Hdmi Cable All about HDMI

HDTV Sources

The rise in popularity of large screens and projectors has made the limitations of conventional Standard Definition TV (SDTV) increasingly evident. An HDTV compatible television set will not improve the quality of SDTV channels. To display a superior picture, high definition televisions require a High Definition (HD) signal. Typical sources of HD signals are as follows:

• Over the air with an antenna. Most cities in the US with major network affiliates broadcast over the air in HD. To receive this signal an HD tuner is required. Most newer high definition televisions have an HD tuner built in. For HDTV televisions without a built in HD tuner, a separate set-top HD tuner box can be rented from a cable or satellite company or purchased.
• Cable television companies often offer HDTV broadcasts as part of their digital broadcast service. This is usually done with a set-top box or CableCARD issued by the cable company. Alternatively one can usually get the network HDTV channels for free with basic cable by using a QAM tuner built into their HDTV or set-top box. Some cable carriers also offer HDTV on-demand playback of movies and commonly viewed shows.
• Satellite-based TV companies, such as DirecTV and Dish Network (both in North America), Premiere (in Germany), TeleDunya (in Turkey), Sky Digital and freesat (in the UK and Ireland), Bell TV and Shaw Direct (both in Canada), Canal Digitaal (in the Netherlands), Canal Digital and Viasat (both in Norway, Sweden and Denmark), Cyfra+, Cyfrowy Polsat and n (in Poland), SKY (in New Zealand), NTV Plus (in Russia), Sky Italia in Italy and Digit-Alb (in Albania), offer HDTV to customers as an upgrade. New satellite receiver boxes are usually required to receive HD content.
• In Europe, several operators offer HDTV via ADSL. The HD set top box typically uses Ethernet or IEEE 802.11N to communicate with the ADSL modem and HDMI to the display. Typical offers include Internet + HDTV + Telephone for a flat rate fee.
• Video game systems, such as the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, and digital set-top boxes such as the Apple TV, and the Netgear Digital Entertainer, can output an HD signal. The Xbox Live Marketplace, iTunes Music Store, and PlayStation Network services offer HD movies, TV shows, movie trailers, and clips for download, but generally at lower bitrates than a Blu-ray Disc.
• Most newer computer graphics cards have either HDMI or DVI interfaces, which can be used to output images or video to an HDTV.
• Almost all computer graphics cards have standard SVGA jacks which can be used to output images or video to an HDTV’s “PC Input” jack.
• The optical disc standard Blu-ray Disc (25GB-50GB) can provide enough digital storage to store up to 10 hours of HD video content, depending on encoder settings.
• Another optical disc standard HD-DVD (15GB-30GB) can also hold several hours of HD content, depending on encoder settings.