What is digital TV?

When TV started many years ago, you could only see two colours, black and white. Nearly 40 years ago people started to have colour TVs. Nowadays new technology made it possible to make better quality TVs called Plasma and LCD. They can also be called digital TVs. They are slimmer and can cost heaps at the shops.

A digital TV has a clearer picture and a better sound quality than a normal one. This clearer picture will surely cost you more money. They also have more channels to offer. They come in standard and high definition. If you don’t know the difference between standard definition and high definition, let me explain it more to you. If you watch a movie that is recorded on a video cassette and then compare it to a movie that is recorded on a DVD you will see a big difference.

Nowadays not many people use video tapes and prefer to use DVDs. The movie that is recorded on a DVD has better picture and sound quality. The DVD quality is what we call standard definition. Now you can guess that high definition is even a better quality than the DVD quality. There is even a better quality that is available now but not everyone is using it because it is still expensive. It is called Blue Ray. Blue Ray discs are 5 times clearer than DVD. You need a blue ray player to play blue ray discs. You can not use your normal DVD player to play blue ray discs.

Blue ray players still cost more than 400 dollars to buy but their prices are coming down. Nearly a year ago they cost more than a thousand. I wonder what is going to happen to blue ray player prices next year.

It is nice to have a good quality TV at home. You can have a very big 50 inches TV in your lounge but the price is still very high. What you can do is that you can buy a Set Top Box and attach it to your normal TV. It will then turn it into a digital TV and you can start enjoying high definition quality in one minute.

You can buy one for less than 50 dollars at the shops or you can go for a more expensive option of nearly 200 dollars. Of course the quality will be much better but you don’t have to do so. All you have to do is to attach the set top box to your old TV and use the remote control to do a search. The search will look for new channels to add them to your list.

There are two kinds of set top boxes that you can buy. The first one is called standard definition (SD). The second one is called high definition (HD). They both turn your old TV into a digital one and the quality of the picture and sound get much better in a few minutes. The main difference is that a digital set top box offers a better quality and will make you able to see more channels than a standard definition set top box.

Take a Test

Please click the magnifying glass icon when you finish the test to get feedback on your answers.