Analog or Digital - the Choice is Yours to Make

The TVs were small by todays standards and only came in black and white. Also, there were far fewer channels that were available and they were only on a few hours a day. In fact, all through the history of broadcasting the broadcasters themselves struggled to keep up with the advancing technology that the TV itself presented. It was only three decades ago that most TV stations signed off of the air after the 11:00 news and that was really only two or three of them. The standard TV that receives its signal with a basic antennae uses an analog signal as do some cable companies. Its is the way things have been done since the very beginnings of TV. When a broadcaster sends out the signal to their viewers it will pick up unwanted signals and static along the way and this can cause a degraded signal to be received by a TV viewer in his or her home. This static can't be cleaned from the signal, so the TV will use a tuner to isolate the analog signal that it has received as best as it can. A digital signal is very different from an analog signal and it delivers a far better picture and sound on your TV set. Because all of the leading satellite providers operate with the latest technology they all also broadcast exclusively in digital format. Rather than  the signal being sent out over the air “as is” the way an analog signal is sent, a digital signal is first converted to a digital code before it is sent out. This digital code is what is then sent out over the air and after it arrives at a viewers satellite dish it is then sent on to the receiver. The receiver then decodes it and sends it along to the TV screen free of any static or unwanted signals.  A simple analogy would be if you shouted to someone across a crowded room and sent a written note to another person in the same crowded room. The person you shouted to would hear your words along with other noise that was in the room, so they wouldn't understand you as clearly as the person who received the written note. With out a digitized signal high definition programming would be impossible to send, because it is such a data intensive broadcasting format. High definition is sent out digitally but it contains a much more complex code and that is one of the reasons that a high definition TV is required to watch high definition programming. The other reason that a high definition TV is required is, because the high definition TV screen htggsv as twice the number of pixels than a standard TV set and the larger number of pixels is required to produce the high definition picture on the TV screen.