by Janelle Rafaele

Created on: November 20, 2009

The digital transition was inevitable. We have used all the frequencies that television was displayed on, when it was purely analog. If we want to continue to have more television choices we needed the change. Since we had used all of the frequencies there was no more room for emergency use; ambulances, fire departments and police were not able to communicate as needed. This was not a process where un-named sources were making money, cable companies and television stations spent lots of money to switch to digital. We literally tapped out our frequency capability. If we had continued on the analog television route we would no longer have any new television channels, our public services would have suffered for lack of space to communicate and the consequences of staying in the analog age would have kept telecommunication from experiencing technology upgrades.

Analog television is the full picture screen sent through a frequency and displayed as it is sent at the television end. Imagine a movie reel. Each slide of the movie reel is a separate picture. These separate pictures are sent through separately, one after another, over and over again.

Digital television breaks the full picture down into little tiny pieces of information and then they are sent through a frequency. After they are on the end where they display a picture, the picture is re-put back together. Digital television is able to grab more than one separate picture slides at a time. It combines the numerous picture slides by breaking them down into smaller elements, like puzzle pieces. When they are ready to be displayed as a full picture the digital convertor takes the broken down pieces of info and puts them back into picture form.

Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory movie from 1971 explains this procedure in the scene about Wonka Vision. Do you remember holster wearing Mike Tee Vee? When Willy Wonka showed the kids how chocolate could be transported into people's television for them to enjoy. Mike Tee Vee decided he was going to be the first person to be transported. He jumped up on the contraption, pushed the button and broke into a million little particles and floated over to the television screen. That is what digital TV does!

One analog channel takes up an entire frequency. Digital television can share one frequency. More channels can use the same frequency at the same time, thus making more room for more channels. This is important for our public services that communicate on frequencies.

• 1
• 2
• Next Page >>