What Is HDTV? > Overview
High-Definition Television, or HDTV, is the highest form of digital television (DTV). We're in the midst of a national transition to this new form of televised home entertainment - and for good reason. In the 1980s, at the urging of broadcasters, the Federal Communications Commission began to explore ways in which to transition from fuzzy old analog TV to crystal clear HDTV. In the '90s, led by pioneering technology developments at U.S. companies (including LG's Zenith Subsidiary), and due to the many efficiencies of digital, the FCC decided to take the 50-year-old television system from analog to digital.
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- High-Definition TVs can be standard shaped direct-view tubes, LCDs, Plasma monitors, rear-projection units or front Projection systems that require separate screens. High Definition refers to resolution (the horizontal lines that can be displayed on the screen), not the screen technology upon which the TV is based
- Virtually all TV stations are now broadcasting digitally, and analog broadcasts are expected to end in early 2009. Manufacturers and service providers will manufacture reasonably priced converters to down-convert digital signals to analog, so that your current analog TV will continue to receive over-the-air signals when analog ends. But when you upgrade your TV to a DTV, you will get all the great benefits of digital broadcasts, theater sound and additional future digital services.
- Digital Cable is generally not HDTV. This is a common misconception. Digital Cable is usually analog grade TV that is digitized and sent over the cable as a digital signal. The video and picture quality may be superior to standard analog cable, but is much lower than High-Definition. That being said, some cable systems also offer several HDTV channels that you can receive, some times directly with any DTV receiver, or with a special set-top box or CableCARD® (CableCARD is a technology built in a TV so that you can access scrambled and subscription programming without the dreaded cable box) provided by the cable operator.
- There are already lots of HDTV programs available: movies to documentaries, and sports to sitcoms. Programming is available from local broadcasters, cable providers, and satellite providers. There is currently at least 200 hours of HDTV available per week, including 70 hours of free, over-the-air programming from the major networks, and new HDTV programming is being added all the time.
