What is the main difference between Digital TV and HDTV?



Posted: Friday, May 28, 2010

by Lyuben Georgiev

There are a lot of new technologies that had emerged in the past decade, so most of the people find it really confusing to decide which one of them is better. One of the most common things that make people confused is what the difference between the digital TV and the HDTV is. In most of the articles, you will find out that all the HDTV is digital, but not all the Digital TV is HDTV. The main thing that you should remember when it comes to digital TV is the fact that the bandwidth that is available with that type of television can be used either to supply several video signals or to transmit just one HDTV signal. There are 3 main standards that are used in the digital TV, although technically they are 18. Here is some info about them.

The first standard is 480p, which is pretty the same resolution that is used in the standard TV broadcast. However, the difference is that with the 480p the image is scanned progressively, so the quality of the picture is a lot higher, especially when it comes to smaller TVs (from 20 to 27 inches in diagonal). However with that standard you will not get HDTV and for that reason it is used to allow the digital TV subscribers to get multiple channels instead of just one HD.

Another standard that is used in the digital TV is the 720p, which means that there are 720 lines scanned progressively. With this standard you will be able to get HDTV and there are many TV stations using it. This standard is used to provide a really sharp picture on medium sized TVs (from 32 to 37 inches in diagonal). Furthermore with the 720p resolution, you will take up less bandwidth than with the other standards.

Finally the last standard I would like to mention is the 1080i, which in other words mean that the image is scanned in 2 alternate fields consisted of 540 lines each. When you compare the quality of the picture from all the 18 Digital TV broadcasting standards, you will notice that with the 1080i you are likely to get the best one. However, the main disadvantage is that this standard will not give you a good quality if your screen is a small one (below 32 inches).

If you want to read more about the different types of television and the understand how HDTV works, simply click here.
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Top-level comments on this article: (1 total)
» left by David Tanguay
 1 year 345 days ago.
189 fans.
Interesting and informative article, thanks for sharing.
» left by Lyuben Georgiev 1 year 343 days ago.
8 fans.
Thanks for the nice comment and I really appreciate that
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