by Smith Smith

Created on: November 22, 2008   Last Updated: December 17, 2008

Are you sick of grainy, flickering or ghosted pictures on your old television set? These irritating picture artifacts have been with us since the first TV broadcasts, but simple technologies are available today that will eradicate them permanently.

Digital TV tuners have the inherent ability to show a perfect picture even at signal levels that would produce those dreaded artifacts on your old analogue set. Pictures produced by analogue tuners will gradually degrade with a decrease in signal strength, but those produced by digital tuners will remain clear and crisp until a critical point after which they will disappear altogether (known as the "digital cliff" effect). This means that you will either have a perfect picture or nothing at all, and the areas where the latter occurs are shrinking world-wide.

Digital TV can also provide the capacity for hundreds more channels, easier subtitling, and remote-control accessed program information (so you will never have to reach for the TV guide again).

Perhaps the most desirable feature of digital TV is the ability to receive High Definition (HD) picture and stereo or multi-channel sound. HD picture has a higher resolution than analogue or ordinary digital TV picture (called Standard Definition or SD). This allows you to have a larger screen while retaining the clear, crisp picture. With HDTV and surround-sound, you can have an elaborate home theatre setup that will rival the cinemas, just to watch the evening news on.

When making the switch from analogue to digital, there are several things to consider. The first is to make sure that digital TV broadcasts are available in your area. Ask your neighbours or a local TV or antenna repairer.

The second thing to consider is your budget. The lower-end option is the set-top box (STB), a small unit that plugs into both your antenna and your existing TV to provide you with digital television on your old TV's screen. STBs can be found in Australian discount stores for as low as AU$20 (US$12.30 at time of writing). Some STBs can display HDTV, but if you are going to use it with your old TV you will probably only need SDTV.

If your budget is larger, and you also want a new TV, you will want to one with a built-in digital tuner. Most of these have large, high-quality screens such as plasmas or LCDs, and come with digital HDTV tuners.

Some TVs are advertised as "HD Ready". This can be misleading, because these do not actually have built-in digital TV tuners. The "HD Ready" label certifies

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