What is High Definition (HD) video and how does it affect me?
For the last several decades, American TV Stations have broadcast their signals in Standard Definition. Using the NTSC standard, the SD image quality on your TV set is in the 4×3 aspect ratio and has about 525 lines of resolution, giving you a nice decent picture. During the last decade, with the FCC’s mandate for the digital transmission of television signals, we’ve seen the move to HD. HD images use the wider 16×9 aspect ratio, and greatly expand the image quality with up to 1080 lines of resolution. Many TV stations and networks have already made the change and are offering HD programming. Consumer demand for HD capable TV sets has been increasing, along with demand for HD DVD players. Although many SD TV sets and DVD players remain in use, the overall shift in technology leans toward the future of HD.
