Digital Television Page

	Digital Television

Digital Television

Digital television is one of the more confusing topics discussed in Broadband Entertainment. Digital television usually refers to the over-the-air broadcasts that are transmitted according to the Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC) in 1998. Digital Television is technically Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT).

Digital television (DTV) is expensive in America. To receive the high-quality picture in your home, you need a DTV tuner. DTV tuners cost about $200 right now. The price is dropping though and you can buy one that fits into your computer for about $200.

Any DTV tuner will decode HDTV, EDTV and SDTV. The FCC requires that DTV tuners decode any of the 18 ATSC signals. Here's the 18 different television standards that your DTV tuner should decode:

Video Format	Spatial Resolution	Aspect Ratio	Frames per second	MegaPixels per second
SDTV 24p	640x480	4:3	24	7.4
SDTV 30p	640x480	4:3	30	9.2
SDTV 60i	640x480	4:3	30	9.2
SDTV 60p	640x480	4:3	60	18.4
EDTV 24p	640x480	4:3	24	8.1
EDTV 30p	704x480	4:3	30	10.1
EDTV 60i	704x480	4:3	30	10.1
EDTV 60p	704x480	4:3	60	20.3
EDTV 24p 16:9	704x480	16:9	24	8.1
EDTV 30p 16:9	704x480	16:9	30	10.1
EDTV 60i 16:9	704x480	16:9	30	10.1
EDTV 60p 16:9	704x480	16:9	60	20.3
HDTV 720 24p	1280x720	16:9	24	22.1
HDTV 720 30p	1280x720	16:9	30	27.6
HDTV 720 60p (720p)	1280x720	16:9	60	55.3
HDTV 1080 24p	1920x1080	16:9	24	49.8
HDTV 1080 30p (1080p)	1920x1080	16:9	30	62.2
HDTV 1080 60i (1080i)	1920x1080	16:9	30	62.2

The bolded numbers are the most common format, but television companies should be able to broadcast any of these formats and your DTV tuner should decode them.

TV
DTV
CDTV
SDTV
EDTV
HDTV - Spatial Resolution - Temporal Resolution - Aspect Ratio
Video Quality
Television is a very complex topic. If you would like to add some comments, corrections or additional topics, please e-mail info@broadent.com.