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Introducing...
The world's first high definition DVD player!
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Glossary of Terms
- ATSC
- Advanced Television Systems Committee
- Advanced Television Systems Committee
- Defines the technical standards used for digital
television and high
definition broadcasts. Supercedes NTSC completely by April 7, 2009.
- Cable Card
- A PCMIA Type II card that can be plugged into a
digital cable ready television. It authorizes the TV to receive and decode
digital signals from a cable company without the use of a set top box.
- Cathode ray tube
- A television technology that "draws" video by
directing a focused beam of electrons onto the back of a phosphorescent
screen. Until fairly recently, most video displays used CRT technology.
- CRT
- Cathode ray tube
- DCR
- Digital cable ready
- Digital cable ready
- Refers to a television or other device that is
capable of receiving and decoding digital television signals with a built-in
ATSC tuner. DCR devices require the use of a Cable Card to authorize the
decoding of digital content.
- Electronic program guide
- A service that transmits program listing information
in the vertical blanking interval of some stations' broadcast signals. TV
Guide On Screen is an EPG service, but there are other such services as
well.
- EPG
- Electronic program guide.
- Gemstar
- The company the owns and operates the TV Guide On
Screen service. Gemstar provides the TVGOS software in your TV and contracts
with TV stations throughout the country to broadcast their aggregated
program listing data in the broadcast's vertical blanking interval.
-
Host channel
- A broadcaster which has contracted with Gemstar to
transmit TVGOS program listings in their broadcasts' vertical blanking
interval.
- National Television Systems Committee
- Laid out the standards for television broadcasts (480
scan lines, interlaced, timing, etc.). It is because of NTSC that a single
tuner in your TV can view programming on thousands of TV stations throughout
North America. The NTSC standards were adopted in 1941 and will be in use
until 2009, when ATSC standards supercede them.
- NTSC
- National Television Systems Committee
- Off the air antenna
- An antenna that receives broadcast TV signals over
broadcast frequencies rather than through cable or satellite. Rabbit ears
are an example of a weak OTA antenna.
- OTA antenna
- Off the air antenna
- Program system and information protocol
- A part of the ATSC standards that allows digital
television broadcasts to include a data stream carrying channel identification
and up to 16 days of programming information. If it were fully implemented,
PSIP data could be used to construct an electronic program guide, like TVGOS,
"on the fly." At this time, however, most digital channels do not
provide comprehensive data in the PSIP.
- PSIP
- Program system and information protocol
- Simulcast
- Simulcasting is the broadcast of multiple versions of
the same channel. For example, your cable company may simulcast some of its
channels in both digital and analog formats. It can also refer to
broadcasting both SD and HD versions of a channel.
- TVGOS
- TV Guide On Screen.
- VBI
- Vertical blanking interval
- Vertical blanking interval
- The part of a TV station's broadcast signal that does
not include audio/visual information. Since the VBI signal, which comprises
about 10% of a broadcast signal's data, is not displayed, it can be used to
transmit data. Most stations include closed captioning text and V-Chip
ratings in the VBI while some stations include time sync information, copy
protection pulses, electronic program guide information, or other data. All
TV Guide On Screen data is transmitted in the VBI of selected TV stations.
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