With all the talk of a digital transition on June 12th, many people asked me is digital TV the same thing as HDTV? And unfortunately, the answer to that is no, it's not. Digital TV is simply a way of transmitting the signal. You can transmit a standard definition picture or an HD picture, both using digital but the digital transition does not mean that you are going to get HD.
To get HD, you really need a digital television set that is capable of receiving a HD signal. Not all TV sets have HD, although most of the ones you buy today will. So the first thing you need is a digital television set that has HD capabilities.
The second thing you need, and this is very important, you need a source of HD programming. Now if you are receiving a program over-the-air, and you have a digital television set, you will get HDTV set, HDTV signal, it was being broadcast in HD. Remember, now not everything is broadcast in HD. Some local stations, for example, still broadcast local news and other things in standard definition, and only some of the network programs in HD. But you can get it off the air, without a cable box, without a satellite, just using the antenna if you have a digital television set that's HD capable.
The second way of getting HD, is you get a cable box or satellite receiver that has HD capabilities. Again, the same thing, you can get a standard cable box or an HD cable box. To get the HD, you need the HD cable box, kind of make sense. Also, when you are connecting a cable box or a satellite receiver to your television set, you really need HD connections. You can't use the standard red, white, and yellow connections of yesteryear. That's standard definition. And even if you have an HDTV set and an HD cable box, and use the red, white, yellow, cables, you are not getting HD.
The only way you are going to get HD, is to use the component video cables, that's the red, green, and blue, or much better to use the new HTMI cable, which is the digital cable that has all of the signals, including audio and control on one cable.
So to summarize, HDTV and Digital TV, two different things. HDTV, you need an HDTV set. You need a HD source of programming which could be your cable, which could be your satellite, or over-the-air, you need to connect that source of television of programming to your HDTV set using a cable, that's cable of carrying HDTV which is component or HTMI. Hope this helps. If you like more information, please go to LivinginHD.com.
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