Television and Radio |

If you’ve looked at television sets at any of the big electronics retailers in the United States lately, you know that digital TV, or DTV, is a big deal right now. Most stores have whole areas devoted to digital TV sets. You’re also hearing a lot about four other topics:

• HDTV and HDTV broadcasts
• Digital satellite services
• Digital cable
• DVDs and DVD players

Unless you are among the people in the United States who have purchased a DTV set, what you have in your living room is a normal analog TV that seems to be working just fine despite all the hype. ­ Most people, faced with this level of product proliferation, can only ask, “What the heck is going on here?!”

On June 12, 2009, television stations in the United States completed the transition from analog to digital broadcasting. Consumers receiving local television signals over analog antennas now must use converter boxes to receive programming on their TVs. This deadline was pushed back several times in the last few years because of both broadcasters’ and consumers’ inability to meet the FCC’s criteria for a successful transition to digital broadcasting.

The change was last scheduled to take place on Feb. 17, 2009, but was pushed back one final time to allow more people to purchase new TVs or converter boxes to allow them to make the transition. Some stations, however, switched to digital broadcasting in February 2009 anyhow because they’d already contracted time to broadcast on digital transmitters and staying analog would require a costly budgetary adjustment. Buy television with payday advance

For years, people have heard that watching a movie on a high-definition (HD) set is like looking out a window. The picture is sharper, clearer and more detailed than anything you’ll see on an older, standard-definition (SD) set. It’s supposed to be a revolution on par with the jump from black and white to color.

But after all that hype, the experience of watching a brand new HDTV can be a little anticlimactic. If you just plug it in and start watching, you might be disappointed with what you see. The picture might look pretty good but seem brighter or more unnatural than it did in the store. Or, it might be pixelated, distorted or fuzzy and not look good at all. Why does this happen? HDTVs are supposed to be better than old, analog TVs for two reasons:

• HDTVs can use digital signals made of ones and zeros rather than analog signals made of fluctuating waves. Digital signals aren’t prone to static, interference or ghost images like analog signals are. They do a better job of carrying the information that makes up the picture.
• HDTVs have a higher resolution than analog sets. They can display images with far more detail than traditional TVs can.

Fortunately, it’s easy to get better performance from your HDTV. All it takes is a few minutes to configure everything correctly and a little knowledge about what kinds of programs will look best.