A lot of people wonder what is the difference between the analog and digital TV? The answer is the way the signal is transmitted. The signal of analog television resembles very much to radio signal transmission, with one difference: the video signal of analog television is AM and the audio is FM. There are many negative aspects of analog signals, and one of those is that there can be annoying interferences in bad weather, and signal quality depends very much on the location of the TV.
If this is not enough, certain bandwidths are assigned to analog TV channels, and this means the resolution and image quality are restricted. In the United States, the analog TV signal is NTSC. This standard had been adopted after the end of World War II, and it is a good system, but it was not engineered with color TV broadcasting in mind. Color implementation into the NTSC format is a weakness of this standard, and this is why many professionals call the NTSC standard “Never Twice The Same Color”.
Digital TV has quite a few advantages over analog signals. Digital signal is very much like computer data flow. There are two kinds of signal: 0, and 1, meaning “on” and “off”. The user sees the image or not. This is why in the digital era gradual signal loss and interference is unknown. And it doesn’t matter how far away the transmitter is.
Unlike analog TV, digital format has been designed to be able to take all the main factors of television signal into consideration: B/W, color and audio can be transmitted as interlaced or progressive signal. This means the signal content has greater integrity and flexibility.
Because digital TV signal is made out of “bits”, the same bandwidth one analog TV signal requires can transmit digital signal of much higher quality, and there will be even some extra space left. Broadcasters can use this space for extra video, audio or text signals.
Because of this, broadcasters can add a lot of extra features to their digital signals like surround sound, multiple language audio and text on the same bandwidth an analog TV signal requires. And there is one more difference to standard analog TV: digital television can transmit High Definition (HDTV) signal.
Unlike analog TV, digital technology is also able to broadcast programming in a true wide screen (16×9) format. This means the shape of the picture is very much like a movie screen, so the viewers can see a movie just as the director intended to be seen. Those who watch sports can see more action in one camera shot: it is possible to view the entire length of a football field without having the sensation that it is far away from the camera. The 16×9 format means there will be no more black bars on the top and the bottom of the wide screen image.
Digital transition in the United States took place on June 12, 2009. On this date all analog TV signals went dead, and every analog television became useless without an analog-to-digital converter. Originally the digital transition was scheduled to 2006, but authorities postponed it because they were afraid the consumers are not ready.
Edward is an electronics expert who writes plasma tv reviews. To read more sony hdtv reviews, visit HDTVReviewLab.com