HDTV – satisfy your passion for details

Possibly one of the most significant histories of entertainment media is the birth of television. It all began with Philo Farnsworth who actually made a working television system back in the year 1928. But today, HDTVs (high definition televisions) have gone far more exciting than what standard televisions have to offer.

So what is HDTV? It is simply a digital TV broadcasting format introduced in 1990 that requires a tuner (television) with HDTV feature. This digital broadcast is able to transmit widescreen pictures with more detail and quality when compared to standard television and other digital television formats. HDTV is considered the most imperative advancement in television technology since the existence of color televisions that substituted black and white. It is the best television experience that we can enjoy today.

HDTV broadcasts unfortunately are only available to some parts of the world depending on the technology used by various television broadcasting companies. It is like the more advanced version of available digital television broadcast.

The HDTV format works on different aspect ratios compared to SDTV (standard digital television format) and analogue television. The aspect ratio refers to how images or contents are displayed on the television set. Standard television uses an aspect ratio of 4:3, while SDTV supports both 4:3 and 16:9. HDTV uses 16:9 similar to SDTV. The 16:9 aspect ratio is also known as wide screen format.

The big difference between HDTV and SDTV while both having the same support for 16:9 aspect ratio is in terms of resolution. Here, resolution refers to how many pixels (granular component known as dots) can be projected. HDTV has higher resolution of 1920 width x 1080 height and 1280 x 720 compared to SDTV that has only 704 x 480 and 640 x 480.

Three main things that you need when using HDTV is of course the HDTV television set, a source (usually a digital broadcasting service provider) and a medium to receive HDTV broadcast such as a digital decoder.

HDTV is worth to have if you seek bigger, flatter, sharper, or brighter format and content quality but it can be costly to have since HDTV is relatively new depending on where you live. Check out the review made by CNET on Sony Bravia KDL-46XBR4 here.