Interactive TV Standards

2 An Introduction to Digital TV

This chapter provides a technical introduction to digital television (DTV), covering the basic technology required to get a signal from a camera in the studio to a DTV receiver in a consumer’s home. The chapter explores DTV transmission and other elements of the receiver, such as the return channel and the differences among terrestrial, cable, and satellite networks.

So what is DTV in practical terms? At a simple level, DTV uses digital encoding techniques to carry video and audio information, as well as data signals, to a receiver in the consumer’s home. Although the transmissions themselves are still analog, the information contained in those transmissions consists only of digital data modulated on to the analog ...