Since the transition to color TV in the 1950s and ’60s, nothing - nothing!! - has had as much impact on the TV world as HDTV (high-definition TV) and digital TV. That’s right, TV is going digital, following in the footsteps of, well, everything. We’re in the early days of this transition - a lot of TV programming is still all-analog, for example - and this stage of the game can be confusing. In this article, we alleviate HDTV anxiety by telling you what you need to know about HDTV, ATSC, DTV, and a bunch of other acronyms and tech terms. We also tell you why you’d want to know these terms and concepts - how great HDTV is, and what an improvement it is over today’s analog TV (as you’ll see when you tune in to HDTV). Finally, we guide you through the confusing back alleys of HDTV and digital TV - making sure you know what’s HDTV and what’s not. Oh, Say, Can You ATSC?

A long time ago (over 50 years ago - longer than even Danny has been alive!), in a galaxy far, far . . . errr, actually right here in the U.S. . . . a group called the NTSC (National Television System Committee) put together a group of technical specifications and standards that define television as we know it today. Sure, there have been some changes in those 50 years (such as the addition of color), but today’s analog TVs are built on this NTSC system. Fifty years is a long time for any technology to dominate. Indeed, technologies and components used in television-transmission systems, cameras, recording systems, and display systems (the TVs themselves) have long been capable of doing something more. In the 1980s, the ATSC (Advanced Television System Committee) was formed to move TV forward.

Many years later (1996), the ATSC’s recommendations for a digital-television system were adopted by the FCC (Federal Communications Commission - the folks who set standards for TV broadcasts, regulate phone companies, and fine Howard Stern). ATSC standards use newer-than-1953 technology to give you TV like you’ve never had before: -  Widescreen images like those in the movies -  Greater detail - up to six times more detail -  Sharper images -  Smoother, more filmlike images with no video flicker -  All digital, with none of the “ghosts” and other image problems found in analog TV Powerful Performance HDTV (and digital TV, DTV, in general - there are some digital TV variants that are not high-definition, and we discuss them in this section) is all about giving you a bigger and better picture, better audio, and generally making your TV-watching experience more like a movie-watching experience. In fact, at its best, HDTV is so realistic that it’s often described as “looking through a window” - as if you’re really there, not just watching a program. Video standards There are three essential concepts to understand when you are comparing different video standards:

-  Resolution: the number of individual picture elements that make up a TV image. The higher the resolution, the more detailed the image, and the sharper the image will appear. Resolution is defined by one of two factors:

• Lines (the number of left-to-right lines the TV can display). CRT-based TVs (tube TVs) are rated this way.

• Pixels (the number of pixels across the screen times the number up and down). Fixed-pixel displays (plasmas, LCDs, DLPs and the like) are rated this way. 

-  Scan Type comes in two forms:

• Interlaced scan: These TV images are created by lighting up every other row of horizontal lines on the screen in one instant, and then going back through and lighting up the remainder of the lines in the next instant. It happens so fast that your eye can’t really tell it’s happening.

• Progressive scan: These systems light all the horizontal lines in the same instant, which can make the image seem “smoother” and more like film (or real life).

-  Aspect Ratio (the shape of your TV picture):

• Traditional TVs have a 4:3 aspect ratio (screen shape). This means that for every 4 units of measure across the screen, you have 3 units of screen height. For example, if the screen is 12 inches wide, it will be 9 inches high.

• HDTVs have a 16:9 aspect ratio - which makes the screen relatively much wider for the same height, compared to a 4:3 TV. Most movies are widescreen (16:9, or even wider), so HDTVs can display most movies without the annoying “letterbox” black bars on the top and bottom of the screen. We don’t get bogged down in up-front technical explanations of these concepts. If you want to know all there is to know about such TV concepts as resolution, pixels, and interlacing, run (don’t walk) to Article 21 right now. We’ll still be here when you come back. HDTV standards There isn’t a single “HDTV” standard out there. Instead, ATSC contains many different TV standards (with different resolutions, aspect ratios, and scan types) - 18, in fact. Some of these standards are truly HDTV; most are not. In the real world, you will deal with four standards when you try to watch TV content on your HDTV. The two primary HDTV standards are these:

-  720p: This provides 720 lines of resolution with progressive scan (hence the p). By comparison, NTSC has less than 480 lines of resolution. 720p uses a 16:9, a widescreen aspect ratio.

-  1080i: This variant (the highest resolution within the ATSC standard) uses interlaced scanning, but provides 1080 lines of resolution. 1080i is also widescreen, with a 16:9 aspect ratio. There is actually a higher HDTV variant in the ATSC standard - 1080p, which is a progressive scan variant of 1080i. Only a few HDTV projectors (in the $40,000 and above price range) can handle this variant, and we know of no material that is broadcast or otherwise available as 1080p. So don’t worry about it. True HDTV performance requires at least 720p performance. If a TV program, movie, or other content is not at least 720p (either 720p or 1080i), it is not HDTV. If a TV can’t display at least 720 lines of resolution, it is not HDTV-capable. If a salesperson tries to tell you that an inexpensive plasma set, regular DVD, regular digital cable, or regular satellite TV “is” HDTV just because it’s digital, it’s not so. Compatible DTV standards 720p and 1080i are the two HDTV standards, but you’ll also find a lot of digital TV material will be broadcast at lower resolutions that don’t quite make the grade as HDTV. You can still watch this programming on your HDTV - in fact, most HDTVs will make this programming look better than it does on a regular TV - but remember: That stuff is not really HDTV.

-  480p (EDTV): This enhanced-definition TV standard provides higher-than-NTSC resolution, with progressive scan (NTSC is interlaced). EDTV can be (and often is) 16:9 widescreen, but it is not required to be widescreen.

-  480i (SDTV): This is interlaced, non-widescreen (4:3), standarddefinition TV, equivalent to NTSC analog broadcasts. Remember these different terms - HDTV, EDTV, and SDTV - when shopping. They will often be in the product descriptions; you need to know exactly what you are buying. Audio standards The ATSC standard includes big improvements in the audio part of television - what you hear as part of any movie, video, or TV show. That’s because ATSC includes Dolby Digital surround sound capability in the overall standard for digital TV. Dolby Digital (which we discuss in greater detail in Article 18) doesn’t always mean surround sound. Some Dolby Digital soundtracks are stereo (two channels) or even mono (one channel). ATSC supports surround sound if a program’s producer and broadcaster want to include it. The NTSC broadcast standard supports only stereo audio (two channels) and not surround sound. Luckily, most DVDs (and some satellite and digital cable TV channels) include Dolby Digital soundtracks that can provide true surround sound. You can also use a home-theater receiver that supports systems like Dolby Pro Logic II (see Article 18) to create surround sound from these sources. Dolby Digital, and surround sound in general, provides an audio soundtrack for TV shows and movies that - wait for it! - surrounds you and provides audio that matches the action on-screen. For example, surround sound might use speakers mounted in the rear of the room to reproduce ambient noises of the setting around the action, or give a 3D sense of space to those creepy footfalls of the bad guy sneaking up behind the protagonist. Dolby Digital provides six channels (confusingly called 5.1) of audio. Here’s what they do: -  A center channel carries the dialogue being spoken by characters on your HDTV screen.

-  Two main front channels handle left and right sound cues (and the soundtrack music) in stereo. -  Two surround channels (mounted in the rear of the room, as described earlier) provide a sense of 3D space. -  A Low-Frequency Effects (LFE) channel conveys deep bass sounds (such as exhausts rumbling and bombs exploding). The LFE channel is the “.1” in the 5.1 naming scheme for Dolby Digital. It doesn’t get a whole number because it contains only low-frequency sounds, not the full range of human hearing. Perplexing Pitfalls HDTV isn’t the easiest thing in the world to get figured out - we’ve been dealing with it for years and still run into advertising and marketing mumbo-jumbo that make us say, “Huh???” The whole purpose of HDTV For Dummies is to help you wade through the marketing manure and to get you up to speed on HDTV. So without further ado, here’s a list of HDTV danger zones:

-  Digital confusion: The biggest (and most prevalent) myth we see in the HDTV world is the notion that any kind of digital TV signal (such as digital cable, digital satellite, or DVD) is HDTV. This simply isn’t true - a TV signal must be 720p resolution or higher to be considered high-definition.

-  EDTV confusion: EDTVs are TVs (typically plasma flat-panel models) that cost a lot and can display progressive-scan images - but don’t meet the minimum requirement of 720p, so they don’t display true HDTV signals. There’s nothing wrong with EDTVs, just don’t be fooled into thinking you’re getting an HDTV when you’re not.

-  Image scaling: We’re starting to see some new marketing being applied to an old concept - image scalers that can convert video signals from one resolution to another. These devices are now being marketed as “HDTV upscalers” (yeah right), with a promise that they make any TV signal into HDTV. Don’t believe it. Image scalers can improve SDTV and NTSC images with an HDTV, but they don’t make those images into HDTV images.

-  The DTV tuner: As HDTV (and DTV in general) becomes more prevalent, DTV tuners will become common. These tuners (discussed in Article 8) let older TVs “watch” DTV broadcasts. DTV tuners do not turn older analog TVs into HDTVs. They just convert DTV signals to NTSC for display on an analog TV. Shopping Smart We’ve all been there - you’re standing in the electronics store looking at a wall of TVs, all tuned to the same channel, and they all pretty much look the same. So many TV sets, so little time, so hard to choose. So you pick the one on sale and leave, happy that you got “a deal.” Been there, done that. But no more. Now we’re more educated. We KNOW that those TV sets are all misconfigured to appear a certain way in the bright lights of an electronics show floor. We know to check how many digital interfaces the box has, and how deep the chassis is, and how . . . well, lots of “hows.” Choosing the right HDTV for you is not the easiest thing to do. Heck, we wrote the article on it and we still argue with each other about which HDTVs have the best bang for the buck. It’s going to depend on what you are trying to do, how much money you have, and what other A/V gear you have or intend to buy. In this article, we’re going to walk you through a veritable Buyer’s Guide to HDTVs - what to look for when shopping for just the right HDTV set for you. You can have too much HDTV (believe it or not) and the wrong type of TV for your intended use.

Before you plunk down a lot of money on your well-earned HDTV surprise, make sure you’re the best- informed buyer out there. Read on. The 50,000-Foot View of HDTV When you’re trying to pick out the right HDTV for your needs, the available products break down into three major product groups, distinguished from each other by their display technology and cabinet type. By comparing display technology and cabinet type to your needs, you can easily rule out a whole bunch of different TVs, and home in on the likely best ones for you. HDTVs come in all sorts of different sizes and shapes. Some are flat-panels that you can hang on the wall; others are projection systems much like what you’d find in a movie theater. And, of course, there are HDTVs based on tubes that look just the way TVs have for decades (only with a better picture). Each form of HDTV has some advantages and disadvantages. In Articles 21 through 24, we discuss these pros and cons in much more detail - here we want to give you just a quick overview to help you on your way. Skip ahead if you need the details and supporting information. Flat-panel HDTVs Flat-panel TVs - the super-thin models that you can literally hang on the wall - are the sexiest HDTVs available. These are the ones you see on MTV Cribs and that you might install in your tricked-out Escalade (yeah right). They’re also good HDTVs. There are two main display technologies for flat-panel HDTVs:

-  Plasma: These are the biggest flat-screens available, using a layer of gas trapped between two glass screens to create their images.

• Pros: thin, sexy, good picture, good color

• Cons: not all are HDTV, less-than-perfect black, screen burn-in, costly You’ll see us mention “blacks” here. We’re talking about how well an HDTV screen can reproduce dark tones and scenes on-screen - how well it creates black rather than gray colors.

-  LCD: These flat-panel TVs use liquid crystal displays, just like those used in laptop computers.

• Pros: same as plasma, plus no burn-in

• Cons: black is poorest, costly, angle of view Projection HDTVs These are the TVs that project their picture from a smaller image source (either three small picture tubes, or a digital system known as a microprojector) onto a screen. The screen can be either part of the HDTV itself (rear projection) or a separate screen hung on your wall (front projection).

-  Front-Projection HDTVs: These are the HDTV equivalents to movie theater projectors, with a big screen on the wall, and a separate projector mounted somewhere across the room.

• Pros: biggest screen, potentially best picture

• Con: expensive, complicated, requires setup/focus/ maintenance

-  Rear projection HDTVs: The picture is projected on the back of a screen that is built into the HDTV itself.

• Pros: best bargain, no burn-in with microprojectors, near flat-panel thinness for microprojector

• Cons: burn-in for CRT, expense for microprojector, size for CRT CRT HDTVs The final category of HDTVs is based on the good old-fashioned picture tube - also known as the CRT, or cathode-ray tube.

-  Pros: cheapest, great color, great blacks

-  Cons: smallest screen, bulky, lower resolution than digital displays What’s Important in an HDTV When looking at HDTVs, we think the following are the most important buying criteria for your purchase:

-  What’s your budget? We don’t mean just for the TV set, but also for any attached home theater surround-sound system, special remote controls, automated drapes, lighting controls, popcorn poppers, and the like. It makes a big difference if you are building a home HDTV theater, or just putting a TV on the bureau in the bedroom.

-  What size do you need? No, bigger is not always better. You can have a TV that’s too large for your space, or too small for your usage. There is an optimal range based on where you intend to place the TV and where you intend to sit. These first two items - size and budget - will do a lot to narrow your choices before you get to any of the technical or usage criteria, so they are important to nail down first. If you want to fill an 8-foot wall with an image, unless you have a bank account the size of Bill Gates’s, you’re not going to do that with anything but a front-projection system.

-  What do you plan to do with it? Are you going to be watching a lot of sports events? Movies? Video games? Believe it or not, certain types of HDTVs are better with certain types of content. Sports fanatics will find a big, bright DLP projection system better for their tastes, everything else being equal, while people who watch CNN all day long will want to avoid plasma-screen displays in a big way, due to the burn-in effects of static images (more on this later).

-  What will you hook up to it? If you already have a decent investment in A/V gear, then that gear might dictate certain types (and numbers!) of interfaces or ports on your HDTV system, like these:

• If you have an entertainment system designed around centralized video switching - using a receiver to switch among video sources and destinations - then you’re going to need a receiver that can switch HDTV content. That might mean a new receiver, which can be pricey and cut into your budget.

• Do you need a tuner or just an HDTV-ready display - meaning you’ll get your HDTV tuner from your cable or satellite company?

-  What neat features do you want? It’s easy to be swayed by neat features, but in lots of implementations, you can’t access them for various reasons. For instance, if you set up your system so all your signals come in over one cable connection, you might not be able to use your TV’s dual-channel features - you could rely on your cable or satellite box for that. (We talk about these issues in Article 4.) Still, features are important to all of us, and we’ll tell you in this article about which ones are the most important. Budgeting for HDTV If we all had unlimited funds, we’d simply buy the best of everything. That’s why there exists a market for super-high-end gear - those with the big bucks often just buy the top of the line all the time, because they can. (And because they hired consultants to tell them that.) Finding the Right Size We think it’s an outright crime that movie theaters can sell tickets for those rows up at the front of the cinema, where your head has to constantly move back and forth (like at a tennis match) to capture all the action. Likewise, the seats far away at the back are just as criminal. So apply that principle to your home HDTV viewing area. You can be too close to the image (or have the image too large), and you can be too far away (or have the image too small). You definitely know you are too close if you can see the individual pixels on the screen.

What you need is “Baby Bear’s Just Right” size. In general, experts determine the optimal size for your HDTV set by dividing the distance you are going to sit from the TV set by 2.5 (don’t ask us where they got that number, we haven’t a clue - we bet by trial and error - actually there’s a lot of science regarding such technically arcane items as the size of pixels and the average person’s visual acuity. You really don’t want to know!). Matching Your HD Needs You need to match how you intend to use the HDTV with the available technologies. While any HDTV type can be used for just about any TV viewing scenario you can think of, certain types of HDTV are better suited for particular uses. This is basically a technical issue - different types of HDTVs use different underlying technologies to create their pictures - which often match up better with some uses than with others. For instance, if you pack a lot of friends into a wide room to watch movies a lot, you may want to consider a plasma or direct-view CRT (a tube HDTV) display, instead of a CRT rear-projection TV or LCD flat-panel. That’s because plasma and direct-view CRTs have the best viewing angle (viewing from the sides). Connecting the Other Gizmos Your HDTV doesn’t live in a vacuum.