to American Methods".
5) Component (Base Band) Analog Video - several component signals needed (needs 3 or more signals for video and sync)
RGB - Color components - Red Green Blue (sync on green or separate)
YUV - Color difference components - Y: luminance, U: B-Y, V: R-Y (sync on Y or separate)
Several others ....
Answers:
They want digital tuners in TV's. But they didn't say they wanted HDTV tuners in TV's. At first I thought there wasn't a difference, but now I'm not sure.
DTV is a medium for communication of broadcast television. It can carry SDTV - the format that you watch now 487 visible (out of 525 total) interlaced lines in NTSC countries, 577 visible (out of 625) interlaced lines in PAL countries, with the 4:3 screen aspect ratio that we all know, or HDTV in all its many flavors. HDTV like any modern technology specified by an large industry committee, has enough formats to make you gag, 18 of which are on the short list and 3-4 of which will probably finally be used. HDTV happened to arrive about the same time as DTV (technology being the enabler) and it is easy to see why people confuse them. By the way, HDTV can be broadcast analog, but it's a pig on bandwidth. Japan did some analog HDTV many years ago, but I think that they would rather not be reminded. For many reasons, it was not a success.
Couldn't you digitize a NTSC signal as easily as a HDTV signal and pipe it through a digital tuner?
I think you mean to DTV. Sort of, but it's very complicated and expensive and I'm not sure why you would want to do this. When the original base band video was encoded to NTSC (or Pal or SECAM) that already disposed of some quality - the encoding is not lossles. Converting it to digital afterwards is like converting and mp3 to a wav. The quality has been lost already. If you want to get the best out of NTSC on your video screen , you want a quality tuner/decoder that outputs RGB (or YUV) and then input it into a high quality RGB or YUV television monitor (not pc monitor!). Or just use your analog TV for analog signals.
DishNet and DirecTV already use digital signals to broadcast NTSC-quality stuff to US televisions, and cable companies aren't using any of the airwaves (they use cable). Also, cable companies are selling digital cable now to people with NTSC televisions (analog tuners).
I've forgotten the exact number, but something like 35% of the population of the US can not get cable (think rural). Also, cable companies get their 'cable network' feeds (CNN, Discovery, etc.) from satellite but get local stuff from broadcasters' terrestrial (over the air antenna) transmissions.
Cable and dish companies even force you to keep your TV on channel 3 anyway and use a converter, so why not just use a monitor, or the video/audio-in ports on your TV and bypass ALL tuners?.
You still need something to switch (select channel/feed) and decode the (analog or digital signals) to video. It can be a receiver, a VCR, a set-top box or (maybe someday) a network card with a built-in video encoder.
I don't see the big deal here.
Here it is: The consumer gets screwed by hidden taxation and the government makes billions. For more, please read my post here:.
E&OE :/}
What's the point? For the horrendous crap that's on TV now, a decent analog set and a decent signal are all you need. Everything else is a waste of money.
This might explain why I only think of WMA as being good enough for recording the sounds that I hear while sitting my "chamber" on my "throne".
(no offence to those sounds intended).
They're probably using Windows and thier server ran out of disk space for the swap files.
Plunder a company, Go to Bank.