HDTV Terms

Definitive definitions

The following glossary is to help the rest of us understand the techies when they start to talk. The alphabet soup can make you feel like you just entered a government building, but don't worry; once you read a little, it all starts to make sense.

ATSC

This is the Advanced Television Standards Committee. These are the folks who came up with the HDTV standard, like the DMV of HDTV.

Digital audio output

This is the way the digital audio is taken from your TV to your Dolby Digital processor or your receiver.

DLP  (Digital Light Processing)

DLP HDTV is a projection technology that employs thousands of tiny swiveling mirrors that create a television image. DLP is used in projection television systems.

The two types of DLP HDTV are single-chip projectors that team the chip with a spinning color wheel. The other type is the more expensive 3-chip projector, which uses a chip for each of the primary colors of light (red, green, and blue.)

DTV (Digital Television)

DTV is the new standard for American Television. It comes in two distinct styles: HDTV or High-Definition Television, and SDTV, which means, you guessed it: Standard-Definition TV, which is of middling quality.
 

DVI (Digital Visual Interface)

This is the new way to hook up an HDTV antenna, DVD, cable and HDTV satellite receiver to some of the best HDTV systems. Kind of like a computer monitor cable. If you had a Dish Network HDTV receiver or DirectTV HDTV, this new style of cable and multi-pin socket is how you would hook them up.

HDTV-ready

This term simply means that the TV is able to receive and display High Definition Television.

LCD (Liquid Crystal Display) HDTV

LCD HDTV technology is just a high-tech set of very tiny window shades. The liquid crystal is sandwiched in glass in front of a light bulb. When electricity flows through the liquid solution, it becomes opaque and blocks light. The patterns that result make the picture, like the Light Bright you had when you were a kid.

Plasma HDTV

These are tiny little bulbs that work like neon lights. The gas in each is electrically charged and the colored lights form the picture.

Progressive scan

This is the new way in which a picture is formed in HDTV. As opposed to the old way, which is referred to as interlaced, progressive scan forms the entire picture in a sweep from top to bottom or vice versa. Interlaced TVs, our old TVs, form a picture by illuminating every other line in one sweep, thus the picture was only half as dense as possible.

Resolution

This refers to the quality of the picture as expressed in the number of lines used to form a picture. The more lines, the better. SDTV uses 480 and HDTV uses between 720 and 1080.

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