A Primer on the New Television

Abstract

I DON'T LIKE being confused, so I set out to get unconfused about HDTV (high-definition television), liquid crystal displays (LCD), and plasma television sets. It took me several hours to glean the information for this column, and I pass it along in the hope that it will save readers some time. If you are happy with your old TV and have not been in a consumer electronics store lately, then all is well, and my advice is, don't go. I recently had the opportunity to attend the large audio/video convention called InfoComm. InfoComm showcases all the new gear -- a lot of which is supersized. The new televisions at InfoComm were so stunning that I thought I could reach into the picture and touch things. Even if you are not in the market for one of these splendid new televisions, I recommend you clip and save this column for when you are. In the meantime, stay out of the store! For over 50 years, the U.S. television standard has been the National Television System Commission or NTSC. NTSC television at best has approximately 480 horizontal lines of resolution and stereo audio. Videocassette tapes have about half of this resolution. To accommodate relatively slow frame rates (30 frames per second), NTSC television signals are interlaced. An interlaced signal consists of two fields, the odd-numbered lines and the even-numbered lines, which are displayed sequentially in 1/60th of a second each. This is too fast for the human eye to notice. Sorry about the jargon. Just remember 480i. There are a number of new HDTV standards, but by far the most common are 720p and 1080i. The numbers indicate the number of vertical pixels. The p stands for progressive scan, which means the frame or image is drawn all at once. Both these new standards offer about four times the resolution of the older 480i. Of course, 1080 is not four times 480, but remember we are dealing with improvement in both the vertical and horizontal resolution. It is desirable to purchase an HDTV that can display all three resolutions mentioned here. The NTSC or 480i screen was nearly square (an aspect ratio of 4:3). Most HDTVs are wide screens that look more like a movie screen (an aspect ratio of 16:9). The future of television is wide screen; the HDTV specification is wide screen. How soon you should buy a wide screen, however, is a tough decision. If you watch a lot of movies, then a wide screen makes sense. If you watch a wide-screen movie on a regular 4:3 television, you see what is called boxing. There is a black bar at the top and bottom of the picture. Conversely, if you have a wide-screen television and watch regular programming designed for a 4:3 screen, the black bars are at the side of the screen. Personally, I think letter boxing is the less desirable of the two options, but it's a matter of taste. Some new televisions will let you stretch the picture one way or another to fill the screen, but it sure makes people look funny. I should mention that DVDs cannot give you an HDTV-quality picture. The picture is good, and it looks really good on an HDTV television. But it is not quite up to HDTV quality. For a true HDTV picture, you have three practical options: a HDTV antenna, a satellite receiver, or a cable company that is distributing HDTV programming. All major television networks except Fox now offer some of their programming in HDTV. How much HDTV programming you can actually get depends on your location, your particular cable company, and so on. You will need to do a little research to learn just how much HDTV programming is available to you. Both satellite and cable television providers offer digital video, but video is not the same as HDTV. All HDTV is digital, but the opposite is not true. The variety of different technologies used in today's televisions is bewildering. The list includes the familiar CRT or tube-type television, which is now sometimes called direct view; front- and rear- screen-projection television; LCD; and plasma flat panels. …