HDTV FAQs – What is the Difference Between Digital TV and Analog TV?
The difference between Analog TV and Digital TV boils down to the way the TV signal is transmitted. Standard analog TV is transmitted in a manner similar to radio. In fact, the video signal of analog television is transmitted in AM, while the audio is transmitted in FM. Analog TV is subject to interference, such as ghosting and snow, depending on the distance and geographical location of the TV receiving the signal. In addition, the amount of bandwidth assigned to an analog TV channel restricts the resolution and overall quality of the image. The current analog TV signal standard (in the U.S.) is referred to as NTSC. NTSC is the U.S. standard that was adopted and came into popular use after World War II. NTSC is based on a 525-line, 60 fields/30 frames-per-second at 60Hz system for transmission and display of video images. This is an interlaced system in which each frame is scanned in two fields of 262 lines, which is then combined to display a frame of video with 525 scan lines. This
