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You have probably heard of HDTV but you may be confused by all of the new terminology.

The maximum resolution on a standard analog TV is 720 X 480 pixels, which is about 337,000 total pixels. HDTV is part of the Digital TV specifications which has many different video resolutions. The two main resolutions to be concerned about are 720p and 1080i. The “p” means progressive and “i” mean interlaced, in both resolutions every second has 60 frames of video.

Progressive resolution puts 60 full frames on the screen every second. Interlaced resolution puts 30 frames of only odd lines and then 30 frames of only even lines up every second. Some people find that the interlaced video causes flickering.

The 720p video resolution is 1280 X 720 pixels, which gives 921,600 total pixels and the 1080i video resolution is 1920 X 1080, which gives a huge 2,073,000 pixels.

It is personal choice as to which resolution you prefer, the best way of finding out is to go down to your local retailer and look for yourself.

The sound on HDTV will sound better than it did on your analog tv, some HDTV programs include Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound, but you will need the relevant speakers to be able to take advantage of this.

You will have to buy a new HDTV. Some HDTVs come with built-in tuners, while others do not. The tuner converts the signal into something that your TV can recognize. HDTVs that do not come with a tuner are commonly called “HDTV Ready.” An HDTV without a tuner is worthless.

It is possible to view HDTV on your pc, you can do this with ATi HDTV Wonder, it comes with its own antenna to pick up airborne HDTV signals, it also has inputs for cable and satellite signals. A benefit of this is that you can play and record any show you want on your computer.

Find more information at .whathdtv.info

High-definition television (HDTV) became popular at the end of the 1900’s. They were in essence super TV’s boasting digital surround sound, hi-tech resolution, widescreen-compatible for old-time movie formats. But amid the different types that have popped up, there can be confusion for consumers, so let’s take a look at what’s out there today.

Analog

An analog television receives signals via satellite, over the air or through a cable; whereas older (standard) televisions accepted signals from radio waves transformed into sounds and screen images.

Digital

Digital television (DTV) converts signals for DVD players to analog. However, limited pixels limit resolution for viewers, affecting quality imaging on the television screen.

Reportedly U.S. broadcasts are moving in the direction of DTV transmission, transmitting video and sound data zeros and ones over wave transmissions, basically using the UHF spectrum over the air with a 6 MHz bandwidth, similar to analog transmitting.

Features and benefits of DTV include:

• Better quality image.

• Better resolution with big screen TVs

• Better video graphic imaging.

• Multicasting.

• Interactive content can be transmitted.

• High-definition (HDTV) compatibility.

Bad news: older standard analog televisions cannot show DTV productions. So you may still need two TVs at this time, depending upon cable and how late you stay up and want good content, etc.

HD

HDTV is part of DTV. It carries the highest standards for DTV, as set forth by the Advanced Television Standards Committee (ATSC) for digital television.

Of the18 digital broadcast formats for video, the top tier for HDTV needs to reflect the following over analog and other lower standards with respect to:

Aspect ratio - HDTV must have a 16:9 aspect ratio; standard TV only needs a 4:3.

Resolution - HDTV needs high resolution, like up to 1920 x 1080 pixels; standard TV only needs 704 x 480 pixels.

Frame rate &ndash HDTV needs the highest frame rate (like screen speed), at least 60 frames per second. Standard TV is under 24.

The mains things to note with high-definition visual and sound are twofold. Number one, the television station needs to be transmitting high-definition signals. Without that much, no need to continue. And number two, you need to have the right television equipment to receive and view the high-definition transmissions.

So get informed and check out your systems and equipment! It’ll make upgrading to HDTV that much easier &ndash and enjoyable for your family.

When it comes to choosing a new television, consumers have never had more options than they have today. There are a wide range of technologies available, and it is important to know some of the specific sorts of decisions that you will have to make when choosing a HD television. The choices that consumers have for High Definition television will be impacted by many different factors. Obviously budget and personal preferences play the largest rolls when determining which sort of HD television is most pleasing to their particular taste.

The first thing to be aware of when it comes to High Definition television choices is the different methods that the television uses to place the image on the screen. First of all, there are CRT televisions. CRT stands for Cathode Ray Tube. This is the type of TV that we have been using since the early days of televisions. These televisions typically will not be any larger than around 40 inches. After CRT televisions, there are rear projection televisions. Rear projection televisions have, in the past, been based on CRT technology. In recent years they have started to use other technologies such as LCD. Rear projection televisions are usually in the 40 to 70 inch range. There are also front projector televisions, but these tend to be rather expensive, and require a specific sort of screen to use. They are most often found in office uses.

Flat panel televisions are the newest sort of High Definition televisions. There are two basic types of flat panel televisions: plasma and LCD. Plasma HD televisions work in a similar way to the fluorescent light bulb. A plasma television uses gas, sealed in plasma, inside of the cells on the screen. The gas is charged by the picture signal, causing the gas to change to red, green, or blue. All of these tiny cells, changing in concert, form the picture. LCD televisions use liquid crystals, rather than gas sealed in plasma. These crystals either pass or block certain colors of light, which then creates images on the HD television screen.

There are some differences between plasma and LCD HD televisions that you need to think about when considering your High Definition television choices. Plasma televisions are available in larger screen sizes, and they have better motion tracking and color accuracy. On the other hand, plasma televisions generate more heat than other HD televisions. High Definition LCD televisions run cooler than plasma. They also run brighter than Plasma televisions. LCD televisions tend to have a longer life, as well.

Over the last few years, the price on all high definition televisions have been reducing in price. The increase in technology brings in more competition. This competition is not only helping more families obtain a better quality in their entertainment, it is driving the broadcasting providers to focus on their HD options. The leaders of the pack, DIRECTV, is offering its customers the most channels available in HD at the moment with many more on the way. Dish Network, although struggling to keep up, is still outperforming the cable providers.

High definition television sets are becoming a sort of a television standard in many places, and it is probably going to a take a few more years but HDTV is definitely on its way to becoming an industry standard. If you are on the market and looking for a new television you should consider getting an HDTV that will fit your needs in the near future, as well as for the things that you currently have on the television market.

It is natural for us to be initially attracted to the big names in the industry, the brand name does its thing and most of us a captured in a loop that is going around buying one of the big name HDTV sets, this does have some logic behind it, since big companies usually have outstanding customer service and the warranty and guarantees that they provide are, most of time, excellent. You will also find that big names cost big money, and that you can always cut costs of electronic equipment by going to the lesser known company, or a “no name” company, but in this case of looking for a high definition television set you will need to think about your choices carefully, simply because this technology is not yet available on the really mass manufactured level.

There are a few things that could make your decision making process a little more structured, you will need to give up your impulsive feeling and the rush to buy kind of attitude if you want to make this purchase a reasonable one, and many think that this is a way to save a lot of money, and avoid many mistakes.

So when you start looking for a HDTV think about a few shops that you can visit and see some of the HDTV models, think about places that have those TV’s on display and that they are plugged into cable or satellite television so you can actually see how the HDTV looks like while a real HDTV show is on. In any place that you will look for HDTV you will need to take a few minutes and simply watch the screen, so be prepared to politely ask the sales people to give you some space, and let you just watch the TV does it own thing.

There is no real need for all the technical mambo jumbo that usually less then ten percent of the shoppers actually understand, and there is even less need for you to ask the person telling you about the technical details what does he mean, since you can always go back home, log into the internet and find the real answer from someone who is less biased about your next purchase.

While you watch the TV you can ask if the shop has any DVD’s that you can see, since this is almost surely the highest quality available and a very good way to see the ultimate output of the television set, if you are thinking about a few models and the shop has those on the floor, ask to watch the same DVD in all the models you are interested in. Remember that these shops are designed for television sets to look as good as possible, so this will not be the case in your living room, but if all things are equal you will stand a good chance of seeing with your own eyes which HDTV you like best.

Digital Light Processing can be considered as the pinnacle in science and technology that has focused its resources on the gigantic possibilities in improving digital entertainment. You may wonder, what is Digital Light Processing, and how it will help, or better yet, change digital entertainment. Here’s a sneak peak on the what’s and how’s of Digital Light Processing.

Digital Light Processing was originally developed in 1987 by Texas Instruments scientist, Larry Hornbeck. Hornbeck had been trying experiments on how to manipulate reflected light since 1977, and developed the Digital Micromirror Device. Five years after Hornbeck’s development of the Digital Micromirror Device, Texas Institute started to explore the commercial possibilities of Digital Micromirror Device. After a year of intensive development, TI named its new technology as Digital Light Processing or DLP for short. Their next step was making a separate group to further develop the commercial display applications of DLP. Their new group was aptly named, DLP Products division.

The prototype for the Digital Light Processors was seen for the first time in 1994. With the recognition of how promising the new technology could be, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences chose Digital Light Processing to project films on the Oscars. This was also the first time were the three-chip DLP technology was introduced to Hollywood.

The first ever release of DLP in public was in 1999, in the release of the George Lucas’ movie “Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace.” After DLP’s successful release, over two million DLP subsystems were shipped by December 2002.

The achievements of the Digital Light Processing products were also recognized when it was awarded with two Emmy awards. One was for broadcast excellence in 1998 and on 2003 for technology and engineering.

How does DLP, or Digital Light Processing work? DLP is basically a nanotechnological transformation of the basic survival technique of using a mirror to signal for help. You may wonder how such an advanced system could be compared to something so basic. Let me explain. The concept on both applications is the same, by shining a controlled series of light flashes on a target you are able to send out a message. The mirror on DLP’s case is a part of an optical semiconductor which is the DMD also known as a Digital Micromirror Device. The DMD chip contains not only 1 but millions of microscopic mirrors each having the size of 16 micrometers or less than five times smaller than a human hair.

The DMD chip works by translating graphic signals into a corresponding mirror. By adding a projection lens and a light source, the mirrors are able to reflect any image on any available surface. The mirrors create light or dark images when they are tilted from a light source. This is accomplished by tilting two tiny hinges attached to each mirror.

With the advantage of smooth jitter free images, no burn-in effect experienced from plasma televisions, good color depth and contrast, and being smaller, thinner and lighter than the CTR-based options, Digital Light Processing is rapidly becoming a major player in the rear projection television market. Although Texas Institute remains the sole developer of this technology, many companies that have seen the capabilities and the promise of DLP have secured licenses with Texas Institute to market products that are based and developed from the DMD chipset.

In an LCD TV or “transmissive” display, a light source shines through a panel of liquid crystals in order to display an image. A white diffusion panel behind the LCD redirects and scatters the light evenly to provide a more uniform image than most competing technologies.

The LCD face consists of two transparent layers which polarize a liquid crystal layer sandwiched in between. The front layer of glass is etched with a grid pattern on the inside surface to form a template for the liquid crystals. Liquid crystals are rod shaped molecules that bend light in response to an electric current; the crystals align so that no light can pass through. Each crystal acts like a camera’s shutter, either blocking light or allowing it to pass through. A pattern of transparent or dark crystals forms the image. This same technology has been around for awhile, even in such unsophisticated items as digital watches.

LCD TVs use an “active matrix” LCD; the most advanced type of LCD. The active matrix design is based on TFT, or thin film transistors. These are tiny switching transistors and capacitors that are arranged in a matrix on a glass substrate, they switch the LCD pixels on and off. In a color TV’s LCD, each color pixel is created by three sub-pixels with red, green, and blue color filters.

One of the biggest challenges for LCD TV manufacturers has been speeding up the pixel response time, (how fast an individual pixel’s color can change without blurring) so that fast moving images don’t exhibit motion lag or “ghosting”. This is especially critical for larger-screen LCD TVs, or for LCD TVs on which much of the viewing will be HDTV, or DVD movies.

An important difference between LCD technology and Plasma is that an LCD screen doesn’t have a coating of phosphor dots; LCD TVs color is created through the use of filters. This keeps image burn-in from being a problem— which is good news in-particular for people who might use a video gaming system or PC on their TV. Another benefit of owning an LCD TV is the energy efficiency of this technology. LCD TVs typically consume 60% lees power than comparably sized tube-type, direct-view TVs.

In most ways that really matter there isn’t much difference between LCD TVs and Plasma TVs. Both of these highly popular types of flat panel TVs are thin enough to be placed virtually anywhere, and both produce images that are startlingly clear, sharp, and bright. The most notable difference is screen size. The majority of LCD TVs have a screen size measuring 30 inches and smaller. Plasma TVs are, for the most part, uninhibited by measurement restrictions.

Basically, LCD and Plasma TVs are different approaches to the same result because the both create superior images using radically different technology.