What's the Difference between Digital TV and HDTV?

Written by Clearly Resolved
Tuesday, 22 May 2007

[ Q } What is HDTV?

[ A ] HDTV stands for High Definition Television.

As the name implies, a primary benefit of HDTV is that it presents dramatically improved visual quality. Compared with the conventional color television system in use in the US since the mid-1950s, HDTV is capable of displaying up to 2 million picture elements in a single frame, compared with a current system that accommodates a maximum of 250,000 picture elements -- that's an eightfold increase in picture resolution.

This increased resolution results in pictures that possess truly startling clarity, detail, depth and color fidelity. Viewers seeing HDTV for the first time often remark that it is like looking through a window, rather than looking at a television screen.

There are other benefits to HDTV, too. One of these is that HDTV makes use of a digital transmission foundation, allowing for sophisticated compression that preserves precious broadcast bandwidth without sacrificing picture quality. These digital benefits also extend to sound, as HDTV makes use of the 5.1 Dolby Digital sound standard heard in movie theaters and on DVDs.

An important point relating to terminology: HDTV is often referred to as digital television, which in the strict sense of the definition is correct. But while HDTV is digital television, not all digital television is HDTV.

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