Watching television has progressed from a luxury that only few had in their homes in
middle of last century to point where most consumers not only have one television, but often they may have several. And television programming has expanded greatly from just three big networks to a whole host of other channels as well.And along with this growth of interest in televison programming technology of televisions has been steadily improving too. Today we have lots of choices to make when we are deciding to buy another television. Should it be an analog or digital TV? HDTV enabled or ready? Plasma or LCD screen? All of these decisions can seem to be confusing, but if you just understand a few basics about TVs you should be able to make right choice for what will suit you best.
Let's start by discussing whether you should buy an analog or digital capable TV. Analog TV is simply TV you have been used to in past years. The signals are sent and received in analog format and it has worked fine for a long time. It has it's drawbacks though because analog TV signals can only hold so much data for screen and sound, and an analog signal can degrade easily. Never fear though, analog TV will be fine for use for many years to come even after other technologies dominate. The good news is that analog TV sets are very cheap and you can get a lot for your dollar.
Digital TV signals allow data sent by TV station to be much more dense and include more information without very much degradation of signal. So digital TV usually makes for a much better picture and sound, especially on DVDs. Plus digital TV has made it possible for newer standards of high definition programming. For absolute best picture and sound TV station should be broadcasting in high definition (or HDTV), and your TV should also be able to receive and process that HDTV signal and display it on on a high definition enabled screen. If all of this criteria is met effects are just stunning.
But many TV stations are not yet broadcasting in HDTV format because it requires them to invest lots of money in new equipment to do so. They have to have enough of a market to make it worth their while. So in meantime, we have some stations who do broadcast in HDTV and many who still just send out analog signals. However, all TV stations will have to comply with federal guidelines to be HDTV compliant within next couple of years, so high definition TV is here to stay and will only grow in importance.
