Along with the popular digital sound formats that are currently available for your home theater system, you also have the choice of using a signal format. For a very long time in the history of television, the only kind of video signal available was analog.

Although analogs signals are very steady, they tend to degrade very easily. For instance, when video is transferred as an analog signal, allot of the picture quality is lost. This is partly the reason why digital television has really taken off in the last several years.

The rise of digital television

What exactly is digital television, and why is it still better than traditional analog television? The difference has to do with the bits of information that are set by the digital video signals. Digital signals are sent in tiny little pieces of, called digital data. If you were to see this data written now, it would look like a series of ones and zeros.

The signals provide crisp and clear transmissions because the data is transmitted in exactly the same way every time. This means you'll get the same quality picture every time you watch TV using digital signals. In general, digital signals can also carry much more information and detail than analog signals can.

Choosing the right wide-screen format for your home theater system

When it comes to choosing the right wide-screen format for your home theater system, you will usually be faced with making a choice between HDTV and SDTV. Both of these formats have very impressive wide screen displays.

To get an idea what kind of screen display you can expect from these digital formats, try comparing these to the aspect ratio you would get from a traditional television. In most cases, you'll find that the wide screen formats of State of the art home theater systems have aspect ratios, which are comparable to the type you would see at a movie theater.

Why the United States is switching over to digital television

Right now, television in the United States is in the midst of switching over to a completely digital format. Why the big switch from analog to digital? The basic answer is that digital formats can provide much higher quality than a standard analog format. More specifically, a digital signal simply does not degrade the way an analog signal does.

Digital signals provide a significant improvement and higher resolution. Digital signals provide much more fluidity, since they are progressively scanned. Progressive scanning allows the picture to be painted in one quick pass, making the overall picture appear much more smooth and sharp.

The main difference between HDTV and standard digital television

It is important to keep in mind the main distinction between HDTV in standard digital television. Right now, the letter states in the progress of switching over to digital television, also known as standard digital television. Standard digital television provides a great improvement over the conventional analog signal that most of us are used to.

However, HDTV represents a step beyond standard digital television. In general, HDTV provides a significantly higher digital resolution than standard digital television. If you would like the best digital resolution for your home theater system but can't afford the price of a HDTV home theater system, you can purchase a standard digital television that is HDTV-ready.