Digital TV??

What exactly is digital TV? I just saw a blurb on TV saying that as of February 2009 my TV may not be able to see alot of the shows that are on in the United States (I live in Canada) because they are going digital. Is that like hi-definition? I'm confused. Thanks

Digital TV??
Digital TV basically means TV that is not sent via an analog signal. its the difference between CD (mp3) and Vinyl.


I won't get into the technical details because the very fact you are asking this question probably means it would be lost on you and show me up as being the sad nerd that I am.


Cable TV and satellite are digital signals and radio (except DAB) is analog.


Digital is (in theory) more officiant, better quality (pixelated, juddering squares rather then fuzzy white noise and 'TV ghosts') and has the potential to deliver interactive services 'over air'.


Mobile phones used to be analog but switching to digital meant you get all the interactive things on your phone today.


But the basic fact remains that 35 ml film, vinyl (both analog) are still far superior to (most) digital cameras and MP3's or CD's.


I have done my nerd thing.. here is something useful for you:


You will need to get a digital set top box that plugs into your ariel, in the UK (where I live) you get them free, probebly the same in Canada.
Reply:Digital Tv and HDTV are 2 totally different things.
Reply:An analog TV signal is a 6-MHz (megahertz) wide RF (radio frequency) signal that has been modulated with (contains) all of the information the analog TV needs to display a picture and sound.





A digital TV signal is a narrower (less than 6 MHz) RF signal that has been modulated with a digital bit stream that contains all of the information the digital TV needs to display a picture and sound.





A digital TV displays the picture pretty much like an analog TV. The difference is in the tuner. The digital TV signals will be at different frequencies than the analog TV signals. Also, the digital tuner has a digital-to-analog converter to pick the bitstream out of the received digital TV signal and convert it to the signals that the TV uses to produce picture and sound.





If you have an analog tuner on your TV and no digital tuner, you then have to get a converter box that picks up the over-the-air digital TV signals and turns them into analog signals to play on your analog TV.





If you have cable TV or satellite, don't worry about it. The cable and satellite converter boxes do the digital to analog conversion already.