What is Digital TV?

The term digital television includes a host of terms associated with it - high definition television, datacasting and multicasting, interactivity and so on. The digital television offers many advantages over the analog televisions. Digital TV provides the broadcaster with the benefit of sending and receiving the videos and sound by data signals. This ensures better picture quality and sound quality.
The digital TV provides the broadcasters the facility of multicasting which gives the user multiple choices for programming. The pictures and videos are clearer and the quality of sound is greatly enhanced.

How the digital TV works?

The data for the channels is coded into digital signals. This is coded into binary codes of one and zero. These codes are compressed and transmitted through the transmitter. These signals are then taken up by the antenna and decoded by the decoder in your television to movie and sound.

This digital stream thus generated requires less space. Thus due to this reduced bandwidth that the digital streams require, other services can be used besides the television services. Such services falling in non television category include multicasting, interactivity and pay-multi media services. Thus the technology besides giving the clear quality movie and sound also helps the user to use different services.

In contrast to the digital signals the analog signals are send continuously even if there is no information that is to be sent. This is the benefit that digital television gives over the traditional analog televisions.

How to watch digital channels on your TV?

If you have your old television set then you need some hardware to enjoy the digital channels. For this you need a set top box and SCART lead. The boxes come in variety of costs depending on your need and craving for the digital channels. Such setups with analog televisions do provide you with the digital channels on your TV but the quality is not that refined as you get to see in the digital televisions available in the market today. The digital televisions today come in different forms:

1. Enhanced digital television: gives you quality picture with Dolby digital surround sound.
2. High definition televisions
3. Standard definition televisions

If you are looking for a freeview then you just give a one time payment and enjoy around thirty channels for free besides few other features. But if you are considering taking the subscription service then you need to compare the costs of different service providers and your requirement before opting for any one among them.