Television has changed a lot since the first TV sets were brought into homes in the early 1900s. On this episode of "Tech Talk," we look at the latest television technologies: high definition and digital TV.
Guests
Colin McFadden
Colin McFadden
Colin has worked for the College of Liberal Arts TV Studios at the University of Minnesota for the last six years, helping students learn video production. He follows emerging trends in video technology, with a particular focus on the ways in which user interaction can be made easier and more understandable.
Bruce Jacobs
Bruce Jacobs
Bruce is the chief technologist with Twin Cities Public Television. He helped develop the financial model for public television's digital conversion. He led the first national simultaneous demonstration of the four DTV image formats.
Links
dtv.gov is the official site for information about the digital TV deployment in the U.S.
Wikipedia has plenty of information about the history of broadcasting and the technology behind DTV: search for "digital tv."
hdtvtwincities.com has all sorts of info on high-definiton in general and how it's being used locally.
Pixels
The small dots that when put together make a digital image.
HDTV
The abbreviation for High Definition Television. There is no officially recognized definition for HDTV, but it is generally agreed upon that HDTV has twice the resolution (vertically and horizontally) than standard definition.
Digital Tuner
A decoder that can receive digital broadcasts for display on an analog television set.
Signal Chain
The path that the signal takes in getting from the television studio to your TV at home—encoders, decoders, transmitters, receivers, etc.