Hi,
First, let me direct you to some pages that explain HDTV in some
detail, then I’ll give you my explanation.
HDTV FAQs
http://abc.abcnews.go.com/site/hdtvfaq.html
HDTV – High Definition Television FAQ
http://www.nwlink.com/~rxg/hdtv.html
Evolving to Digital and High-Definition TV
http://www.digitalconnection.com/FAQ/HDTV_1.htm
Now let me give you my explanation, based both on personal knowledge
and the above documents.
TV signals are nothing more than electromagnetic waves that can be
carried over the air or through a cable. Currently in the United
States, two types of TV signals are in widespread use, traditional and
HDTV. I won’t go into the technical differences here except to state
that the first is analog (just like AM and FM radio) while HDTV is
digital (like computers), and HDTV is much better.
The catch is that the two systems are incompatible. A traditional TV
cannot receive HDTV (without a converter), although HDTV televisions
usually include special circuitry to make them backward compatible.
(It’s kind of like computers were a few years ago: DOS computers
couldn’t handle Windows programs, but Windows computers were made
backward compatible to handle DOS programs.)
The plan eventually is to make it so that everybody uses HDTV (or some
form of digital television, which is closely related). Once that
happens, traditional television no longer will exist and millions of
sets will be obsolete without converters. (It’s kind of like uaing
Windows XP, which normally can’t handle old DOS programs any more.)
Obviously, people would be pretty upset if their TVs became obsolete
tomorrow. So what’s happening now is that many stations simulcast in
the original format PLUS high-definition TV. But not all stations are
doing it yet, and most cable systems are doing just traditional TV as
well. The traditional signals and the HDTV signals are being carried
on separate channels, so they don’t interfere with each other.
Currently, in most places the only way to get extensive HDTV
programming is with an antenna. Most cable systems don’t want to spend
the money yet to provide HDTV, so viewers are stuck using the
old-fashioned ugly roof antennas or rabbit ears, depending on how far
they live from the broadcast antennas.
The bottom line is what needs to be done now is to switch your
receiver between over-the-air HDTV signals for HDTV and the cable for
cable channels. Usually this can be done with something called an A/B
switch, but it’s not particularly convenient.
And there’s no way that you can get the HDTV signal into your cable,
just like you can’t listen to FM channels on an AM radio. That
decision is up to the cable company. If you haven’t done so already,
you should double-check with your cable provider to see if it offers
HDTV, but I’d be surprised if it does.
One other option that might be available is to receive HDTV programs
via a satellite setup. But the amount of HDTV programming available
that way is limited, so I’m not necessarily recommending it.
I’m not sure which acronyms you want to know, but you can probably
find them here:
Acronym Finder
http://www.acronymfinder.com/
If this still doesn’t make sense after reading the three links on top
plus my explanation, please ask for a clarification. Feel free to do
the same if you find out what an acronym stands for but don’t
understand the term.
One final note: You’re right that HDTV isn’t yet consumer-friendly. I
think it will be in a few years, but right now it isn’t worth the
expense and hassle for many people. If you decide that HDTV isn’t
what you bargained for, I suggest you try to get your money back. It
sounds like the salesperson may have been deceptive, and if so you
should complain and complain loudly.
Best wishes. I hope this makes better sense now.
mvguy-ga
Google search term: HDTV FAQ
://www.google.com/search?q=hdtv+faq&sourceid=opera&num=0&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8 |
