The World of DTV
What was so necessary about the DTV transition in the first place? DTV gives access to a wide variety of different and new services. With DTV, information is transferred in "data bits." The amount of space required to transmit these "data bits" is much smaller than what is required for analog television. Due to this, picture and sound quality are greatly improved with DTV.
DTV opens a wide range of choices for both broadcaster and consumer. Digital television channels make it possible for broadcasters to transmit high definition television (HDTV) over the air. Although HDTV uses about the same bandwidth as analog, HDTV transmits more than six times the information, leading to a huge improvement in sound and quality that you hear about with HDTV sets.
Also using the technology of DTV, broadcasters can choose to transmit several "standard definition" TV programs at the same time, rather than transmitting one program in HDTV. This is known as multicasting. This could lead to many breakthroughs in TV programming. One of the areas where this is notable is sports broadcasts, where networks have to choose which sports game to display in a given region, particularly where college sports are concerned. Imagine multiple TV channels for the same network, where you can flip between each of the college football games on a given Saturday. DTV makes that possible.
Even if you don't have a television that can receive DTV signals, set-top boxes are available that can switch digital signals to analog signals. With the set-top box, you are not able to get all the benefits of DTV but you can still watch TV on your analog television. To get the full quality of DTV or HDTV, you will need to get a DTV television set.
To find out more information about DTV, visit the FCC's DTV page.
